As We Forgive

"And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us (Matthew 6:12)."

In 2009, fellow Furman alum Laura Waters Hinson produced a documentary called “As We Forgive” on the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.  One in eight Rwandans were murdered by their neighbors.  The government jailed over 50,000 of the perpetrators of this slaughter.  But having no place to hold them, they released them back into society to live next door to the families of their victims.

The documentary described the wide scale forgiveness that ensued.  There was one woman who would not forgive the man who murdered her family, though he was desperate for her to do so.  He tried to help her get food, fix up her house, he was willing to do anything for her.  But she would not forgive him.  And you could see it on her face.  As Bishop Desmond Tutu said in the film, unforgiveness is like carrying acid around in a metal container, it eats you up from the inside.  You could see the hatred literally torturing her features. 

They finished filming and went back to Rwanda for a post-production visit and in the meantime, the woman had decided to forgive.  And she was transformed.  She was barely recognizable as the same person, so beatific and peaceful did she look.  

The way Jesus teaches here, and just after the official end of “the Lord’s Prayer”, it sounds like there is a conditionality to our forgiveness.  Here are the little-noted next two verses in Matthew 6:14-15.  “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  I do not believe this is as “works-based” as it sounds.  I think what Jesus is saying here is, if we understand what we have been forgiven, we cannot withhold forgiveness.  See the Sermon on the Plains' emphasis on having mercy as God is merciful, or the parable of the unforgiving servant, or the Good Samaritan, or just how Jesus lived.

An interesting note from Dr Bailey - all three Abrahamic religions have a daily prayer and each emphasizes forgiveness.  Christianity is the only one that emphasizes forgiving others, rather than just seeking forgiveness for ourselves.  This is, or should be central to being a Christian and is, or should be evident in the life of a Christian and stand out as something that makes a follower of Jesus different from his neighbors.  

The question is whether there is a sin too big to be forgiven.  Murder?  Genocide?  Betrayal?  The only one specified in the Bible is the aforementioned “blaspheming the Holy Spirit”.  If God is willing to forgive any other sin, including blaspheming Jesus (Matthew 12:32), shouldn’t we be as well?