Three Goodnesses
Father Richard Rohr writes of Jesus’ teachings and lived example of forgiveness:
Among the most powerful of human experiences is to give or to receive forgiveness. I am told that two-thirds of the teaching of Jesus is directly or indirectly about this mystery of forgiveness: God’s breaking of God’s own rules. That’s not surprising, because forgiveness is probably the only human action that reveals three goodnesses simultaneously! When we forgive, we choose the goodness of others over their faults, we experience God’s goodness flowing through ourselves, and we also experience our own goodness in a way that surprises us. That is an awesome coming together of power, both human and divine.
Eventually, I believe, we will all forgive one another because we have been forgiven, but let’s do it now and not wait until later. Let’s ask for the grace to let go of those grudges and hurts to which we cling. How else will we ever be free?
If we don’t “get” forgiveness, we’re missing the whole mystery. We are still living in a world of meritocracy, of quid-pro-quo thinking, of performance and behavior that earns an award. Forgiveness is the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness. It is a melting into the mystery of God as unearned love, unmerited grace, the humility and powerlessness of a Divine Lover.
Without radical and rule-breaking forgiveness—received and given—there will be no reconstruction of anything. It alone breaks down our worldview of trying to buy and sell grace. Grace is certainly the one gift that must always be free, perfectly free, in order for it to work. Without forgiveness, there will be no future. We have hurt one another in too many historically documented and remembered ways. The only way out of the present justified hatreds of the world is grace. [1]
An eagerness and readiness to love is the ultimate freedom and future. When we’ve been included in the spaciousness of divine love, there is just no room for human punishment, vengeance, rash judgment, or calls for retribution. We certainly see none of this small-mindedness in the Risen Christ after his own rejection, betrayal, and cruel death; we don’t see it even from his inner circle, or in the whole New Testament. I really cannot imagine a larger and more spacious way to live. Jesus’ death and resurrection event was a game changer for history.
The Crucified and Risen Christ uses the mistakes of the past to create a positive future, a future of redemption instead of retribution. He does not eliminate or punish mistakes. He uses them for transformative purposes.
People formed by such love are indestructible. Forgiveness might just be the very best description of what God’s goodness engenders in humanity. [
Forgiveness and Freedom
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. —Matthew 5:7
Father Richard names how forgiveness creates opportunities for growth:
The Spirit within us creates an unrelenting desire toward forgiveness and reconciliation. The entire gospel reveals the unfolding mystery of forgiveness; it is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the gospel’s transformative message. The energy of being forgiven—in our unworthiness of it—first breaks us out of our merit-badge mentality. The ongoing experience of being forgiven is necessary to renew our flagging spirit and keep us in the infinite ocean of grace. Toward the end of life, a universal forgiveness of everything for being what it is becomes the only way we can see and understand reality and finally live at peace.
Zechariah said that God would “give God’s people knowledge of salvation through forgiveness of sin” (Luke 1:77). Forgiveness given and forgiveness received are always the pure work of uncreated grace. Such unearned and undeserved forgiveness is necessary to break down the quid pro quo world that I call meritocracy. Only when we experience undeserved love does this inward and outward flow begin to happen. Before that, we are dry, dead cisterns. Before that, we are into “religion” perhaps, but we don’t really have any dynamic notion of God or even our self.
Grace re-creates all things; nothing new happens without forgiveness. We just keep repeating the same old patterns, illusions, and half-truths. Sometimes grace does not come immediately, but like Job we “sit in the ashes scraping our sores” (Job 2:8). Sometimes neither the desire nor the decision to forgive is present. Then we must grieve and wait. We must sit in our poverty, perhaps admitting our inability to forgive the offender. That is when we learn how to pray and how to “long and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6).
True Spirit-led forgiveness always frees and heals at least one of the parties involved, and hopefully both. If it only preserves my moral high ground—as a magnanimous “Christian” person—I doubt if it is true forgiveness at all. In forgiveness, we live up to our true and deepest dignity. We then operate by a power and a logic not our own.
At the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, I had “70 x 7” painted over the main doorway [see Matthew 18:21–22]. New mail carriers thought it was the address! It was our address, in a way. It’s the distinctive hallmark of a people liberated by Christ. Community is not where forgiveness is unnecessary or unneeded. It is where forgiveness is very free to happen. And if it doesn’t happen on a daily basis, at least imperfectly, there will be no community. Without forgiveness the logic of victimhood and perpetrator rules instead of the illogic of love.
============================
| Psalm 115: We Become What We Behold |
 Click Here for Audio. Idolatry is a frequent topic in the Bible, and it is repeatedly condemned as a terrible sin for two reasons. First, and most obviously, we are commanded to worship God and no one else. The definition of idolatry is to worship a created thing rather than the Creator. Therefore, to engage in idolatry is to give our devotion to something that is underserving of it, and to withhold it from the One to whom it rightfully belongs. Simply put, idolatry hurts God.But there is another reason idolatry is condemned by Scripture that we often overlook. Idolatry hurts us. Jeremiah uses a helpful metaphor that captures both problems. When God’s people turned away from him to worship idols, the Lord said, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Idolatry is both a rejection of our faithful God and placing our trust in an unfaithful and unreliable alternative.Psalm 115 captures this terrible error with an even more direct warning. The writer contrasts the God worshipped by Israel with the idols worshipped by other nations. The idols have mouths, eyes, ears, noses, hands, and feet, but they cannot speak, see, hear, smell, feel, or walk. Unlike YHWH, the living God, they are lifeless objects, and “Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them” (verse 8).Ouch.The psalm highlights a profound but often overlooked truth—worship shapes the worshiper. Of course, by “worship” I do not merely mean music, prayers, and liturgies. Worship means “to ascribe worth.” What we worship is what we devote ourselves to, what we derive meaning and identity from, and what we prioritize above all else. Psalm 115 says that if we devote ourselves to lifeless things, we will also become lifeless.Father John Culkin, a professor of communication at Fordham University, once said, “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” Although Culkin was talking about forms of media, his words fit uncomfortably close to those of Psalm 115. The people created lifeless gods from silver and gold, and then their creations remade the idol-worshipping people in their own lifeless image.However, the psalm also contains a positive message for those who put their trust in YHWH. His endless life will become our endless life. As many biblical scholars have noted, the Old Testament doesn’t have a well-developed theology of eternal life. Any sense of a life after death in God’s presence is vague at best. But Psalm 115 offers a compelling glimpse:“It is not the dead who praise YHWH, those who go down to the place of silence, it is we who extol YWHW, both now and forevermore. Praise YHWH” (verses 17-18).Is Psalm 115 saying those who put their trust in YHWH will never die but praise him forever? That appears to be what’s implied, and the message fits with the theme that we all become like what we behold. Just as dead idols lead those who trust in them to death, the eternally alive God leads those who trust in him to eternal life.DAILY SCRIPTURE PSALM 115:1-18 WEEKLY PRAYERFrom Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945) O God, Early in the morning I cry unto you. Help me to pray And to think only of you. I cannot pray alone. In me there is darkness But with you there is light. I am lonely but you do not leave me. I am feeble in heart but you do not leave me. I am restless but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience. Your ways are past understanding, but You know the way for me. Amen. |
