FROM THE PULPIT: Forgiveness can be a tricky thing
"If your sister sins, rebuke her. If she repents, forgive her."
-- Luke 17:3
"(The unclean spirit that has gone out) says, 'I will return to the house from which I came.' ... He finds it empty, swept and put in order. Then he goes and brings seven other spirits ... they enter ... and the last state becomes worse than the first."
-- Matthew 12:43-45
At the Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast we were encouraged to find someone we didn't know and to speak to them. The woman recognized my name.
"I like your columns in The Telegraph," she said. I thanked her and inquired as to what I should write about next. She was quick in her answer: "Forgiveness. I don't think we can hear enough about needing to forgive."
In the context of that day her answer carried extra meaning for me.
I asked, "Do you ever find that you thought forgiveness was complete, that you had totally forgiven a person, but then something happens and part of it, maybe less of it, comes back, but something still comes back?" She replied, "Yes! Yes I do!"
It blurs a little bit as to what was said between us that morning at St. Peter Claver. (It also blurs as to what was a conversation with her in the flesh and later in my head.) Forgiveness, to be so simple, is complicated.
This conversation about forgiveness -- full forgiveness -- involved not wanting to see the person in that old way. About feeling frustrated that anger or resentment had come back again. About wondering what it would take for that forgiveness to be permanent. About not wanting that hurt to have a power over us.
Wondering if, perhaps, we truly forgave them the first time. And, even if we have forgiven someone, do we trust them? Must we trust them? How do you move forward when someone has done wrong against you?
Forgiveness, to be so simple, is complicated.
To be clear, forgiveness (hopefully) is what follows a confession of sin. We cannot forgive someone fully unless they have confessed. (Confession seems so "legal" or so "churchy." Perhaps I should employ "apologize.") We cannot fully forgive someone unless they have apologized.
Confession of sin (to a human) in the Old Testament might best be seen in Jacob's coming before Esau (Chapter 33). Now that was an amazing reconciliation! Jacob initiated the confession and the asking for forgiveness.
A cynic might say, "You know, 400 armed men might cause one to apologize." Still, that confession is substantially more voluntary than the one coaxed out of the naked and hiding Adam and Eve or out of Achan for his filching of the fabulous cape, (Joshua 7:16-21).
Jesus ups the ante on confession, forgiveness and reconciliation: Forgive, especially while praying, if you have "something" against someone lest your prayers be ineffective. Hurt feelings, grudges, old scores unsettled,and betrayals might be part of that "something," (Mark 11:24).
Sometimes I hear a person say, "Why should I go to him? I'm not the one who did wrong." Well, because Jesus said so.
Jesus goes further: "Go. Tell him his fault," (Matthew 18:15). And Jesus knows that this seeking forgiveness/reconciliation is tricky business, so he gives a back-up plan: "If he doesn't listen ..." (18:16).
How many churches are crippled from the witnessing work and effective life-giving testimony by unnamed past sins, hurt feelings, feeling slighted and old grudges?
How many people are rendered unhealthy by old sins or partially started attempts to reconcile?
On the show "Love It or List It?" host Hilary Farr makes an old house splendid. The "before" shows a cluttered closet, clothes on the floor. The "after" shows a neat closet with five outfits hanging, much space in between them. Hilary "Matthew 12s" the place.
I often wonder, for those who chose to re-love it, if six months later the closets are bulging again. Did all of the old stuff come back? Or did it stay pristine?
My wife asks of me (when I have plopped something down in a space she has just cleaned up), "Why do you do that? I just got it looking nice." And yes, I have been known to want to cook just after she got the kitchen clean. Why can't it stay clean? Why can't something stay forgiven?
It seems that we deal with an old problem -- things don't stay pristine long. Life happens.
Perhaps it is a stretch, but it seems to me that Jesus could also have been talking about forgiveness in Matthew 12.
We may think we have forgiven. Done. Things are clean. Swept out. And yet, we discover that the old grudge, the old hurt, came back with extra demons in tow.
Is there someone with whom you need to make an attempt, or an additional attempt, to reconcile?
Forgiveness and reconciliation, while tricky and complicated things, are perhaps the most beautiful things of which we know.
May God bless you in living a life that has peace, and give you the courage to do the hard work that makes such possible.
Jarred Hammet is the pastor of Macon's Northminster Presbyterian Church.
This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 9:58 PM with the headline "FROM THE PULPIT: Forgiveness can be a tricky thing ."