Forgiveness and the Inversion of Power - Part II

What do I mean when I say an "inversion of power'?

A brief survey of history reveals that the structures humans have produced (sometimes in God’s name) tend to serve self-satisfaction through oppression, abuse, and privilege. Such an exercise in power inevitably leads towards the oppressed rising up and demanding justice through the very means once used against them. I could go on and on about the natural urge for dominance and fulfillment, and the cycle of violence that creates, but ultimately Gandhi was right when he said an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. And, I might add, still angry.

In contrast to human structures, Jesus’ way of thinking about power, love, freedom, and humanity was so radical to those around him that he said one had to be "born again" to understand it. In fact, being born again is a prerequisite for entering into the "kingdom of God".

In earthly kingdoms, people sacrifice freedom to make the king rich and powerful in exchange for protection and provision. But, by and large, the kingdom of God is an inversion of this. In an earthly kingdom, commoners are often forced to give their lives to protect the king’s son. In the kingdom of God, the king’s son willingly gives up his life to protect the people. In earthly kingdoms, people pay taxes so that the king can have more power. In the kingdom of God, the king gives of his infinite excess so that the people can become rich.

This biblical intuition of the inversion of power can be seen throughout the old testament (how often was the rule of primogeniture reversed?), culminating in the beatitudes, the apostles, and the very life of Jesus given for us all.

Here is my point - the inversion of power isn’t just about the weak become powerful, though it is about that, too. The inversion of power is also about giving away power out of a desire for something better than primal self-satisfaction. Power tends to seek more power so that the powerful can get good things. The inversion of power seeks to give power away for the benefit of everyone.

So, how does this relate to forgiveness, especially when the flow of forgiveness seems to be one-way?

I don't want to speak for others, but there have been times in my life when I was not able to forgive until I realized the turmoil within those who harmed me. And, as time passed and my days were colored by God, I realized that He had made me powerful. Not some worldly power that derives its strength from taking things from others, or some physical show of force that commands attention, but a divine power that is able to give itself away out of excess. For me, this kind of power has become emotional stability, spiritual purpose, and hope for the future to the point where I could risk my very well-being because I am so blessed. I don’t want to take back what people, in their weakness, felt compelled to steal from me. Instead, forgiveness for me has become a time of mercy in which I mourn over the depths of weakness and confusion that lead to others taking things from me under the guise of power, but which I could now forgive out of my excess. However, this process takes time.

For those individuals who have been raped or molested, or for those peoples who are systematically oppressed, I wonder how long the process of forgiveness might take. How long until a woman can feel powerful enough to forgive the debt that the rapist incurred? Again, not power rooted in taking from others, but power rooted in being filled to excess. How long until those who have been oppressed for many generations can find the internal fortitude to forgive their oppressors?

I don’t have good answers to these questions. Maybe, on some tangible level, restitution makes sense in the process of forgiveness. Maybe counseling makes sense. Maybe being separated from the actual person and place forever is the only way to regain a permanent sense of well-being out of which forgiveness can spring. I don’t know how long is too long to wait for true forgiveness. But I’ve become convinced that the healing embrace that will cure the world happens when people come to grips with the inversion of power demonstrated to us by Christ, and instead of using their resources to take, use their resources to love.

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs."
"So let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love..."

Forgiveness and the Inversion of Power - Part I

I'm intrigued by the concept of forgiveness.

Upon occasion, I get to teach various groups at my church, which is astounding if you really think about it. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to teach in a class about some of the examples Jesus gave for good relationships.

Jesus taught many things, and one of them was forgiveness. He taught that people will be forgiven to the extent that they forgive, which encompasses both quality (from your heart), and quanity (seventy times seven). I won't go into all of it here, but the the divine call to forgive is powerful and vast.

Indubitably, Christians are called to forgive. This often translates into a Christian imperative that a Christian must forgive no matter what, or they aren't being a good Christian. This leads to all sorts of strange behaviors that parade under the guise of "forgiveness", but are really nothing more than faking it. Sometimes, it leads to a sort of forced servitude in which the forgiver submits to the forgiven in an attempt to follow Christ's example. This is cheap forgiveness.

This sort of forgiveness enables those who are powerful to abuse those who are less powerful. With the kind of forgiveness that must be applied no matter what, those who are beaten, shamed, and violated (emtionally, physically, spiritually, or otherwise) by those who are more powerful are prevented from taking action against those who are stronger. Such a system enables oppression, and ignores the Biblical mandate to fight against injustice - to protect the downtrodden and weak, and to pursue justice for all people. One could even argue that such a view of forgiveness erodes the legal system, since forgiveness must be applied seventy-times-seven no matter the crime. Should our call to forgive really supersede our call to justice, and protection of the oppressed?

As I've groped for a better understanding of the complex beast that is forgiveness, Matthew 18:21-35 continues to stick in my mind. In this passage, Jesus is asked about forgiveness, and he responds with telling a story about a man who wanted to settle his accounts with his servants. One servant owed the king more than he could ever pay, and so the king, in his mercy, let the servant go. This first servant, in turn, went to a servant coworker that owed him just a few dollars and had him thrown in jail for not paying the debt. When the king found that his servant had done such a thing, he was livid, and had the first servant thrown in jail and tortured until he could pay the unpayable debt. The story ends with an admonition from Jesus:
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

It seems to me that something is happening in this parable that we often don't think about. In every instance of forgiveness in this parable, forgiveness flows from one more powerful to one less powerful. The king, who is the ultimate authority, forgives his servant. The servant, who has legal power over his debtors, is in turn supposed to forgive his debtors. There is no speaking of the debtor, who is the one in danger of being oppressed, doing any forgiving.

But if only the powerful do the forgiving, then what do we make out of Jesus being crucified, or of Stephen being stoned, or of the beatings suffered by Paul, or of the persecution of the church? Doesn't it seem that these were beaten and oppressed by ones more powerful, and yet forgave anyway?

As I reflect upon the power tactics of Jesus, I'm not so sure he was killed by those more powerful. Those who are the greatest in Jesus' kingdom are those who are the least, those who come to him as a child, those who give up their life to save it. Jesus' example is that real power is the inversion of power. Power occurs not when you find satisfaction on the intoxication of being above others, but instead satisfaction is found in the healing embrace of God, who welcomes us into a new way of living no matter our previous offense.

So, who was greater - the Son of God who could call a host of angels, or those who thought nailing him to a tree was the best way to get rid of him? Who was greater - Stephen, who looked into heaven and saw the Son of God smiling back at him, or those who picked up sticks and rocks in a blind rage? Who was greater - Paul, who found the worth of his being in the affirmations of Christ, or those who hated him for the message he preached?

Biblically, the direction of flow is a heavy theme of forgiveness. In every case I've ever come across, the more powerful one always forgives the less powerful. In every case, the oppressed cry out, and the powerful forgive. Never to do the oppressed, violated, or abused forgive the powerful unless the powerful are first humbled and the oppressed gain power over them. The flow seems to be only one-way.

I've realized that most people find this view of forgiveness radical and strange - the Sunday School class I taught sure thought it was strange. What do you think about it? Can you think of a Biblical example of forgiveness that does not come from the one who is more powerful? What is the Biblical intuition of power?

The healing embrace

The concept of forgiveness intrigues me.

I was in a Bible study many years ago where we were talking about forgiveness. A single woman was talking about her yet-to-be-found future husband. She said that if her future husband ever cheated on her, she thought she could forgive him, but she didn't think she could ever trust him again. She said she would always have trouble trusting him, or wonder where he was when coming home late from work, or wonder who he was emailing. I don't remember what we said to her in the Bible study, but that story stuck in my head, because that is a story of forgiveness in which no one is actually forgiven. (It's actually more like the wrong kind of forgiveness.)

On the surface, forgiveness doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It seems to me that if you don't want a person to do something, like cheat on their husband, or steal, or kill, then you make the penalty so severe that it serves as sufficient deterrent. Plus, it has the added benefit of removing certain offending individuals from normal societal circulation so that their influence is minimized, if not eliminated all together as in the case of capital punishment.

Unforgiveness seems to make the most sense, because to forgive seems to mean that you open yourself up to being victimized again. Forgiveness seems like an invitation to a worrisome life, where you constantly have to cast a wary eye on the previous offenders, in fear of them offending again. Forgiveness seems to be an undesirable situation in which you have to adopt strange new actions that keep you from being hurt over and over and over by people who want to take advantage of your forgiveness. How does forgiveness ever really make sense?

As I've groped for a better understanding of the complex beast that is forgiveness, two Bible passages have shaped my thinking more than anything else, though the book "Faces of Forgiveness" comes close. One is Matthew 9:1-8, and the other is Matthew 18:21-35. (These passages are just 2 of many examples, but they tell the story in ways that really grip me.)

The Matthew 9 passage is a story about Jesus and the paralytic. When the paralytic's friends brought him to Jesus, Jesus told him that he was forgiven of his sins. After a bit of a scuffle with the teachers of the law, Jesus said:
Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home.

It seems to me that Jesus here is linking forgiveness to healing in a way that we frequently don't think about. At least in this passage, they are synonymous. Forgiveness and healing go together to the extent that "Your sins are forgiven" is the same as saying "Get up and walk".

Using this lens of forgiveness and healing, other passages start to make more sense to me. The parable of the prodigal son, for instance, isn't just about the depth of the love the father has for the wayward son, but it is also about the extent of healing extended to the prodigal. The prodigal wasn't accepted back into family life as the black sheep who would always be viewed with suspicion. Instead, he was restored, re-clothed, and loved in a way that doesn't quite make sense. It was the other son, the good son, who showed the kind of forgiveness that seems to make sense - the kind of forgiveness that merely tolerates the presence of those who are wayward, but never really trusts or accepts them back into right relationship. The "good" son rejects the healing embrace of forgiveness. The father knows better.

Paul exhorts us to remember to debt of love we owe to one another. Viewed through the lens of the healing embrace, if the prodigal son were to re-offend he would not be deterred by the violence of punishment, but rather by the crushing reality of life without the radical love of his father. The debt of love doesn't make make the prodigal fear the punishment heaped on him by others, but instead makes him fear thee punishment he heaps on himself through a life without the healing embrace. Perhaps that is also why Christians should visit the prisoners - to help them understand the healing embrace that they may have never had, and to welcome them into a community they never want to leave. Without such love and forgiveness, it's no wonder they re-offend.

Here's my point. If we are truly forgiven to the measure that we forgive, then perhaps some measure of our (my?) spiritual dryness is because we haven't learned how to give the healing embrace. Maybe sometimes the distance there seems to be between God and me (us?) isn't some inexplicable dark night of the soul, but rather a symptom of my own inability to forgive.

Perhaps the strangeness we feel at our family gatherings, or with our spouses, or in our Sunday School classes happens because we are constantly surrounded by people who don't know how to give the healing embrace, and are constantly wary of a relationship in which they might get hurt. Or, maybe it is us who can't give the embrace. Perhaps a portion of the animosity the secular world has for the church is because we have all failed in our ability to forgive in ways that mend, correct, and welcome.

I wonder how often what we call forgiveness is really no more than saying "that's okay". Instead, I wonder what would happen if we, instead of dismissing the moment of forgiveness, remembered Matthew 9 and extended forgiveness and healing as if they could never exist apart from one another.

Perhaps the true Kingdom of God happens when the true healing embrace of forgiveness is offered freely, even to those who want to see us dead. Maybe we, as Christians, need to be reminded a little more often of what a true healing embrace looks like.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.