Can Christians forgive?

Who's the most important person in the world? What a question, it's obvious . . . I am, Sue Sainsbury writes.

We live in a world of selfishness and disposable love, of serial monogamy: the tacit understanding that I'll love you (whoever you are, friend or mother, as well as lover) as long as you're useful to me and then move onto the next person.

Committed - for as long as it works. Together - for as long as you fulfil my needs. It's not my fault: I just breath it in and live it out.

And let's not just think this only applies to those who don't know Jesus. Where exactly did he say that as soon as we become Christians we stop being sinful?

I find it useful to think of 'sin' as making myself the primary referent around which the world takes its meaning. First and foremost it's about 'me' over and above God and anyone else.

Being a Christian is the exact opposite of this. It's a radical reorienting of my basic universe so that it doesn't actually revolve around me at all: my first 'centre' is him and then you. Jesus frees us to be other-centred not self-centred. And rather than advocating a 'hate-me' low self-esteem this is the perfect place to be in as it's the one we were designed for.

Forgiveness, both my acceptance of being forgiven by God and my offering of forgiveness to others, is non-optional in making this an ongoing reality.

Govt. health warning: unforgiveness kills

A quick trawl of the internet reveals a whole host of organisations promoting forgiveness as a way of leaving behind the past and stepping out into a free and healthy future (not to mention as a way of bolstering against the horrors of ethnic tension and discrimination). Much valid work is done in the area and such material sounds promising: six steps, ten steps, a process to be worked through in order to achieve the numerous and well documented benefits of forgiveness. It seems that when we don't forgive we're less healthy; physically as well as psychologically.

So does the Christian have anything significant to contribute?

Broadly speaking, the secular position is that forgiveness is a psychological event which involves an acknowledgement of unjust hurt and a putting to one side of the moral right of resentment. Psychological studies focus primarily on the one-needing-to-forgive.

Theological contributions acknowledge the other, the one-in-need-of-forgiveness, as being an equally valid participant and also in need of the freeing effect which results. In forgiving them I free them from their transgression. By taking into myself the consequences of their unloving heart, I give up the right to kick back and surrender them to God.

It would be very wrong to oversimplify the issues involved. Forgiving does not mean condoning the actual transgression and in no way assumes acceptance of the behaviour or permission to continue with that behaviour. Many transgressions are of enormous significance: cruel and evil transgressions. The principles, though, are the same whatever the fault. It's no good recognising the biblical command to forgive (Matthew 6:14-15) and abstractly asserting: 'I would forgive the person who abused or raped or murdered my loved one.' It has to be relevant now. Today. The smallest details of life are the battleground of our growth and of our maturity in Christ. It's in the moment by moment forgivenesses that we win or lose the war. Thankfully, most of us will never see the great battlefield. But we, all of us, every day, are called to fight the horror of 'self' above 'other' in the kitchens and street corners and bedrooms of the land.

This is where the very heart of Christian theology makes its unique contribution: the radical othercentredness of the Christian who's life is centred in Christ. Opening our arms in total vulnerability and embracing the unembraceable. It's about love. And sacrifice. Forgiveness, won and modelled by Christ, is the bottom line of Christianity: where the rubber hits the road.

Christlikeness

If we are called to be a mirror of Jesus in our growing Christlikeness then 'othercentredness' is fundamental. In forgiving a person who has transgressed against me, I am engaging in the ultimate act of service. Whereas other acts of service may well call for a deliberate act of the will (rather than being an act of genuine pleasure or a joy) this is perhaps the costliest form - with real personal sacrifice and suffering involved. Forgiveness could be said to be the ultimate place of Christlikeness.

But there is pain in forgiving someone. Always. If a transgression is needing to be forgiven then that is because it is a wrong . . . and wrongs hurt. The injustice, let alone the direct consequences, burns as few other things can. Forgiving another is giving them the gift of undeserved grace- not binding them to the unloving actions they've committed against us - rather giving them the freedom to do a different thing the next time. But we have to recognise that in doing so we also free them to choose the same route again and again. It makes us vulnerable and an easy target. A doormat? But how exactly would a sheep fare amongst wolves? Even, and very sadly, within the body of the Church? How many times shall I forgive my brother - endlessly (Matthew 18.21-22). The strength involved in forgiveness is very different from the weakness associated with the doormat image. A person shouldn't be forgiven only when he deserves it but, thank God, especially when he doesn't. That's the whole point of grace.

How can I forgive someone if they don't say they're sorry?

In stressing the validity of the 'other' in the forgiving process, we must not lose the reality that forgiveness is very definitely God's best for me too. If I wait for the other person to repent, I surrender my future to them. Forgiving is something we do alone with God and is about more than achieving reconciliation. Reconciliation can come when there is both offering and receiving of forgiveness, but my responsibility - and release - can only be to forgive. And is this not a faint echo of God's forgiveness of us? I need to repent in order to access it, but, through Christ's sacrificial death, the forgiveness has already been given.

But why?

'The natural state of a human being . . . is to be in need of community with another.' (Mcfadyen, The Call to Personhood, p.33.) We yearn to know and be known but instead we damage and are damaged in relationships which are not fully accepting, of ourselves and of others. In forgiving we allow relationships to be deepened by, and travel beyond, the inevitable transgressions we all commit against each other. This is what binds the Body of Christ together and makes it the light to the world it was always intended to be.

Forgiveness, but also rebuke

In saying this however, we must be careful not to minimise the dilemma. The tension between being so 'other centred' that we will enact the ultimate sacrifice again and again, and yet also loving the other sufficiently to want to lovingly disciple. And discipleship includes discipline: two aspects of the same truth.

Because we're East of Eden but not yet in Paradise we're caught in the middle where the tension still exists. 'Forgiveness' which says 'there's no real problem' or 'let's just pretend it isn't there', isn't forgiveness at all. Forgiveness, including acknowledgement of wrong, has to be pursued as a first priority because discipleship, so integral to a healthy body, isn't possible without the clean heart of having first forgiven.

And herein lies the irony: the truly unique 'take' that Christianity has on the issue. All action - including rebuke - is actually for the other person. However, when we really embrace it, the forgiveness enabled by radical discipleship brings a freedom to ourselves not achieved in any other way. We're the prime beneficiaries.

Real life

OK, all well and good, but how is this possible? I'm not Jesus, I can't just keep on absorbing everyone else's rubbish forever.

This is only possible if I know where my secure foundation of self lies: 'in Christ'. The inspiration of my every moment needs to be based on the reality that I'm beloved by God. This is what frees me from the tyranny of trying to please my own fickle heart and meet others' transient demands rather than by trusting God.

An impossible task? Be encouraged: this is only possible from within the security of a 'safe place'. We're not designed to achieve it alone. It's not solely dependent on my personal strength in clinging onto Christ and keeping my eyes sufficiently focused on him. And there's only one 'safe place' this side of Paradise: The Body of Christ. Walking together in honest fellowship, acknowledging weakness and being accountable to each other, is the only place for true human life to be extravagantly evidenced. Forgiveness, the ultimate in giving and receiving grace, is what makes the 'safe place' possible.

We experience here the three-way beauty of love: God forgives me, I forgive others, others forgive me too. There IS pain which comes with that forgiveness, but the pain which comes apart from it is far worse. If we're made in God's image, to live God's way, and we take this vital component out then it's logical we will cease to function as well as we could or should.

And so back to the problem of the self-orientation which dominates our world. In the death of Christ, in the darkness of God turning his face away at the crucifixion, Jesus absorbed all the horror of our self-centredness into himself and so freed us. Freed us to do the same for each other.

Far from making me a 'doormat', this is the place of ultimate significance for every human being. This is the realest, richest life available.

Sue Sainsbury and her husband John, a minister, are passionate about being local church which reaches out to those who are lost and brings them home to Jesus. Sue has a PhD in theology focusing on the radical cost of being a disciple of Christ.

Sue Sainsbury asks radical questions about forgiving each other in daily life

Govt. health warning: unforgiveness kills

Christlikeness

But why?

Forgiveness, but also rebuke

Real life

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