Lent: Thoughts on Forgiveness

I continue plodding (because most days it definitely feels like plodding) through Lent, and the variety of readings I've committed to doing in hopes of creating soil in my heart that is ready for the coming of spring and resurrection and new growth.

My dear friend, Shelley, mailed me a little book of Lenten readings just at the end of Lent last year, and it sat on my shelf through this past rather difficult year, waiting for Lent to once again come in force (because, for me, in many ways, that period of Lent from last year feels as if it never ended, as if I'm still waiting for that arrival of Easter and Resurrection and new life.). On Ash Wednesday, I picked the book up (it's titled "Journeying Through Lent with Luke" by Nancy Koester) and began to read, and the words have often touched raw spots in my heart as the season has moved on.

Each week of readings is built around a theme, drawing scriptures from Luke's Gospel, and reflecting on that theme over the course of the week. This week's theme is "Forgiveness". Not an easy topic by any stretch. Certainly one I've had many conversations about in this last year (and really all through this journey of following Christ). But I'm not sure any words on forgiveness have hit me as deeply as the ones from last night.

The reading for the night was Luke 17:3-5, where Jesus speaks on forgiving others over and over again. The author begins by telling the story of an unusual gift a friend had once given her - a collection of bullets from the American civil war, gathered at various battlefields around the country. She talks for a few minutes about the bullets and the thousands who died, and I will pick up near the end of those thoughts:

Still other men lived out their years with lead bullets in their bodies, the lead spreading its slow poison long after the war was over.

Something like this happens when people carry with them the injuries they have suffered at the hands of others. The "bullet" continues to do harm long after the injury is inflicted. Forgiveness does not overlook what has happened, nor does it trivialize the injury by saying, "It's OKAY; it's nothing, really." Forgiveness simply means that we no longer house "the bullet" and allow its poison to spread, in other words, we let God remove "the bullet." Of course, such "surgery" can be painful, but it is the first step toward healing.

This was, perhaps, the most striking and vivid image I have ever encountered of the dangers of unforgiveness, and it is one that I will need to spend some time prayerfully pondering, asking the Lord to reveal those "bullets" that are leaching poison in my life.

I have often struggled with the idea that forgiveness is something that must be passively offered, without the offending person being held accountable. In that, I liked the following thought that the author also drew out of the scripture for the day:

...First, Jesus says, "If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender" (17:3). Rebuke, strong reprimand, is the opposite of wimpy imitations of forgiveness in which people gloss over the hurt, murmuring that it's okay when it's not and never will be. Without a rebuke of some kind, the problem will not be named and offenses will continue to pile up. So Jesus tells us that we must speak plainly, not just suffer in silence. The rebuke gives the offender a moment of truth, a chance to change...

She goes on to talk about the need to continually offer forgiveness as Jesus commanded, and this too, I struggle with. My rather human need for "justice" says that at some point there must be a moment when the offense has been repeated so many times that it finally becomes unforgiveable. And then, then I am reminded of the fact that it is Lent, and we are moving towards the remembrance of a savior who hung on a cross undeservingly, to offer forgiveness for my own many sins, and I pray again that he will help me to offer that same forgiveness to others.