The Wall of Not Forgiving
More than three decades ago John Oerter, a Presbyterian pastor from the Mennonite tradition, gave me an image of grudge-bearing I will not forget. With the bricks of your hatred and the mortar of my un-forgiveness, we build a wall between us (and around us). Whether it is a small, simmering, quiet, stew of bitterness or a Mt. Vesuvius eruption of magnificent malevolence – the anger resides.
There is no love lost between us. This place is a no-man’s zone, like the one that existed next to the Berlin Wall. Overnight the wall began to go up – dividing Berlin’s families and friends, neighbors, business associates, churches, civic organizations and landscape for decades. Unforgiveness – a cold, grey, forboding zone; it seems as dangerous to attempt to cross from the perpetrator’s as much as the victim’s side.
Some reasons to not forgive:
Anger – an effective psychological response for avoiding feeling anything other than anger.
Betrayal – a core trust bond between us was broken.
Despair – what good will this do, it’s too late to go back.
Fear – that person, culture, institution or organization will do the same thing again.
Sadness – so much has been lost.
Seems foolish – Fooled once, shame on you (the perpetrator) – fooled twice shame on me (the victim).
Reasons to forgive:
The Lord’s prayer – forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
In order to receive God’s grace and forgiveness, we need to open the door of forgiveness (Luke 16, A parable of the Jail of unforgiveness).
It is an opportunity to be like our Father, offer God’s undeserved and magnanimous gift of forgiveness to someone that owes you (Luke 15, A parable of the forgiving Father).
Freedom from your past – resentment binds us to the perpetrator. “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” Nelson Mandela
Where are the walls in your life or heart? How much avoidance, escape, loneliness, manipulation, revenge, and stonewalling can you practice without becoming bitter – without going past the point of no return in your soul? What if the offense is so embedded in your shattered life that it is impossible to forgive? How can you trust God, since he did not keep this from happening to you or your family?
Let me share with you a story told by Corrie Ten Boom in The Hiding Place (1971).
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck . . . And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
HIs hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.
Corrie Ten Boom and her family were sent to concentration camps for hiding Jews. Her father and sister died there; she was released on a bureaucratic error. Holland through the centuries has been known for the liberal and historic hospitality extended to religious refugees and free-thinkers. Unfortunately, it had fostered a bureaucratic system that facilitated, according to some, the most complete annihilation of the Jewish population of any country. Corrie Ten Boom went on to do relief and rehabilitation work with countless citizens in Holland at Darmstadt, a former concentration camp. I was privileged to hear her speak at a local church in Denver when I was in high school in the mid-70’s; she radiated Jesus.
More about forgiveness next week.
