Forgiveness
In Exodus, the writer celebrates God’s deliverance of the Israelites from slavery:
(8)At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. (9)The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake. … I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’
But that is not what happened, is it? The verse continues:
(10) You blew with your wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.
Our first reading today is a glorious story; a familiar story of God’s guiding the Israelites out of miserable slavery in Egypt, and God’s endless power protecting them. It is the Israelites’ rhythmic and poetic love song of praise and thanksgiving for their miraculous liberation. The powerless are vindicated, and the powerful vanquished. It’s the end of a satisfying movie, isn’t it? The Egyptians might take issue, but the drama is surely there.
Our Gospel shares another story about enslavement. A powerful king decides to collect what he owes from a slave. This slave must be important in his own right, perhaps the manager of the king’s estates, because he owes the equivalent of millions and millions of dollars. A king’s treasure. When the slave is unable to pay, the king attempts to recoup as much of his loss as he can: he plans to sell the slave, his family, and all their possessions. A goodly amount, I suspect, but nowhere near the full debt. The slave begs the king to forgive the debt, and, surprisingly, the king forgives it. But here is the twist: rather than following suit, the slave imprisons one of his own debtors. When the king hears of it, he responds by torturing the slave for his injustice. The slave is literally tortured for his failure to forgive.
These two readings capture yearnings in each and every one of us: the yearning for vengeance, and the release and freedom available – to us – through forgiveness. Of forgiving and of being forgiven.
Vengeance is a thrilling thought whenever we are wronged, or humiliated, or hurt. Withholding forgiveness gives us some sense of control over unjust and hateful events. Withholding forgiveness and vengeance together are a dynamic one-two punch against our adversaries….At least we have the pleasure of thinking so, and we can drag that pleasure out just as long as it works for us. Sometimes we do it for decades.
But here’s the problem: we also have a yearning for freedom, of being free of the sickening thoughts and feelings we cart around in our anger and hatred and hurt and despair. And the deeper those feelings root in us, the greater the pain we feel. We don’t need God to torture us, as Matthew suggests, we do it ourselves. Sometimes it manifests itself in physical illness. It seeps out and poisons our other relationships. We may live with it so long that it seems normal. But the fact is, we are miserable.
So it makes sense to look at this word, forgive. In Aramaic, the same word is used to mean forgive and untie. Forgive comes from a Greek word, aphiemi (a-fee-em-ee), which can mean to remit, to give up a debt, to hang onto no longer. We can translate it as leave behind, let go. As Jan Richardson writes, it is the word used in Matthew 27.50 that tells what Jesus does with his spirit; he gives it up, releases it. I see the need to forgive as carrying the full weight of an event, of another person, or a company, or family, or nation, or shame of our own bound to our backs and to our chests. Aphiemi speaks of loosing our hold on something or someone, to renounce our claim to it (1), to release it at last.
So yes, by forgiving we free our souls. Love it or hate it, we need forgiveness. We need it to be free of the torture with which vengeful obsession and hate enslave us. We need it to breathe fully and deeply. We need it to be able to love others. We need it to be at peace in God’s grace.
I make it sound easy to release the pain and anger, don’t I? But I know better, so let’s not confuse the value of forgiving with ease of forgiving. I think of the effort more like this: we are dangling from a rope on El Capitan. Forgiving is letting go of the rope. It’s a terrifying concept. It seems impossible and insane because we don’t know what to expect, but our minds tell us that we will destroy ourselves and suffer. Let go of the rope? Are you crazy?
Notes:
(1) For this paragraph, thanks to Jan Richardson, September 7, 2008, © Seventy Times Seven and Nine-Eleven
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