I went to a school reunion this month where I was questioned about my faith, including: “When you were diagnosed with cancer, did you ask: ‘Why me?’”
I also had conversations where non-believers showed that they were feeling and acting in ways that some Christians find difficult. One old schoolfriend confided that his first wife had had an affair with his brother; they subsequently married and did not communicate for almost ten years.
“What made you re-establish contact?” I asked.
The short answer: the impending death of a parent. But then a moment of revelation: “Holding onto that suffering was hurting only me”.
That’s my own topical event but in the wider world, there is yet again a conflict, with a complicated history. I ask forgiveness from you readers and from God that every time I try to read about why there is conflict in Gaza, my mind just gets more confused. In my latest attempt, the article’s author was writing on Yom Kippur, the day that the whole Jewish Nation atones for its collective as well as individual sins – which the author insisted was just a mockery this year. I don’t understand enough of the situation to know how accurate or biased his piece of writing was.
But I do have much experience of non-forgiveness among people to whom I have ministered. I prepared a funeral for a church member whose child let their only sibling find out about the member’s death through the newspaper announcement and who asserted to me: “They won’t turn up to the service, don’t worry”. Others have cut off branches of their families completely. If only my old schoolfriend could have spoken to them, because my words failed completely. And I was quoting Jesus, as recorded in Mt 18:21-22 (The Message):
At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, “Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?”
Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven”.
This does not mean you forgive someone 490 times and then turn away forever. Seven, Biblically, means completeness and multiplying seven by ten and then by seven again actually meant: forgive every time, forever. Jesus is asking us to do something humanly impossible.
Forgiveness is not a negotiable part of our faith. Not forgiving comes between us and God, as Jesus explains in Mt 5:23-24. We all know this and most of us know the rider that follows the Lord’s Prayer in Mt 6:14-15 (Living Bible):
Your heavenly Father will forgive you if you forgive those who sin against you; but if you refuse to forgive them, he will not forgive you.
So why do we find it so difficult to forgive? Often it is because the other person does not feel or show repentance, indeed we are sure they will never change. Forgiving that person leaves them to God’s justice, not our own feeble attempt at punishment.
Prayer:
Forgive us Lord that we find it so hard to forgive. Teach us your ways, Amen.
Elaine Kinchin
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