“I know what you’re going to tell me, Father, but I don’t know if I can. No … this is more honest: I don’t want to.”
The young husband who sat before me was broken and hurting. Two nights before, his wife of five years cheated on him with somebody from work.
“You’re going to tell me that Jesus would say ‘forgive her.’ But how can I? She’s the one who threw it all away. Her, not me.” There was a lot of emotion packed into that last sentence – anger, grief, confusion, fear.
It would certainly be understandable if he walked away from the relationship. Not one of his friends – or maybe even hers – would blame him if he gave her the cold shoulder or made her sleep on the couch until they figure out what to do next. Complicating it all, of course, were the children.
He was so honest in expressing the rawness of his emotion: “I can’t even look at them right now,” he said. “They have her eyes and her smile.”
What do you do with the all the justifiable anger and hurt when you are the one betrayed … or as Jesus puts it – hated, cursed, stolen from, or slapped across the cheek?
Do you stand there and just take it? Roll over and accept it, like a door mat upon which another wipes his shoes? Forgive and move on as if nothing happened?
That’s not what Jesus is offering here when situations arise in life through the brokenness and sinfulness of another which aim to crush your spirit and take away your dignity.
On the surface, of course, the Lord’s response is something you’d expect from God: Forgive. This word, after all, was his final word from atop Calvary and the entire reason he came. To forgive us of our own transgressions. My sins put him on the Cross – mine and mine alone – so if he can forgive me, then I should be able to forgive another person for the ways in which I may be improperly or unlovingly treated.
There’s absolute truth in that statement, but it’s easy to say we must live forgiveness when we aren’t existing in a space of betrayal and hurt. It’s easy to suggest forgiveness when we know the outcome is resurrection. We don’t always know that, though, do we?
The young husband who came to me to unburden his heart from the weight of his wife’s transgressions didn’t know if this was the first time – or the last time – that she would cheat on him. How could he possibly trust her again? How could he love her as he once did? How could he be as merciful as “his heavenly Father is merciful?”
Some thoughts to ponder:
First, we can only forgive another because God has forgiven us. If we don’t know that we are loved and forgiven, how then can we offer it sincerely to another?
In my own life, I know that some of the most powerful moments which have shaped the person I’ve become have been ones in which I was forgiven by another when I was clearly in the wrong. A best friend in high school forgave me for spreading a stupid untruth about him. A teacher forgave me for failing to follow through on an important task that destroyed her lesson plan for the day. And how many times did my parents forgive me unconditionally?
As I have been forgiven, so must I offer it to others.
But all of those examples, in some way at least, are easy. These people were family, friends and mentors who care for me; love can always find ways to move past hurts and disappointments.
What do you do when the person who hurts you is intentionally trying to do so? How do you forgive another who does, in fact, want to see you hurt, humiliated and crushed under the weight of their power and control?
Jesus would tell us to retaliate, but not from a place of mutual hate and revenge. Instead, he would tell us: find power again … find your voice again … find a way forward -- through love.
All of the examples he gives in today’s Gospel were often imposed by Roman authorities who hated the Jewish people and longed to see them suffer. By their oppressive laws, they could demand a Jewish subject to carry a soldier’s pack for a mile or be slapped across the cheek for supposed insubordination. No wonder the Jewish citizens of the Roman empire longed for a Messiah who would crush and destroy the Romans. They were the true enemy.
And Jesus in his love told them how to fight back: through the power that comes from forgiveness.
Let’s face it: when we choose to walk another mile or turn the other cheek without being forced, who is showing the true victory? The one who has the power to say, “Your hate won’t destroy me.”
When we give away things to others who will never think twice about what it cost us to do so – and we do so from the heart – we are letting our ego know that I need not be the center of the universe.
When we choose not to judge another person, knowing that we may never fully understand that person’s pain and brokenness, we are regaining the dignity that God has given to us. Ultimately, we need not let another’s hurtful and sinful actions determine our present and our futures. You might say that we participate in resurrection, not the grave of an eye-for-an-eye.
But won’t this make me weak? A doormat? Doesn’t this just seem to open the door to repeated abuse at the hands of someone who doesn’t love or respect us?
The answer is no. By living in such a way that we are not consumed by hatred, we are set free. And once we are unchained, we are virtually unstoppable through God’s grace. We can find the way out … the way past another’s selfishness … the way to living in a heart-and-head space of authentic love and respect. When we choose to love and forgive their sin and hate, we aren’t condoning it or accepting it. Rather, we are refusing to live in that world any longer. When we are allowing the forgiveness of God to work in our hearts, we are not only healing ourselves, but maybe – just maybe – healing the one whose hate tried to destroy us.
When we give in this way, just wait and see the unmeasurable mercy and strength and healing God offers to us in return.
As I sat with the young husband whose world seemed to be collapsing around him, I mostly listened. The Spirit of God was doing the true work on the man’s broken heart.
“I can’t pretend this didn’t happen,” he told me. “I need to speak my heart and tell her we need to seek help for where we now find ourselves. I hate how this makes me feel, but I love her – and I need to see if we can heal this. If it’s not fixable, God will make it clear in time. But I won’t let hate drive my actions toward her or the kids. If I do, nobody wins.”
Hate only chains us. It never frees us. Never.
Find the power of being set-free through forgiveness. Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile – not out of force or fear, but out of love. Only love finds the way forward.
Only Christ-like love wins in the end.