A Fresh Perspective - 12/12/08
Calvin Miller tells a wonderful story about his son who, one afternoon, when they were having a family picnic by a stream, scooped up three tadpoles in a milk carton. He called them Peter, Paul, and Mary. He took them home and kept them in a jar until the water turned green.
Miller inquired, "Son, what are you doing with those tadpoles?" His son replied, "Dad, I'm saving them." Peter died, then Paul. Mary was the lone survivor and actually achieved froghood. She grew legs and lost her tail, but she wasn't happy.
Miller said, "Tim, if you save Mary much longer, she's going to end up like Peter and Paul. You've got to let her go." He agreed. So they drove back to her ancestral home, walked down to the stream, opened up the jar, and as she hopped out they sang a few bars of "Born Free."
I suspect that many of us are "saving" grudges and grievances that are killing us. Forgiveness is about letting go of our bitterness, resentments, and grievance stories that we keep replaying in our minds. It's about letting go of our pride and stubbornness, our need to be right, our need to control people, circumstances, and outcomes. And most importantly of all, it's about letting go of our anger.
Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian gospel and all true religion. Only forgiveness can break the cycle of hate, violence, and retaliation in our families, communities, and among nations. There can be no reconstruction, healing, or reconciliation without forgiveness.
Without forgiveness we have no future. We have hurt one another in too many historically documented and remembered ways. The grace of forgiveness is the only way out of the violent cycle and our justified hatreds.
But forgiveness is a hard sell. It defies all reason, logic, and standards of worthiness. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes it as "a melting into the mystery of God as unearned love, unmerited grace, the humility and powerlessness of a Divine Lover."
Forgiveness is always a divine work. Whenever and wherever forgiveness occurs it is always a gift of grace; it is always the work of God, whether the one who forgives is religious or not. For Christians who give and receive forgiveness, it is always the work of the risen Christ.