How many times have you heard someone say “forgivenes is not for the other person, its for you”? People are often encouraged to forgive with the view that in doing so, they obtain some semblence of peace or release. This all sounds very noble and for sure, there is some truth to that notion. But what if I told you there was another side to forgiveness, one that is not so often spoken about, perhaps because, well, it offers nothing to the person doing the forgiving and instead is a benefit to the one being forgiven.
I was thinking about forgiveness the other day because there was someone I needed to forgive, and it occured to me that I had missed out on an important truth regarding forgiveness. One of the tenents of Christianity is the notion of a forgiving God; a God who is magnanimous, generous, and loving and I suddenly thought, what benefit does God receive in offering forgiveness to us? How is God’s life made better, his conscience clearer because he is forgiving? The more I pondered on those questions, the clearer it became to me that in fact, God’s forgiveness was to our benefit rather than God’s, and if we are called to forgive as God forgave, what does that mean for us?
In that moment, it dawned on me that there was something about forgiveness that screamed inclusion, belonging, welcome, and community: in offering us forgiveness, God invites us to be in communion with himself, to identify with him, to be included in his divinity. Forgiveness, therefore, becomes about restoring back to fellowship and community; it is an act of generosity in the face of hurt, anger, or grief. I’m not lying when I say I felt challenged by this: as I thought about the person I needed to forgive I wondered how my failure to forgive had unintentionally ‘disfellowshiped’ them from being in community with me, or caused them to feel ostracized to some degree.
Yes, forgiveness has some benefit to us, (we feel better, for example) but if we simply focus on that, it becomes a selfish act rather than one of generosity. Here’s the difficulty in seeing forgiveness as an act of generosity: it raises question about perpetrators of what we might consider heinous acts: if forgiveness is about inclusion and community, what does that mean for the person who was raped, or whose loved one was murdered? Dare we include peodophiles, sex traffickers, and such like? How do we extend generosity in such situations? To be honest, I do not know, and that is why I do not believe we should encourage other people to offer forgiveness, because generosity cannot be coerced – we need to allow people to come to that place for themselves. It is up to them to choose to offer the opportunity for belonging or inclusion.
Is it any wonder that we struggle to forgive if we are constantly told forgiveness is for us? Does my pain go away once I’ve forgiven? Do I no longer bear the scars of the act done to me when I forgive? No and no, because forgiveness is not intended to rid me of my pain, anger, or grief, but to bring back into fellowship those who have wronged me. For this reason, I consider forgiveness to be the highest form of generosity we can extend, because in forgiving I am choosing to to offer my hand in fellowship to the person who has done me wrong, not because it is beneficial to me, but because I recognsie that unforgiveness means that we are no longer living in community with each other.
So, the next time you feel inclined to say to someone, ‘forgiveness is for you’ perhaps think about what it is you are asking of them, and if you have opportunity to offer forgiveness, consider what ‘being in community’ with that person might look like. I would say also, don’t feel guilty about any inability to forgive that you may experience: it may be that you are not ready or are unable to offer forgiveness and that’s okay. Take your time and count the cost, so that your offer of forgiveness may truly be the greatest act of generosity you have proferred to another.
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