Reading:  “The Necessity of Forgiveness”  from Further Along the Road Less Traveled, by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck

     One patient of mine, whose parents had put him through hell as a child and who was working through this, said to me: “You know, I could forgive them if I could go to them and tell them the ways they’ve hurt me and they would apologize.  Or even if they would just listen.  But if I did go and tell them how they’d hurt me, they’d say I was just making these things up.  They’d refuse to even remember what they have done.  I’m the one who has had all of the pain.  They gave me all the pain.  They haven’t had any of it, but you’re expecting me to forgive them?”

     And I said, “Yes.”

     The reason is that it is necessary for healing.  Painful though it is.  I must explain to such patients that they are going to stay screwed up until they can forgive their parents, whether or not their parents apologize or even listen. . .

     Another even more primitive thing I used to hear people say when they first came to therapy was, “Why do we have to dredge up all this stuff from the past?  Why not just forget it?”
 The reason is that we cannot forget anything.  We cannot truly forget.  We can only truly forgive, although in order to avoid doing the hard work of forgiveness we often try to push the offense out of our minds.

       With the caveat that sometimes people may invent false memories, through the psychological mechanism known as repression, it is possible to push a memory of something that happened to us out of consciousness.  We cannot consciously remember it, but it doesn’t go away when we do this.  In fact, it becomes a ghost that haunts us and makes things worse than if we remembered it. . .

     And so I would tell my patients that we cannot really forget about anything.  The best we can do is to come to terms with it, to such a degree that we can remember it without pain.  Therefore, the first step in the safety of the therapeutic alliance is to remember the crimes that were committed.  Then comes the anger.  It must come. . .  But beyond a certain point, the longer you hold on to that anger, the longer you will continue to hurt yourself.

     The process of forgiveness – indeed, the chief reason for forgiveness – is selfish.  The reason to forgive others is not for their sake.  They are not likely to know that they need to be forgiven.  They’re not likely to remember their offense.  They are likely to say, “You just made it up.”  They may even be dead.  The reason to forgive is for our own sake.  For our own health.  Because beyond that point needed for healing, if we hold on to our anger, we stop growing and our souls begin to shrivel.

Sermon:
     I’d like to begin this morning by sharing two stories with you.  The first:  Once two Buddhist monks were on a journey to a distant monastery when they came to a river.  There on the bank sat a young woman.  “I beg you,” she asked, “could you carry me across?  The current is strong today and I’m afraid I might be swept away.”

     The first monk remembered his vows never to look at or touch a woman, and so, without so much as a nod, he crossed through the heavily flowing currents and soon reached the other side.

     The other monk showed compassion and bent down so that the woman could climb upon his back to cross the river.  Although she was slight, the current was strong and the rocky bottom made it difficult crossing.  Reaching the other side, he let the woman down and went on his way.

     After some hours journeying down the dusty road in silence the first monk could no longer contain his anger at the second for breaking their vows.  “How could you look at that woman?” he blurted out.  “How could you touch her,let alone carry her across the river?  You’ve put our reputation at stake.”

     The first monk looked at his companion and smiled.  “I put that woman down way back there at the river bank, but I see that you’re still carrying her.”

     And the second story:  An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice. . . “Let me tell you a story.  I too, at times, have felt great hate for those who have taken so much with no sorrow for what they do.  But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy.  It’s like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.

     “I have struggled with these feelings many times.  It is as if there are two wolves inside me; one is good and does no harm.  He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended.  He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.  But . . . the other wolf . . . ah!  The littlest thing will send him into a fit of temper.  He fights everyone, all of the time, for no reason.  He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great.  It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.

     “Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”

     The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”  The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, “The one I feed.”

     Both of these stories illustrate one feature of forgiveness that I want to emphasize this morning.  That is that forgiving is for you, the forgiver, not for the injurer.  You are the one who benefits.  Forgiving means taking back your life and ending the perpetrator’s continued psychic control over your life, even though he or she may have torn the fabric of your life in an unchangeable, irreparable way.  It means letting go of the need to invest huge amounts of emotional energy in keeping the hurt alive.

     In her book, Toxic Parents, Dr. Susan Forward asserts “You don’t have to forgive.”  In fact she argues that forgiveness can actually prevent people from getting on with their lives.  So what’s the deal?  Is forgiveness a healthy way to move forward, or is it an empty promise that will set you up for bitter disappointment?

     The key here is in the understanding of what forgiveness is and what it is not.  Dr. Forward points out that “there are two facets to forgiveness: giving up the need for revenge, and absolving the guilty party of responsibility.”  She goes on to argue that absolution is really another form of denial: “If I forgive you, we can pretend that what happened wasn’t so terrible.”  And that is the aspect of forgiveness she sees as preventing people from moving forward with their lives.

    Well I would contend that it is the first facet, giving up the need for revenge, letting go of the hold that it has on us, that is the crucial part of forgiveness.  Absolution is secondary, or even irrelevant.  Forgiving is not about excusing, condoning, or pardoning.

    Often, one of the greatest barriers to forgiveness is the conviction that the guilty party doesn’t deserve it.  He or she may not ask for or want forgiveness.  They may not even acknowledge having done anything that would require forgiveness.  Our forgiving them or not makes not a whit of difference to them; they’re oblivious to the whole affair.  It is we, not they, who continue to bear the burden.

     There’s another way that forgiveness can foster denial.  We sometimes rush to forgiveness in the attempt to “forgive and forget” and put the pain behind us.  But it isn’t that easy.  In fact, forgiveness isn’t a decision that we can make and be done with it.  Forgiveness is a process that takes time and effort.

     When someone hurts you, a kind of immediate, reflexive forgiveness will not let you avoid the pain of their actions and the anger they produce.  The pain and anger are real, and there is no escaping them.  True forgiveness means to acknowledge and experience the pain and anger, to move through and eventually beyond them.  “Forgive and forget” means “pretend it didn’t happen.”  Forgive and remember means acknowledging what happened, working through and finding expression for negative emotions, and then finally leaving them behind.

     As novelist Faith Baldwin put it: “I think one should forgive and remember . . . If you forgive and forget in the usual sense, you’re just driving what you remember into the subconscious; it stays there and festers.  But to look, even regularly, upon what you remember and know you’ve forgiven is achievement.”

     So far my emphasis has been almost entirely on the forgiver and not the forgiven.  The main reason for that is that the victim is the only one with the opportunity and the power to forgive.  To require that the perpetrator seek, desire and accept our forgiveness takes away a large part of that power.  I think it is important to recognize and remember that our ability to reap the rewards of our forgiving need not depend on the reaction or response of the one we forgive.

     That being said, an additional benefit that may accompany our ability to forgive is reconciliation, the healing of a broken relationship.  When we forgive we can not assure that the healing and reconciliation will occur, but we do open the door for that possibility.

     Another story: A small boy at a summer camp received a large package of cookies in the mail from his mother.  He ate few, then stashed the rest under his bed for later.  The next day, after lunch, he went to his tent to get a cookie.  The box was gone.

     That afternoon a camp counselor, who had been told of the theft, saw another boy sitting behind a tree eating the stolen cookies.  He returned to the group and sought out the boy whose cookies had been stolen.  He said, “Billy, I know who stole your cookies.  Will you help me teach him a lesson?”  The puzzled boy replied, “Well, yes – but aren’t you going to punish him?”

     The counselor explained, “No, that would only make him resent and hate you.  No, I want you to call your mother and ask her to send you another box of cookies.”

     The boy did as the counselor asked, and a few days later received another box of cookies in the mail.  The counselor said, “Now, the boy who stole your cookies is down by the lake.  Go down there and share your cookies with him.”

     The boy protested, “But he’s the thief.”

     “I know.  But try it – see what happens."

     Half an hour later the camp counselor saw the two come up the hill, arm and arm.  The boy who had stolen the cookies was earnestly trying to get the other to accept his jackknife in payment for the stolen cookies, and the victim was just as earnestly refusing the gift from his new friend, saying that a few old cookies weren’t that important anyway.

     In fact both boys learned a lesson.  Namely, it’s hard to feel angry at people when you give them a gift.  And it is also hard for them to remain angry at you when they receive it.

     We never know what might come of turning the other cheek until we try it.  If the results aren’t as we would wish and hope – we still have the option of either hanging on to our pain and anger, or seeking the path to our own release from their bonds.

     Yes, the path to reconciliation requires that both parties be ready and willing to participate.  But if neither party takes the risk of reaching out and opening that door, the hope and possibility of mending the relationship shrivels and dies.  If we don’t reach out, we may never know of the hunger for love and forgiveness that we may be in a position to satisfy.

     I think I’ve told the story before, but I’ll tell it again, of the father in Spain whose relationship with his son had become strained.  So the son ran away from home.  The distraught father began a journey in search of his rebellious son.  Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in the newspaper.  The ad read: “Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon tomorrow.  All is forgiven.  I love you.  Your father.”

     And of course the next day at noon, in front of the newspaper office, 800 “Pacos” showed up.  All were seeking forgiveness and love from their fathers.  Imagine if there were 800 fathers there ready to give it.

     One final aspect of forgiveness that I would like to mention is forgiveness of yourself.  You may sometimes hold yourself to even higher standards than you do others.  The result may be a burden of guilt, shame, and anger that hold you back from living your life fully and freely.  But self-forgiveness can be at least as great a challenge as forgiving others.  In fact it may be our inability to forgive another that we find so difficult to forgive in ourselves.  Perhaps a first step is to recognize and acknowledge the existence of the two wolves inside you - the angry, hateful one and the loving, forgiving one – and then deciding which one you wish to feed.