Forgiveness is Really Hard

by Katherine Harms
(Baltimore, MD)

A friend once asked me, “How do I forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it?” My answer was, “Nobody deserves it.” The word deserve is part of our legalistic view of life in which good deeds earn points and bad deeds deduct them. Each of us thinks that when we drop money in the Salvation Army kettle at Christmas, God gives us a gold star on our personal daily chart.

Likewise, when we tell someone a “little white lie” about a previous engagement when we don’t want to accept a dinner invitation to eat with a complete boor, we think God gives us a black mark. We keep mental charts on people the same way. If somebody hurts me, I remember.

When I was in high school, a girl I considered to be my “best” friend told me she would help me get a date with a boy I liked. She said she would talk to him and tell him how much I liked him. She made me believe that she could persuade him to ask me out. The next thing I knew she had a date with that very boy to the prom. Some best friend she was! I was hurt, and I didn’t think she deserved my forgiveness.

Situations like this make it hard to pray, “Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.” We all ask, “How do I forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it?” The answer is that nobody deserves forgiveness. Forgiveness is all about restoring relationships after someone has done something that deserves God’s black mark.

After a gunman killed five innocent girls in an Amish school, the Amish gathered around his family granting them forgiveness. They forgave the killer, and they forgave his family. Some accused them of a failure to hold the man and his family accountable for unconscionable evil. The Amish, however, had learned well the lesson of the Lord’s Prayer. They recognized that forgiveness does not cover up or excuse evil, but it does refuse to let evil win.

Evil wins when a deed like the murder of five children sets off a campaign for blood vengeance. Supposedly, such a campaign is about justice of the “eye for an eye” variety. Evil masquerades as justice. Evil wins because it reproduces itself over and over as a consequence of one simple act.

If the Amish had been like most people, the dead murderer would have been excoriated and his family would be suspect, too. If the murder had happened in a crack house, each side would have used bullets or knives to get even. I could have avenged myself against my so-called friend by telling her new boyfriend that she said he kissed like a frog.

When we refuse to forgive the undeserving, we pretend that we want justice, but what we really want is revenge. Whether it happens on the schoolyard or in a gang shootout, the first act of revenge is always payback plus a premium for pain and suffering. It creates a cycle of retribution that leads to attitudes with no real focus any more except “us” against “them.” Evil will win, because nobody deserves forgiveness.

Forgiveness defeats evil by naming it and uncovering it and shining the light of truth on it. When somebody deserves a black mark for his behavior, forgiveness does not eradicate accountability.

Forgiveness wipes out the spirit of vengeance, however. Forgiveness enables me to say to my straying spouse, “I love you, I forgive you, and I want to work through this with the help of the Holy Spirit.” We may decide the divorce is the best outcome, but the process need not destroy everything in its path.

Forgiveness enables me to say to my child who lied about being at the movies when he was actually getting drunk at a friend’s house, “You can trust my love. You are grounded, but we will work through this problem together.”

Forgiveness enables the members of a murdered pastor’s church to say to the murderer, “We forgive you. We will stand by you during your trial and visit you in prison. We will not defame you even though we will not cover up the truth of your behavior.” Forgiveness promotes healing. Unwillingness to forgive creates a suppurating wound that will never heal.

Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer to teach us to pray, but the statements of the prayer also teach us how to live. One of the lessons of that simple prayer is that we are to grant forgiveness whether or not it is deserved.

The statement, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” does not require that the trespasser be deserving of our forgiveness. After all, as Paul wrote, Christ died for us before we deserved it. He showed us how to forgive people who don’t deserve any forgiveness. As he was being nailed to the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Broken relationships litter our world. Jesus came to earth to show us how to heal those relationships. He set a high standard when he told us to love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. We give ourselves mental gold stars when we show love to anyone, and we give other people black marks when they hurt us.

If somebody “deserves” a black mark, it is hard for us to think that he “deserves” forgiveness. We will preserve our right to judge the behavior, even if it breaks our relationships. Those broken relationships will not heal as long as we feel entitled to withhold forgiveness from the undeserving.

We must all learn from God who “proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)