Today’s readings are on forgiveness, and they follow nicely on last week’s readings about “seeking just judgment.” It’s a deep and rich subject, as I think becomes clearer and clearer with age. In childhood we are sometimes forced to apologize, and also to “forgive” one another, a performative exercise in making peace. Across the years, nearly all of us unfortunately come to realize that humans can wrong one another in a huge variety of ways, and it’s not always possible to “make peace” even in that superficial, performative sense. Sometimes the other person isn’t sorry. Sometimes they aren’t willing even to pretend. And even if they are, you yourself may not have healed from the wrong you’ve suffered. How then can we forgive?
Even as we ask these (genuinely hard) questions, we may find ourselves noticing something else. The world is in a bad way without forgiveness. People wrong each other all the time and often do not have the resources to make things right. This is one of the major themes of Aeschylus’ Oresteia: the characters in the drama have both inflicted and incurred such deep wounds that it simply isn’t possible for them, at least acting as individuals, to handle the problem in a fitting way. Obligations of piety (e.g., to avenge one’s family and preserve family honor) are in direct conflict with the needs of civic peace and order. There is no way, at least on the level of the individual, to make it right.
In that case, Athena must step in and handle the problem, a literal deus ex machina which is generally read as a lesson in the necessity of a state role in preserving justice. (By arrogating to itself responsibility for certain aspects of justice, it defuses blood feuds and other vengeance-related pathologies.) But we sometimes find ourselves in relevantly similar places in our cultures, our communities, or as individuals. We want resolution, but don’t seem to have the means to attain it, because the injury has not healed (and perhaps can’t be healed, at least through ordinary natural means). We cannot get to: “I’m sorry” / “Oh, that’s all right.”
I’ve written before on this Substack about the pathologies of postmodernism. I will note in passing here that this is one of the truly damning defects of postmodern social diagnoses: They really have no role for forgiveness, no mechanism for moving on from social injustice. And without that, every human civilization in history is basically irredeemable. They all have injustices and harms too grave to heal fully.
Clearly this is not easy. I think the readings still offer us a few very helpful insights.
First, even if we can’t entirely move on from injury, try not to “hug it tight.” Don’t build your life around grievance. Don’t make vengeance a defining personal goal. It’s one thing to find yourself in a place where you can’t in all sincerity shake hands with another person and move on. (That unfortunately happens, and it’s not always up to you.) But at least, try not to incorporate that into your own personal identity. “Hugging anger tight” will not make you a better, or happier, person.
Second, understand that a kind of forgiveness is possible even when things have not been made right, precisely because we ourselves have been forgiven of real and serious offenses, by the Lord himself. You’ve been wronged in this life. So have I. But when we recognize that we ourselves have perpetrated harms that we cannot make right, that supplies a basis for recognizing a kind of kinship even with someone who isn’t particularly sorry for what they did to us. Which might in turn give rise to a real compassion, perhaps even a desire to pray for that person rooted not in intense self-righteousness but in a genuine sorrow for their sin. (In my experience though, you should be honest with yourself about whether you’ve gotten there. Sometimes it’s better just to go for awhile trying not to think too much about the person who’s injured you, if efforts to pray for them inevitably tilt into feelings of moral superiority. I do find, if I wait long enough, there usually comes a time eventually when the desire for that person’s moral good feels sincere.)
Finally, I think we should recognize that complete forgiveness generally does require the help of grace. Precisely because we are fallen, weak, and often “within our rights” in some sense to feel aggrieved. Just as Athena had to step in and secure justice for the polis, God needs to step in and restore peace in our hearts. It’s only when we trust him to secure justice and mercy, for us and for others, that we can truly let go of our grievances and “love one another.” But that helps us understand why it’s so important not to “hug tightly” to our wrath. God can’t heal us of our injury unless we let him. We have to be open to that divine intervention.
That, in turn, explains why the second reading fits into this lineup, even though it’s the only one not explicitly about forgiveness:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For this is why Christ died and came to life, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:7-9)
Amen. A greater openness to forgiveness would certainly do much good for the world today.
P.S. This weekend I’ve been musing on a redesign for this Substack. I think it’s time. I started with a very simple layout, which is the reasonable thing to do when you’re just beginning. At this point I think it would make sense to have a more complex layout, enabling me to post other things (shorter thoughts, quotes from things I’m reading, other people’s essays that I liked and want to promote) on the page directly while still leaving the two weekly posts as the centerpiece. So I’ve been thinking a lot about that, but since I’m traveling this week, I may have to keep musing for a little. What I’m saying is: Coming Soon.