We are called to confront the person who has hurt us. We are not to go and beat them up. Or have another do it for us, as my son offered to do for me. We are not to escalate the situation by inflicting some kind of pain. We are not to harm when we have been harmed. As people of faith we are to “go and tell them— and work it out between the two of you.” (Mt:18:15b) If that does not work, we are to engage a process of accountability by inviting another to help us hear each other; another who will witness the interaction to help us to keep it honest and to listen to each other. And if we can’t sort it out, then take it to the community, building in more accountability. Now if that does not work, well then, what will? This teaching attributed to Jesus, challenges us to start again. How many times? Peter was brave enough to raise that question: "Master, how many times do I forgive one who hurts me? Seven?" (Mt 18:21) Jesus replied, "Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.” (Mt 18:22) I would argue that if we engaged in this process of confronting, with an intent to contain as many as seventy times seven times, then we might get pretty good at it. We might just stop spreading the hurt around. Further, we might just stop inflicting more and more pain. So let me suggest that a modest proposal for this season and time, in this post 9/11 era; in this era of reacting rather than responding, in this era of multiple conflicts and wars! Let me suggest a modest proposal that is simply this: May all people of faith come to confront hurt and contain our response by engaging in a process that moves towards forgiveness. The forgiveness that I am inviting is not the kind of forgiveness of our childhoods, where we are told by a well-meaning adult to say we are sorry, kiss and make up, and then go play; although this has its merits. But I am inviting the kind of forgiveness that “seeks not so much to be understood as to understand,” as Reinhold Niebuhr invites in the “The Serenity Prayer.” This is an uncomfortable invitation to confront hurt and contain our response, by engaging in a process that moves towards forgiveness. It’s not easy because it requires us to take a risk: we may be wrong about another person. We may feel hurt by one who never intended to hurt us. What is even scarier is that we might confront someone who does not care, or does not have the capacity to care, that they may have hurt us. There are people who twist information hoping to feed our anxiety.
Therefore, part of embracing this invitation to a process that moves towards forgiveness is to be informed. To seek knowledge and truth before we confront. Finally, we need to invest time, as much time as it will take as we keep engaging the process over and over again, engaging in a practice that Jan Richardson calls “with-craft.” She describes it as the art of organizing one’s life resources around a commitment to be with a person, group, organization, cause, particularly when being with them calls for cleverness, ingenuity, and improvisation in the face of divisive outside forces. […] Being with does not mean being without conflict, without struggle, without pain […]. When conflict, struggle and pain arise, it means moving through them with integrity, with one another, with something deeper, with feeling, with hope, with desire, with dreams, with imagination, with wisdom, with memory, with awareness, with strength, with grace, with compassion and love. (Sacred Journeys, 288) To do what Richardson suggests takes commitment, faith, engaging our intellect and seeking and speaking truth. Further, it requires the sacrifice of some of our most precious commodity: time.
“Master, how many times do I forgive one who hurts me? Seven?” (Mt 18:21) Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven.” (Mt 18:21-22) I realize that there are easier ways to live. And yet, I know, that we live in a world that shows the stress cracks of our current way of life; pain, bloodshed, fear and ignorance seem to be the norm. Therefore I offer this modest proposal, to people of faith, no matter what your faith may be. In truth, for me this is more than a proposal. It is my prayer. It is my plea. May all the people of faith confront hurt and contain our response, by engaging in a process that moves towards forgiveness. May we do so seventy times seven times. Or as many times as it takes until the hurting and hating stop. And pain is no more.
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