Forgiveness

March 11, 2011
“Please forgive me. Can you forgive me? Will you?”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive...”

Asking forgiveness requires at least two choices. When I ask you to forgive me, I make the first one. I choose to believe that our relationship can be better. I choose not to walk away, not to write you off. I choose to believe you belong in my life and to hope I belong in yours. When I ask you to forgive me, I risk owning fully the wrong I’ve done, but I chose to believe it’s worth the risk because I respect you and value our relationship.

The second choice is yours. It’s the same as mine, and it also involves risk. Do you choose to believe the relationship is worth restoring? Are you willing to work at it with me? The answer might be no. You might not believe I can right the wrong. You don’t have to forgive me. You could walk away. But if you choose to forgive, then we’ve sealed a commitment to make things better. We’ve acted in faith. We’ve said to each other that the relationship is worth more whole than broken.

Thankfully, God’s judgment — sharp in the pit of the stomach — is always mediated by grace. In the Lord’s Prayer lies a challenge. We ask God to forgive us as we forgive each other. I would like to believe God will be better than that, that God will forgive more freely than I do. But in that prayer I accept my challenge: to forgive as freely as I’d like to be forgiven, to work as hard at restoring a broken relationship as I can. And when I fail to meet your expectations or you fail to meet mine, or either of us falls short of God’s expectations, then we throw ourselves together at the feet of God’s grace and mercy.

You can forgive or not. So can I. The power lies within us. My prayer today is that God’s grace will help us to forgive each other, that by God’s mercy all our relationships will be made right. Amen.