The Epistle for next Sunday: If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” (Romans 12:18-20)
In
this cliché-ridden age we often hear, “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst
enemy…” What would you wish on your
worst enemy? Paul, in this difficult
statement, says first that we should leave vengeance to God. The problem with that is, firstly, that we
are still vengeful, just passing the buck – and secondly, that God doesn’t
always come up with the vengeance we might think appropriate. Then Paul says we should be kind to our
enemies because that heaps burning coals on their heads.[1] Kill them by kindness, evidently. The best thing he says in this passage is, If
it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
But
it reminded me of the passage in Matthew: Peter said to him: “Lord, if my brother
sins against me, how often should I forgive?
As many as seven times?” Jesus
said to him: Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy times seven.”
(Matthew 18:21-22) If you are a
literalist, that’s 490. To this day
scholars argue about whether the Greek means 70 x 7, or 70, or 7 + 70 = 77…
whatever, Jesus is saying there is no end to forgiveness. And thus, I may say, he makes most of us feel
guilty.
I
think everything I have ever preached or taught about this has been some level
of compromise. There are wounds that are
frankly unforgivable. There are acts and
atrocities that need to be remembered from one generation to another. There are people in adamant refusal to admit
what they have done, let alone repent of it.
There are sins whose damage can’t be repaired, no matter what we might
wish, say or do. Human response has
moved from lynching to fervid Victim Impact Statements, to public humiliation,
effectively declaring someone a non-person, even injecting lethal drugs while
victims watch, and feel “closure”.
Richard Holloway used to be the Episcopal Church Bishop of Edinburgh and Primate of Scotland. He resigned and became agnostic – and began to produce some of his most luminous writing. In 2002, in the wake of the Twin Towers atrocity and other hideous things, he wrote a small book, On Forgiveness – the subtitle is: How can we forgive the unforgivable?[2] It is one of the wisest and most sensitive books I have ever read. In his final chapter this agnostic makes a point I had never heard before:
There are some deeds so monstrous that they will drive us mad if we do not forgive them… Only unconditional, impossible forgiveness can switch off the engine of madness and revenge and invite us, with infinite gentleness, to move on into the future.
It is what he calls the insanity of grace. A person grounded in the discipline of
silence and stillness, a person sitting light to the ego, someone personally a
recipient of grace, might just manage to do what Jesus prescribed, in love, and
peace, and freedom. Holloway
writes: …the mystery remains that
this prodigal universe sometimes redeems its own pain through extraordinary
souls who, from somewhere beyond all possibility, forgive the unforgivable.
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