I think about Jesus’ debtor’s
story of The Unforgiving Servant in
Matthew 18, and I ask myself why did that man have such a hard time forgiving another, after he himself
had been unburdened of so very, very much? The one who is forgiven much
loves much – but it does not always stand to reason that the one who is forgiven
much forgives much.
Life has been teaching me over and over again that being
forgiven of a debt does not
necessarily leave you without need. Forgiveness isn’t money in the bank – it is only a release from what is owed. The King did not say to his servant, I forgive you of your debt – and here’s a
little something extra to get you back on your feet again, and a budget so this
doesn’t happen again. In Jesus’ story, the servant left the King in virtually
the same condition he went in to him – with empty pockets.
Free indeed but
with nothing stored up, empty of currency, and not yet any wiser. Fear can
stick its foot in. And the surprising thing – the thing you would never expect
– is that mercy can sit sour in your belly when you have had too much of it to
drink. You can resent to your core the pain of ever having needed it at all.
When you have known burden,
when you’ve felt it lifted, you don’t ever want to feel it again. I can imagine
the liberated servant dancing out of the King’s presence singing freedom songs
– As God is my witness, I’ll never need
mercy again. But I know how pride and fear can tempt to self-preserve. You never
forget the taste of dust. You can begin to take notice of people who bump you and stir up feelings of heavy. You can become accutely aware of
people who took from you when were already barely holding on. You can start
making mental notes of those to whom you once gave out of your excess. You can shovel
out a pile of blame – why you ended up on your knees, in the hole.
Jesus’ story is really, really not about an imaginary thing
like money. It is about real taken things like trust, childhood, reputation,
dignity, pride, self-worth, a sense of personal safety, faith in humanity, boundaries,
family, innocence, and sleep – things that we sometimes lose to one another in
the normal course of life, which we need and to which we are sincerely
attached. It can be hard to release those kinds of debts, though we know even as
we write them down that there is seldom any way that they can ever, ever be repaid to us.
The Greek word for forgive
is aphiemi – to send forth, to lay aside, to let go. It is not apokathistemi – to restore. It is not epilanthanomai
– to lose out of mind, to forget. It is
not a lot of other words that mean things like, it didn’t happen, it doesn’t hurt, it wasn’t wrong, one more chance,
don’t call the police, don’t talk about it, just be grateful it wasn’t
something worse, God is gonna get ‘em in the end. There are other words for
those things, but none of them mean forgive.
Forgiveness means you choose not to count your debtor as a
resource to draw from. Forgiveness means, I
don’t need back from you what you
took from me.
Forgiveness can be painfully costly – but I have learned a very
great secret. Forgiving a debt is a whole lot easier when you’ve still got lots.
Sometimes I think we don’t want to say it – but we believe that
God gives mercy because God can afford
to forgive. We believe that God gives and forgives without partiality because
of the generosity that comes from abundance, not because of God commandments
like grace or compassion or love. We think, but don’t say out loud, It’s not like God is losing anything. God has
more where that came from. Of course
God forgives – God is good. It’s expected. Because when God asks us to do
the same, we believe that God has not fully considered the nature of poverty – what it means to be way beyond empty. We feel that sometimes we simply cannot afford to forgive
what is owed, because we still happen to need it.
I believe in love your
neighbour as yourself. I really, really believe in love always forgives. But
I have triggers. When I feel the
unforgiving spirit well up in me, I know what it is because I start to feel mean. I start to feel spiteful. I start to want people to know. But I am starting to learn to say
to myself – what is it that is making you so greedy? What is it that you are so very attached to, or that you think
you don’t have enough of?
I pray to remember that God has lots – more than I could hope, think or imagine – and to never
forget the words, All I have is yours.
For this reason, I bow
my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth
derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted
and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which
surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians
3:14-19
No comments:
Post a Comment