Chapter Twelve HOW TO FORGIVE

We’ve come to the end of our investigation of Christian forgiveness.  We now know of its special authority, its unique privilege, its weighty responsibility, and its divine benefits.

We’ll conclude by saying a few words about a topic that has been latent in everything that’s gone before.  In the concluding verse of the parable of the Unforgiving Servant that we examined in the last chapter, Jesus makes reference to what he calls forgiveness from the heart, an apparent qualification that he mentions nowhere else in his various instructions about forgiveness. 

Our discussion in the last chapter makes it clear that the divine consequences of Christian forgiveness are spiritual fruits, so that Jesus must be understood as saying here that the maturity and quality of those fruits is related to the considerations we advanced in Chapter One, and often returned to in our subsequent discussions, concerning how forgiveness can be more or less complete.  Forgiveness in its fundamental sense is simply an activity, but in its more extensive and important applications, it incorporates conditions of the interior life of the forgiver.  In these applications, to use the image we’ve often relied on, complete forgiveness consists in the forgiver, in effect, forgetting the debt.  To put it another way, in simple financial forgiveness, forgiveness is either/or; in forgiveness of divine import, it lies upon a scale.

It is those cases and that scale that Jesus is clearly referencing when he speaks of forgiveness from the heart.  The instruction to the Christian is that the ideal towards which he or she must strive, in forgiving, is one in which the interior life is, so to say, aligned with the public activities that communicate the forgiveness.  In the ideal, there is no interior discord with the public expression, no regret, no hesitancy, indeed, no memory.  As all of God’s activities flow perfectly and inevitably from His own nature, and in so doing perfectly make manifest that nature, so also should Christian forgiveness, ideally, perfectly manifest the Christian’s personal spiritual economy.  Ideally, it should be as effortless, and as unconscious, as breathing.

And therein lies the problem of how to forgive, that is, of how to align our own spiritual nature with the activity of forgiving, or more generally, with the practice of forgiveness.   How do we become creatures, not just of a forgiving practice, but of a forgiving nature?

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As we did at the outset of our investigations, let’s begin with some everyday examples.

How does a woman improve her cardiovascular condition?  By regularly going to the gym and exercising on a treadmill.  She cannot improve her fitness level simply by willing it to be so, but she can improve that level by willfully and conscientiously doing something.  The internal improvement is accomplished incrementally and over time by her disciplined commitment to a certain pattern of outward behavior.

Or how does one lose weight?  By altering ones eating habits, by choosing better food and consuming them in smaller amounts.

How does one get to play the piano in Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice, as the old joke instructs us.

In these simple and homely cases, the primary internal changes resulting from external behavior are purely physiological.  But those who have engaged in these endeavors will often notice an accompanying change of attitude.  As her fitness level improves, the time spent on the treadmill by our health-conscious walker is no longer experienced as drudgery, put rather as a pleasure.  She enjoys the experience of her muscles in motion, and her previous attitude towards ‘those exercise nuts’ begins to evolve.  She prides herself on her disciplined commitment.  She may even find herself making new friends with similar interests at the gym!

And similarly for our dieter.  As his body begins to feel tighter and lighter, his self-confidence gradually returns.  His outlook is no longer complicated by conscious or unconscious feelings of self-disappointment and self-criticism, his attention is freed to focus outward rather than inward, his interests are engaged by the world around him and the fresh opportunities it offers to his enhanced capabilities.

And our pianist, as her fingers grow more and more adept, as her hands and eyes and ears become more coordinated to a single purpose – creating music – so almost  certainly will there be corresponding emotional and attitudinal changes: too many and too varied to list.

In these material and everyday examples, the point is that emotions and attitudes, even if not subject to immediate willful transformation, nonetheless can and often do evolve in response to our willful determination, to our deliberate behavior.  In a word, the virtuous will is an achievement, often hard won.

A good fairy tale, like a good parable, may sometimes communicate a human reality more effectively than a volume of abstractions.  So let’s conclude with a fairy tale. 

THE MASK

There was once a king who ruled his subjects through terror and intimidation. His cruelty was so deeply ingrained in his nature that his very face was frozen into a terrible rictus of disdainful pride that instilled fear and dismay in everyone he met. But he didn’t care, because those were exactly the emotions he wished to inspire.

But there came a time when from a distance he saw the beautiful princess of a neighboring kingdom, and for the first time in his life, he felt incomplete. He inquired, and learned that the princess was as lovely of character as she was of appearance. He longed to make her acquaintance and court her, but he knew that his terrible face would frighten her, and he would never have the chance of winning her love.

As his only resort, he sought out a local witch, and ordered her to fashion him a magic mask that would hide his true face, and instead show one of benevolence. When he tried the mask on, he could barely recognize himself in the mirror. Instead of arrogance, the mask showed an expression of humility; instead of cruelty, the mask showed kindness; instead of avarice, the mask showed generosity.  When he smirked with gloating delight at the deceptiveness of the mask, the mirror showed back a gentle look of calm reassurance.

With confidence in the mask, he arranged to make the acquaintance of the beautiful princess.

The courtship took root, but the king quickly realized that in order for it to flourish, his behavior would have to support the illusion of the mask.  Gritting his teeth – A friendly smile, through the mask! – he began playing the part of the benevolent ruler.  And over time, he played the part well.    The laws of his land came to manifest justice, instead of tyranny.  His people, at first wary, gradually turned to him for help and understanding.  Neighboring kingdoms, once exploited, now found in him a cooperative ally.  Most of all, perhaps, a feeling of general goodwill and peace spread over his country.

At long last, the king proposed marriage, and the princess accepted.  But on the eve of their wedding, the king, moved by a strange urging of conscience that he had never before experienced, confessed to the princess what he had done, that ever since their first acquaintance he had been wearing a magical mask that disguised his true appearance.  Before they could marry, he needed to show her his true face.

“Of course,” she said. “But do not worry.  I love your heart, whatever your face.  Let me remove the mask.”

And when she had done so, she studied him for a moment, and then said, with a quizzical smile, “My darling, you look exactly the same as the first day we met.”

And so we return to forgiveness.  As we’ve noted many times now, forgiveness can be more or less complete, and full forgiveness – meaning the complete restoration of the emotional economy of the forgiver towards the forgiven – is a rare and noteworthy accomplishment.

But this divine ideal of complete forgetfulness, while perhaps not often attainable in this earthly coil, may still remain our guiding star, the destination that shapes our Christian efforts and directs our Christian journey. The old adage has it that we must never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, and we may find encouragement in the assurance that God will never require more of us than what is humanly possible.

And what is humanly possible?

Practice, practice, practice.

The End