“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”

As you know, we’ve been on vacation so I’ve not had a chance to look at the news. Is anything happening? It seemed pretty slow to me but I probably missed something over the last couple of weeks.

Yes, I’m kidding. When I thought about all that is going on just these past two weeks I knew it was probably good to suspend our study of Acts for a week and look at something else. But what? What has gripped the nation as much as anything else? I think it is not the Supreme Court decisions or the murders in Charleston as much as what one columnist has called the incomprehensible witness of forgiveness. “…forgiveness of the kind we have witnessed can only be incomprehensible. Violence has been done and cannot be undone. No punishment that awaits the perpetrator, Dylann Roof, will right this wrong or restore “justice.” But forgiveness can cancel an unpayable debt. It is an immeasurable—an incomprehensible—act. It may be the most God-like power we possess.”

At the same time, some have said that such quick forgiveness is only a way to avoid dealing with the grief and is, in fact, more harmful than healing. For instance, I read an account of a Jewish father talking to his son:

“On Dec. 1, 1997, Michael Carneal, 14, fired a semi-automatic pistol into a group of students holding a prayer meeting at Chase High School in West Paducah, Ky. He killed three girls.

Two days later, a handwritten sign appeared outside the school. “We forgive you, Mike,” it said.

“Can you forgive a murderer?” Zack, my 14-year-old son, asked after the killings.

“Not really. Not in Judaism,” I answered.

I briefly explained the Jewish concept of forgiveness, that the person who has erred or has committed the crime must honestly and directly seek forgiveness from the person he or she has harmed.

Zack understood immediately. “But those people are dead,” he said.

“Exactly,” I responded. “In the United States unsolicited forgiveness has become fashionable. We bestow it swiftly, superficially and self-servingly on killers and con men, ex-spouses and ex-bosses, parents and children. For Americans, forgiveness has become a quick-fix cleansing ritual, promising to rid us of pent-up rage and resentments. And as we forgive freely, so we transgress freely. After all, Erich Segal’s book “Love Story” taught us that love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Others have said that this is a typical response of an oppressed culture that can do nothing but forgive since they cannot get justice in this world. They do it out of weakness and bending to the inevitable. Some even say it is a way of grabbing a headline for political purposes. If they wanted to grab a headline, they could not have done it better than this. You probably remember the shooting of young Amish children in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania a few years ago. It was their response of immediate forgiveness that captured the headlines and almost displaced the story of the killings. “Forgiveness, in fact, eclipsed the tragic story, trumping the violence, itself. Three weeks after the shooting, “Amish forgiveness” had appeared in 2,900 news stories worldwide and on 534,000 web sites. Even while most of the media and commentators marvel at such an act, they have very little understanding of it and while they praise it and are dumbfounded by it they seem to write it off as a gracious but misguided thing to do. Or they try to make it comprehensible in terms of psychology or culture or some other reasonable explanation. “These well-intentioned efforts to domesticate forgiveness – to make it comprehensible – ultimately fall short.” In fact, I would not be surprised to see tee shirts encouraging people to “Just Forgive” or “Chill and Forgive” as if this could be another marketable response to the broken world we inhabit. Forgiveness is a great angle on the story because the horror of the story itself has become almost commonplace. It’s a great example of “man bites dog” but little more than that. It’s an anomaly and written off as quirky, interesting and other worldly.

Well, it really is otherworldly, isn’t it? There is nothing about this forgiveness that came so immediately that makes sense. Such a response cannot be explained in any way other than the preparation of the Holy Spirit over a long period of time. You know the phrase, “Character is not created in a crisis. It is only revealed.” The people of Charleston did not wake up one morning and have an urge to forgive. In the same way, the Amish have been teaching for 300 years that in order to be forgiven they must forgive. It is a command and not an option or a grand gesture. It is a way of life and not momentary heroism or grandstanding. And, sadly, we do not teach it as we should. Instead, we teach getting along or how to win friends and influence people or how to market a gospel that will bring instant happiness and joy. So, we are unprepared for those moments when we do the incomprehensible. Our reasonable faith is no match for such an assault.

I think there is a reason the issue of forgiveness is a bracket around temptation and evil in this prayer. See how it reads. “Forgive us as we have forgiven and do not lead us into temptation.” In other words, verse 14 explains something about verse 13. If you don’t forgive you are opening yourself up to deception and evil. A spirit that will not overlook a slight will over time be unable to forgive a sin. If you don’t forgive you will be caught up in ways you could not imagine. An unforgiving heart is susceptible to spiritual AIDS because our immunity system is weakened. The inability or unwillingness to forgive leads us into temptation and, ultimately, death of the soul. It’s a Chinese proverb that says, “He who pursues revenge should dig two graves.” Hubert Humphrey said, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Of course, as Lewis Smedes says in his book “Forgive and Forget” there are some nice things forgiveness is not.

It is not merely forgetting. A healed memory is not a deleted memory.
It is not excusing the offense or letting them put the blame elsewhere.
It is not tolerance.
It is not smothering the conflict. You cannot say, “Let’s just move on as if nothing happened.”

So, what is forgiveness if it is not this?

The word was used to describe the starting gate of a horse race. It was the place of letting go and release. It is simply opening your hand and letting something escape. But it is not passive or even “let go and let God” as we’ll see a little later. It is a release in order to do something.

But, for most of us it is not immediate. There are stages of forgiving like stages of grief and Lewis Smedes describes those as well.

1.  We hurt. We are stung or betrayed or something precious is taken away from us.
2.  We hate. We dwell on the unfairness or the loss or the desire for revenge that will make things even.
3.  We heal. It is only when we feel the power to desire the best for them. Not to excuse their guilt or avoid punishment but to desire what is in their best interest. “Repent, confess, give your life to the one that matters the most, Christ. So that he can change it, and change your ways no matter what happens to you. May God have mercy on you.”

We don’t heal quickly. There is a particular kind of spider bite – the brown recluse spider – that appears to heal over quickly but it is an illusion. Underneath the scab the poison is working to kill living cells and flesh so the wound has to be kept open and heal from the inside out. Otherwise, the bite can be fatal even while it appears to be healing.

4.  We come together again. This has been the miracle in Rwanda that has been studied by so many. How did people living together in a village manage to forgive their neighbors for such atrocities? I’ve been there and asked the same questions. The most frequent answer is “because we had no choice. We had to find a way to live together. Otherwise, we would all be destroyed over time.” A photographer has captured the results in a book that poses the killer with the family of the ones who died in most horrible ways. It was not easy but they have found a way to come together again.

But, I think we miss a good part of the power of forgiveness if we see it as merely letting go and releasing our hurt and anger. I believe forgiveness is more than erasing the slate and starting over. I think it is more than subtracting something from our lives or avoiding the destruction of our souls. I think it is a seed that is planted and grows and with each act of forgiveness another seed is planted. If there is an image of release and letting go then it is the image of the sower and the seed. It is not just opening our hand. It is planting a garden. Forgiveness can create – not just take away. For me, that is the supernatural part. It may well be possible for a non-believer to wipe the slate clean but only God can turn forgiveness into something new and even beautiful. Every single time we forgive we release a seed whose sole purpose is to grow and overcome evil. Every time we forgive we plant something that is more powerful and long lasting than the hurt we have received.

What Jesus is describing here are low level, warm up sins between believers and not heinous crimes or hard core sin. These are sins that are incessant and will always need forgiving. They are routine but they build a habit of forgiveness that prepares us for greater tests. They establish a pattern without which we cannot respond to the unimaginable. Many of us do not expect to have to forgive in the Church and we are disillusioned when we do. Jesus tells us to get ready for it – not to deny it or to hide it.

But then, there is the forgiving of those not only outside the church but hostile to the church. They are not just those who disagree with us but those who would rather we not be around in one way or another. There are three words for enemy. They describe different levels of hostility. The first is the Latin word which comes from the word meaning “not a friend”. That’s a pretty broad definition, isn’t it? Anyone who is not my friend is my enemy and that means I have many potential enemies. There are many people who see the church as unnecessary. That’s the lowest level of enemy.

Next, is the Hebrew word “ayab” which is used to describe someone or some group of people who are openly hostile to me. They don’t desire my welfare. I have to be careful when I am around them because they would hurt me if they could. But, I can keep them from hurting me through intimidation, diplomacy, bribes or vigilance.

Third, is the Greek word “exthros” and that is the word Jesus uses elsewhere for enemy. It is one who is animated by a deep seated hatred. They do not merely dislike me. They would do anything in their power to destroy me because their hatred for me has completely taken them over. They are not just unfriendly or dangerous or needing to be kept at a distance. They are determined to destroy me because they hate me. That is what motivated Dylann Roof. Not unfriendliness or hostility but a hatred for black people that took over his life. That is the kind of enemy that Jesus says we are to love, and to forgive. That is the enemy that Paul describes in Romans 12: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;  if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

The world will never understand this. The world can talk about the amazing display of grace and forgiveness they have seen in Charleston or Nickel Mines but they have no idea what it means or what makes it possible. They will have no understanding of the years of preparation spent forgiving each other that made it possible for them to forgive Dylann Root. While they are not reconciled to him because he has not asked for their forgiveness, they have released the power of good over evil.

“Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes them sick,’ they say. And half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’

So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do — I can do precious little — I am telling you Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.’ There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?” C.S. Lewis

I don’t think any of us know because the world in which we live does not prepare us to forgive. It prepares us to defend ourselves against enemies, to retaliate, to litigate and sue and get even. It’s foolish to think this way. It’s other worldly, in fact. Yes, it is and it is the only way evil can be overcome with good. No matter how much we cover it over with practical reasons, exceptions and excuses we cannot eliminate the nagging discomfort of it. Like the Princess and the pea, it will not go away.

Let me close with these words from Corrie Ten Boom:

“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’

“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]

“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’

“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“ ‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.

“ ‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’

“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’

“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“ ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then”

That is the incomprehensible truth of forgiveness that will overcome evil with good.

3 religions, 3 approaches to forgiveness in the aftermath of evil – Religion News Service:

3 religions, 3 approaches to forgiveness in the aftermath of evil