"Father, forgive them..."

This began as a post praising Dr. Scott Hahn and the St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology for their Lenten series on the Seven Last Words of Christ. I still want to praise them, because the series, like the Advent series in December, is top-notch -- I am going to learn so much from it.

I started writing about today's video -- on Jesus's first words from the Cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Dr. Hahn explained the concept of forgiveness from the perspective of God. I'm going to be honest -- it was dense, and I'm going to need to re-watch it to try to grasp what he's saying. I sense that his explanation of forgiveness is going to answer some serious questions I've had about it for a very long time.

As I was revisiting my questions, I veered away from the video and into my own personal theological quagmire...

Confession: I have struggled for years with the concept of forgiveness and the sense I have that it often is coated with a modern-day Western patina that oversimplifies it. In my experience, we teach forgiveness from one of two perspectives (and sometimes a blending of the two):

1. Kumbaya.
2. Shame.

In the first, we teach that there is nothing so terrible that a hug or a handshake can't resolve. In our attempts to rid the landscape of outer conflict, we trivialize inner conflict. Sure, that bad thing happened -- but do you really want to live in the Land of Negativity? Sometimes it seems that those putting the most pressure on you to forgive ASAP are fundamentally uncomfortable with unresolved conflict -- the forgiveness that is ostensibly for the good of you and your adversary is really for the benefit of those unwilling to allow the situation time to resolve. They want you to have a kumbaya moment, and they want you to have it now.

In the second, we teach that difficulty in forgiving is in itself sin. Difficulty is not the same thing as refusal. We are called to forgive -- that is clear, and I'm not disputing it. But we frame forgiveness as this thing that, if authentic, we are suddenly more than happy to offer on demand. Those lingering emotions over the wrong done to us? Your emotions are the mark of selfishness (the teaching goes), and the "wrong" was your entitlement talking. Besides, have you forgotten how many times, and for what real wrongs, God has forgiven you? And aren't you only hurting yourself, the longer you fail to forgive? (As if you aren't already hurting over the original offense.) Get over yourself. Just forgive, already.

Maybe what I'm really confessing here is heretical, but I don't see forgiveness as a victory, and I've never experienced it that way. (Despite my struggles with it, I have in fact forgiven many things of many people in the course of my lifetime. Most recently, after confessing to Father B. my inability to forgive someone who hurt me a year ago, the following week I felt my hurt wash away as if the tide had carried it out to sea. If only it were always that easy. But I'm thankful for the miracle, regardless.)

No, for me, most of the time, forgiveness has been possible because enough time passed that the hurt faded and didn't flare up whenever I thought of the person who had inflicted it. It was forgiveness-by-default. My hurt ran out of steam, and I chose not to stoke it. Is it really forgiveness if I didn't actively seek it?

And then there are those times -- and these hurt as much as the original offense, and possibly because of it -- when I am dragged kicking and screaming -- and eventually weeping in defeat -- into forgiveness. In my heart, and even in my mind, I know it is the right thing to do. I know it's what God wants. It's a victory -- for the other person. For me, it is a forfeiture. And though there's a vague sense that I have taken the high road, I could not feel lower. I don't in fact feel like a better human being -- I feel like the one who blinked. Is it really forgiveness if it's offered with a white flag?

And it's no consolation to be told that God has forgiven me a million times over. Great -- not only am I an inveterate sinner who needed to be forgiven that many times (which I already know), not only am I an ingrate (cue the story of the Unmerciful Servant), but the wound I suffered from my adversary is of so little consequence that it pales in significance to my need to let him off the hook. So I give up -- I forgive.

In the economy of forgiveness, at least as it is usually taught, the person I have forgiven wins, because he's now no longer in my debt and no longer the recipient of bad vibes I may have been sending his way. And according to this line of reasoning, I win, too, because I did the Right Thing. But where did we get the idea that doing the right thing erases the hurt? And where did we get the idea that to be hurt is an indulgence of the self? Yes, there are petty grievances. But there are also very deep, very real wounds. Refusing to forgive -- which, again, is not an option -- doesn't do anything for those wounds, but the wounds can impede one's ability to forgive. It seems to me that both have to be addressed in order for forgiveness to be complete.

So maybe forgiveness must take place in stages, over time. This doesn't seem to have occurred to many who teach on the subject. Their teaching presents forgiveness as a one-and-done, all-or-nothing. You're either committed to it or you're harboring hate in your heart

Well, ouch.

The preferred way to render yourself capable of forgiving, according to modern teachers? You just reach into the depths of your soul, pull the hurt out by its roots, and drop it off at the Divine Recycling Station -- an act euphemistically known as "leaving it at the foot of the Cross" or "giving it to God."

I can't, and don't, believe this is what God intended. It's too simplistic, too cliched. I also don't believe that the teachings of Jesus -- for example, the Unmerciful Servant -- were offered by Him so that we could use them as hammers with which to bludgeon each other or ourselves. There must be something buried in the very concept of forgiveness -- God's forgiveness -- that I am missing.

I'm hoping a second viewing of the video will shine a light on it.

Ironically, struggling with an issue like this is what I want from Lent. So far, so good.

Edited to add: Cleaning up the kitchen and thought of something (some of my best insights come while cleaning up the kitchen -- homemaking is vastly underrated) -- what if I am equating residual hurt with unforgiveness? What if, in fact, I'm not harboring animus against anyone but am just (just!) continuing to react to a bad experience? That's not unforgiveness at all. Important distinction.

#lent #forgiveness #catholic