Forgiveness: A third-grade synagogue class and the wounds of the world.

Thomas examines His wounds: unknown, Cameroon

Thomas examines His Side: Carravagio

     

                                                            

For Christians, forgiveness is central to the Jesus story and message.  In his teaching on prayer he says, “Forgive us our debt, as we forgive our debtors.”[1]  He repeatedly enrages the local religious types by declaring that this or that person’s sin is forgiven.[2]  On the Cross, as death approaches, He calls upon His Father to forgive His killers.[3]  Indeed, it may not go too far to say that forgiveness, offered by his obedient death on the cross, is the means by which God in Jesus “reconciles all things”.[4] 

Yet I fear many Christians underplay the scope and centrality of forgiveness.  I’ve been in numerous adult small groups where two versions of forgiveness are commonly offered by participants.  First, there is the notion that forgiveness is necessary as a psychological relief for the one who forgives.  “You can’t carry around the burden of a grudge.  You’ve got to forgive the person.”  Second there is the notion that forgiveness is free and costs nothing: “Jesus paid the full price.”  My Jewish wife complains that Christians are always yapping about getting right with God, but seldom talk about the hard work of getting right with their neighbor.  For many Christians, if you say the right words or have the “right” attitude or something[5], what you did is no longer of much consequence.  The far bigger issue is that God forgives you.  There is truth in both of these notions, yet I think forgiveness is not primarily about “my soul” or “my salvation”.  Forgiveness, as personal as it may be is narrowed too far when it’s just about me.

When the Scriptures speak of forgiveness, I think it’s about a sort of cosmic reconciliation.  Forgiveness, through the faithfulness of Jesus to God’s call to the Cross, is the way in which God, “. . .  was pleased to have all his fullness in dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood, shed on the Cross.”      

So forgiveness, the central message of the Christian faith may just be a little bolder brew  than saying a couple of words to soothe the soul or “get right with God”.  I hear a bit of this boldness during the holy day of Yom Kippur.  The entire congregation confesses to a heinous list of crimes, adultery, murder, xenophobia, theft, that most never committed.  We say them aloud and together so that those who may have walked those paths may have room to aloud, in front of others, begin the long hard road of forgiveness from your neighbor, forgiveness for yourself, forgiveness from God,  We say aloud, we confess together, we plead for mercy in front of the ark together. 

Another place to find out about forgiveness is the mouth of a temple school classroom assistant.  My daughter leads a 3^rd grade class.  During the High Holy Days she taught on forgiveness.  The exercise involved writing down the sin you needed to confess to your neighbor before you went before God in services.  You wrote folded the paper, confessed to those you need to confess to, then you unfolded the paper and only then was the paper side blank.  As Anya was going through this remarkable lesson, her assistant said, “But the paper still has folds in it.” 

She hit the nail unerringly on the head.  Forgiveness isn’t just “look, all gone now” There are still folds that don’t go away.  Christians love to read a story we have labelled “Doubting Thomas”.  Yet that title gets it all wrong.  The story, like the entire Gospel, is not about us and our doubts or insights, it is about Jesus.  The flow of the story even directs us toward Jesus, Thomas, put you hands here in my side.  Jesus, resurrected, a living material body, wants to show Thomas that the pleas of Israel have been answered, bodily salvation (no ghost stuff flying away to some other place, remember the opening cry of the story at creation----it is good), a rendering of justice, are on the way.  The pains and spear wounds of this life are not meaningless and covered over, there are still folds that tell of days of trial, of days of meaningful choices (some well made, some needing forgiveness), of, well, life.

Forgiveness is hard. It costs dearly on that long Friday afternoon.  Be ready for it for it changes a life.  But be ready for it for scars will show.

                                                                                    

 

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[1] Note that forgiveness seems to be conditional.  Read the word ‘as’ to mean ‘insofar as’.  Makes a difference eh?  Get busy with offering forgiveness.  Hey do it 7 times 70 times if necessary.  Your own forgiveness depends upon it so it seems.

[2] Their outrage is twofold.  First, only God can forgive, so who the heck do you think you are?  Second, God forgives at the Temple in Jerusalem.  Bring your offering there, go through the rites, and expect forgiveness.

[3] John, in his Gospel, tells us repeatedly that the fullest possible revelation of God, His character, His visage, His Glory, is the moment His Son is lifted up on that Cross to die.  You want to know what God looks like?  He looks like an empire crushed Jew forgiving the troops who tortured and executed Him.

[4] Colossians 1:20

[5] Inevitably, someone will say, “God knows the heart.” That seems to indicate that what you show the world and what’s inside may be two different things.