Ordinary 15

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2015 – Cycle B Amos 7:12-15: Psalm 85; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

“I do not forgive Dylann Roof, a racist terrorist whose name I hate saying or knowing. These are the feelings of author, Roxanne Gay, expressed in a recent NYTimes Op-Ed piece. She is Catholic and black. “I have no immediate connection to what happened in Charleston, S.C., last week beyond my humanity and my blackness, but I do not foresee ever forgiving his crimes, and I am wholly at ease with that choice. I am not filled with hate for this man because he is beneath my contempt. I do not believe in the death penalty so I don’t wish to see him dead. My lack of forgiveness serves as a reminder that there are some acts that are so terrible that we should recognize them as such. We should recognize them as beyond forgiving.”                                             [Roxanne Gay, Op-Ed, New York Times, 23 June 2015]

Do you agree with this statement?

How different from the response offered by the families of the nine slain in Mother Emanuel AME Church, Charleston, South Carolina. “They offered up testimony in curt, less than 48 hours after the trauma of losing their loved ones in so brutal a manner. Alana Simmons, who lost her grandfather, said, “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, everyone’s plea for your soul is proof that they lived in love, and their legacies will live in love.” Nadine Collier, who lost her mother, said: “You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul.”                                                      [Roxanne Gay, Op-Ed, New York Times, 23 June 2015]

Would these be your responses to this situation?

Similarly, do you remember the Amish response in October 2006 to the murder of ten school girls by Charles Roberts in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania? Would we have even thought to go to the wife of the murderer to offer our condolences on the day of his death? A day when he in turn had taken the lives of those girls in the school house?

Would we respond so promptly in the face of such senseless violence?

As Christians, we are called to forgive. We pray it every day not fully aware our forgiveness is contingent on our ability and willingness to forgive others. “Our Father…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…”

Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and to bless our persecutors and then on the cross he lived out his own teaching including making an excuse for all of us: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” [Luke 23:34]. Have you ever made excuses for someone who has harmed you? Contrariwise, C. S. Lewis, wrote, “There is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.” Does making an excuse for a person who has harmed us empty forgiveness of its ability to heal?

I can’t imagine myself responding as promptly as the families of Mother Emanuel or the Amish community. I would expect the wound and pain to be so deep that I could not be mindful of the perpetrator or their family. And without questioning the sincerity of these families, I must ask: Where is the anger and rage? …the hate?   …the desire for revenge?   …the cry to heaven for retribution? Are these not real human responses to evil that need to be expressed before we can offer forgiveness to another person? Are these not feelings that we ourselves have felt? Are these families making an expression of forgiveness that they do not as yet have a right to make because they have not done the necessary emotional work? Is forgiveness that is given too readily a way of avoiding and acknowledging the pain and hurt and thus does more harm to the forgiver?

Forgiveness is complex and difficult. Consider that even Jesus in the midst of his pain and suffering is not ready to forgive but prays to the Father to forgive: “Father, forgive them,…” [Luke 23:34]. The desire for forgiveness is present in Jesus but as yet he cannot express it. It is only on Easter Sunday in the midst of the community Jesus is able to give expression to his forgiveness by giving his body, the church the power to forgive. Jesus breaths on those present and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive are forgiven them…” [John 20:22]. It is through this mixture of conflicting feelings that we must forge our response in faith.

Consider Steven McDonald, a New York City policemen, who was shot and paralyzed in 1986 who said that “no matter how sincerely you decide to forgive, your decision must be reaffirmed every day.” [Forgiveness, he admits, is] “far from being a magical key to serenity and relief, …[it] carries its own measure of anguish and pain” [Consult Why Forgive? By Johann Christoph Arnold, The Plough Publishing House, 2000, pg.143].

Is this what Jesus meant when he taught to forgive seventy times seven times? We have interpreted this to mean that we are always to forgive – which is true. But might this teaching also be understood that in some situations for one act of forgiveness to be complete we may need to forgive a person seventy times seven times?   The Russian author, Dostoevsky reminds us that “forgiveness in action is a “harsh and dreadful thing” compared to forgiveness in dreams.” [Ibid, pg. 143]

“Most of us will probably never be faced with forgiving a murderer, [terrorist or] rapist. But all of us are faced daily with the need to forgive a spouse, child, [parent,] friend or colleague – perhaps dozens of times in a single day. And while doing the latter may be less difficult than the former, it is just as important.” [Ibid, pg. 75]

Whether a serious or minor event, “forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all the allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the person who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness.” [Ibid, pg. 44]

[Consult Why Forgive? By Johann Christoph Arnold, The Plough Publishing House, 2000, pg.143]