Compassiong - Part 3

This is a deeply personal topic for me. They say that, “The greater the sense of injustice we feel, the harder it is to forgive.” The funny thing is that as a child you don’t always know what is just and unjust, especially if the people you trust call light, dark and dark, light.

As a boy of 4 and 5 years old I did not know that it was wrong for my father to touch my private parts. I did not know at 7 and 8 that him showing me stack of pornography was wrong. And at 12 and 13, I thought I deserved to have him throw me up against wall, scream at me and put a cigarrete out on my chest. When he made me strip naked and drove me around the city of Houston and would not allow me to cover my privates, I thought this was what I deserved. When I tried to take my own life I didn’t think it was because I was depressed but because I was not man enough, good enough to be loved.

I did not know this was unjust. After all, if it was unjust my mother would have protected me from it. She did not. My step-dad but he did not. My sister but she did not. If no one was stepping in then obviously this must be right, just actions.

I did not know how deep my scares were until in prayer meeting on a fateful Friday night. I did not want to be at this prayer meeting. I was a new follower of Yeshua and I had my walls up higher than Trump wants his. That night my walls could not hold back the tempest that was blowing inside of me. Those stormy waters, all that pain, all that hurt. One person, during that prayer meeting, turned to me with kind eyes and said, “Michael, the Lord just showed me a vision of you. A very scared, small little boy, in a fetal position. God your father wants you to know His love but you are scared even of him.” My walls broke and fell.

That was the worst night of my life. Almost 10 years of suppressed emotion-memory flooded my mind and heart. It was also the worst night of my life because that person with those kind eyes said these words, “Have you forgiven him, your father?” I said, “yes, I have forgiven him.” Then she said, “If you forgive but don’t forget, release him, then you will not go to heaven. You must meet with him and forgive him.”

So, not knowing any better, I was sheep and I did what I was told. It took me some time but I mustered up the courage and invited him over for dinner at my apartment. There I would talk about what he did to me and I imagined he would say, “I’m sorry.” It is just two words, how hard can it be to say. People, he, had apologized for much less, he had to have some experience with these two words.

There I am, in the body of a healthy 21 year old man, but inwardly trembling like a 9 year old boy when I saw him. All the fear came back, I had to run to the bathroom to pee because I almost peed in my pants out of sheer panic. We talked, small talk, kind of stuff. He had arrived early and I needed to do one thing. So I told him to make himself at home and I would be right back. And, when I came back, he left, said it rude of me and disrespectful to leave like that.

Again, I felt like I deserved it, it must be just. I must try harder, and try harder to forgive. The storm was raging and raging, so I asked him, over the phone, about the sexual abuse, about the physical abuse, about my half-brother who he also abused, and another incident.

All I needed to hear was “I’m sorry.” But instead, he told me about how his dad was hard on him, he told me that things happened with my half-brother Danny but that was none of my business, and he questioned my memory from childhood and told me I was an out-of-control teen and he was just doing his best. Then he said those words, it was the same words the lady with the kind eyes said, “You’re a Christian now, aren’t you supposed to forgive and forget.”

For him, the conversation was over way before it started. He was just indulging me until he could pull this card out, lay it down, and walk away.

I saw him again two other times. Once where he commented that I must have gotten Lauren drunk for her to be in a relationship with me. Again, that message: not good enough, not man enough. And one last time he showed up at a church I was doing ministry at, the Pastor not knowing anything praised his parenting of me and said, “You must have been a wonderful father, Michael is an amazing person.”

The poet Yeats asked this universal question, “O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance?” I had a brightening glance and I though somehow forgiveness would give it to me. That somehow forgiveness would take away all those scars, those memories, the pain, the messages of not good enough, not man enough, not worthy enough.

I though forgiveness would make it like none of this happened. Remember, I was told, forgive and forget. Forgive and forget. I thought once forgiveness happened I would be untethered, free, maybe I would be a doctor now, maybe I could feel confident, unfraid, the world would be vessel and I it’s captain, a new lease on life. None of that happened. And every time a thought from the past came up, I felt guilty and ashamed because I was supposed to “forgive and forget” but my heart, my soul kept revealing how the scar was deeper than I thought. I was an onion and there were layers.

When I told a fellow colleague in ministry my struggle to forgive I was told that the path lied in empathy and compassion to my abuser. Empathize with him. Really? So, make myself a victim twice The first time when it actually happened and a second time where I have to come to a place of understanding why it happened in him to do it to me. I was supposed to repeat this process until, until felt my anger subside into compassion.

It was then, I understood that no matter how ugly the reality, Christians knew nothing about forgiveness. Forgiveness, in Christian speak, is when you let the wolf become the sheep. The perpetrator becomes the victim. It was then I understood that my dad would never apologize, and unfortunately most Christians would never apologize but all would demand you to “forgive and forget.”

We: At some point, we have all been the victim of someone demanding unbiblical forgiveness. And, we have also, if we are honest, we hold to unbiblical ideas about forgiveness.

I want to suggest that forgiveness is not

Reconciling

Forgetting (Address Poetry in Micah/Yeshua’s Word to Peter).

Dismissing – Like when you say, “I have forgiven my father. He did the best he could.” Those both can’t be true. In order to forgive, I must confess what happened. The word to confess in Greek is Homologeo to speak sameness with God and other about the event. This is the opposite of denial. Not just our sin but the way others have done harm to us. If you refuse to confess the way others have harmed you then you are in just as much denial as not owning your own sin. You are living in the darkness. You are called to live in the light. To forgive my father I have to confess he was not doing the best he could do. He violated my body, he violated my innocence, he violated my person, he physically assaulted me.

Covering – Have you ever heard, “love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8. A woman struggling in an emotionally destructive marriage once asked me, “Doesn’t love cover a multitude of sins?” (1 Peter 4:8). She continued, “Who am I to hold my husband’s sin or blindness against him? The Bible teaches us, ‘It is good for us to overlook an offense’ (Proverbs 19:11). Shouldn’t I just keep quiet and minister to him, and pray that he will see God’s love in me?” Sure there are lots of things to not get upset about: I eat too much sometimes, sometimes I watch too much tv when I am sad, one time when I was hanging a fan and it was not going well I started racking up the curse words and even creating new curse words that my wife later said were “Quite Original.” Yeah, love covers and overlooks a lot of mundane stuff but not all sin, that would be counter the entire Bible. God is love and God holds Israel responsible for her sins and Us.

Pardoning – a pardon avoids accountability and prioritizes the comfort of the oppressor.

Fast-Acting - Kurt Thompson – reduced to something we utter “I forgive you.” We frame forgiveness as a single act and then it is done. From the perspective of memory and emotion, it is not true. Really, it is an attempt to deal with the emotional distress. The reason we like 2.5 second forgiveness is because we hate the memory. But, we are called to forgive and remember. There can be neither forgiveness nor reconciliation without remembering. In a year, you are going to know more about the harm done then you knew before. The more you mature, the more you are going to understand the harm done to you. You will be called to forgive more next year than the year before.

Healing – no, not unless you blunt the wound and start to say that dark is light and light is dark.

So what is forgiveness? If it is not reconciling, forgetting, dismissing, covering, pardoning, fast-acting, nor healing, then what is it?

Ha-foke-bah

De-Cola-bah

Ha-foke-bah

Mashiach-bah

Turn it, and turn it,

for everything you need is in it.

Reflect on it,

grow old and gray with it.

Do not turn from it.

The Messiah is in it.

I want to offer a couple of thoughts on this from Joseph’s life.

Give just a little background.

Give the emotional picture of what is taking place.

Genesis 42:7 TLV

Then Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with faces to the ground. When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he made himself unrecognizable to them. Then he spoke harshly and said to them, “Where have you come from?” “From the land of Canaan,” they said, “to buy grain as food.”

He is not bitter. He is not some unforgiving root in the ground There was a real evil done to him.

Forgiveness requires hatred of evil.

I don’t really buy into the idea, forgive me for saying this, that trying to empathize with the perpetrator of a crime is either biblical nor helpful.

I also don’t think the motivation for forgiveness can be obligation. The motivating force for forgiveness must be a violent hatred of evil. When you hate evil you will hate all things that divide and damage. – forgive and remember conversation with Jesus and Peter. Forgive and forget precludes the possibility of repentance and redemption. Forgive and remember makes redemption possible and ensures that evil does not win. How much do you hate evil. Forgive and forget lets evil run free like a virus. Forgive and remember years for evil to end. How committed are you to undoing evil.

God never forgot a single Sabbath year that Israel neglected to keep.

Here is number two.

Genesis 45:4 TLV

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near me.” So they came near. “I’m Joseph, your brother—the one you sold to Egypt,” he said.

Forgiveness names the Harm.

You must name the harm done to you. Listen, Joseph is meeting with his brothers. We are not there yet. Please, don’t jump to reconciliation. There is a way to do reconciliation but that is not what I am suggesting here. This going to get you to the first step.

You must name the harm. You cannot forgive what you cannot name. Please wait before you name the harm to the person who harmed you. This is not about that conversation yet. “I have forgiven my father. He did the best he could.” Those both can’t be true. In order to forgive, I must confess what happened.

To confess sin is a big deal. In Hebrew we call it the “vidui ashamnu.” We have long services at Yom Kipper where we list off sins. This in Greek is Homologeo to speak sameness with God about the event. It is to agree that evil, is evil.

WHAT ABOUT:

Matthew 6:14–15 TLV

“For if you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.

This is real accountability.

This is the opposite of denial.

Jeremiah 6:13–15 TLV

“For from the least to the greatest, all of them are greedy for gain, and from prophet even to kohen, everyone practices deceit. They healed the wound of My people superficially, saying ‘Shalom, shalom!’ when there is no shalom.” “Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,” says Adonai.

Remember, we said last week:

1 John 1:6 TLV

If we say we have fellowship with Him and keep walking in the darkness, we are lying and do not practice the truth.

Naming the harm is walking the light. I am not just talking about owning your side of the street, I am talking about you admitting their side of the street. Not just your sin but the way others have done harm to you. If you refuse to confess the way others have harmed you then you are in just as much denial as not owning your own sin.

Most people struggle here and i understand it. Memories are not neutral they are packed with emotions.

Name the harm with paritucularity. It is impossible to forgive your father for hurting you. You can only forgive your father, “getting drunk and shouting at you.” Or you can forgive you mother, “Who made rude comments about your body when getting ready for prom.” Or you can forgive your father for leaving out his porn for you to find.

Genesis 45:4 TLV

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near me.” So they came near. “I’m Joseph, your brother—the one you sold to Egypt,” he said.

Remember, Joseph’s words, “I am Joseph the one you sold into Egypt.” Is this bitterness, is this a root of bitterness. He is identifying himself to his brothers who have kept a secret. They have held this secret sin for a long time from their father and from Benjamin.

Dr. Dan Allendar, “forgiveness may bring more peace but it may bring more war.”

First, forgiveness requires a hatred of evil. Second, forgiveness names the harm with particularity. Last.

Forgiveness allows me to hate evil and to praise God.

Genesis 45:8 TLV

So now, it wasn’t you, you didn’t send me here, but God! And He made me as a father to Pharaoh, lord over his whole house and ruler over the entire land of Egypt.

I can tell you the evil you did but you know what it has done to me.

God made me leader of a tribe of five.

Victor Frankl said it best, “This is the last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I stand ready to forgive when you stand ready to own your side of the street.

You see, in this space between you and me, I going to fill it with God’s truth which hates evil, and God’s love which is opposes evil in all its forms, and the validity of the experience.

It sounds like you are nursing a grudge? Like you want revenge!

Many Christians feel shame and guilt when they have feeling of revenge… The truth is, however, that the desire for revenge is not a fallen emotion; it is a reflection of the purest longing for justice. - Bold Love, 197

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