FORGIVENESS – Series 12

Forgiveness is Requested, not Extorted

Forgiveness should be requested, not demanded.  One does not say, “But I have been begging him since, yet he doesn’t want to forgive.  After all, is he God that I should be begging him over this very small matter?”  ForGIVEness should be a gift, not an extortion.  Penitence is deeper than the words of confession by which one ‘applies’ for forgiveness.  If confession has no roots in a repentant heart, if it is only as deep as the tongue, then it had been a mere religious show or ceremonial oration, which could be more offensive to the sensitive soul.  We may not call something a gift if it were procured by force from the other.  Gifts are offered and received, not extorted; for-give-ness no less.

Who Takes the Initiative?

In these matters of reparation and restoration, who should make the first move to the other?  Properly, it is the sick person who seeks the physician; it is the sinner who seeks forgiveness.   The brothers of Joseph took the initiative to go to Joseph, even though they were his elders (who nevertheless had been made inferior by their present circumstance of hunger and their needy immigrant status in Joseph’s territory of Egypt).  Also, it was the Prodigal Son who went back to the father, rather than the father going for him in his non-descript Republic of ‘Far Country.’  He said to himself, “I will arise and GO…”; go where? “to my father.”  He meant his words; “he arose, and came to his father” (Luke 15:18, 20).

 “I will arise and GO…,” the Prodigal said to himself.  Sometimes it takes the crises of the Far Country for stubborn prodigals to give themselves the advice that they have refused from others.  In those self-inflicted pains and sad solitudes is when they tell themselves the hard truth that they have often refused from fathers.  The sincere advice one gives oneself often opens shut doors and restores lost favours.  Unfortunately, sometimes, precious self-advice comes too late – so late after prohibiting pride has gone ahead of irredeemable destruction, and the door has been shut (Proverbs 16:18).

In Luke 15, Jesus gave three parables about three lost items: the lost sheep (vv. 4-7), the lost silver coin (vv. 8-10), and the lost son whom we call Prodigal Son (vv. 11-32).  A coin has no consciousness; it does not even know that it is lost, so the owner goes sweeping for it.  A sheep has life but no intellect.  It knows that it is lost but cannot find its way back.  It has no cell phone or GPS locator by which to tell its migrant master’s present location or find its way back there, so the shepherd goes looking for it.  The lost son, however, is different.  He exercised his choice to depart and with his own legs went off to his distant address.  The father therefore waited for him to use the same legs to retrace his way back home.  The father did not go looking for him, even though he looked out for him.  Any prodigal son who takes the pains to travel the long distance back home to such a lavish family reception as the Prodigal Son received, is not likely to easily trespass again or return to that ‘far country.’  If the father had made the trip to seek him in that far land, the son might not have much valued the cost of the pardon he had been offered.  He might have thrown that precious pardon to the pigs that had become his new companions in that strange land.

All three items were said to have been “found” (vv. 5-6, 8-9, 24,32), but whereas the first two were ‘found’ where they were lost at, the son was ‘found’ where he was lost from.  Whereas the first two were ‘found’ through the effort of their owners, the son was ‘found’ through his own effort, when he made himself findable by returning with his own legs.  In all three cases, there was a seeker.  In the first two cases, the ‘owners’ took the initiative to ‘find’ what had been lost; in the last case, the loser took the initiative to seek what he had lost, by presenting himself where he would be found.

If the returning prodigal was described as ‘found,’ it means that the father had been searching or looking out for him, but not by going to his ‘far country’ address.   Somebody might question how the father could have been ‘searching’ for a son he never went out to look for.  Only that father knew in how many lonely streets and deserted countryside pens his grieving heart had searched for that lost son. Visible actions alone did not tell the full story – his side of the search-story.

Women might sweep for their lost coins, and shepherds might go out in search of lost sheep, but fathers may wait for lost sons to use their volitional legs to find their way back home again.  This might not sound ‘righteous’ but it is what may be called ‘tough love.’  The found sheep is spoken of as a “sinner that repenteth” (v.7); the found silver coin is equally spoken of as a “sinner that repenteth” (v.10).  But the same description is not used for the son.  He is rather described as having come back from a kind of death. He had been very aware of the choice he was making.  However, after tasting that bitter choice, he found in it the attractive emptiness that he had long pursued as alternative truth.  He learnt a lesson the hard way.

The three parables and the three lost items tell of three different levels of consciousness: the mindless coin, the senseless sheep, and the deliberate son.  There are errors you might overlook in mindless coins and timid sheep, which you would not allow in intelligent sons under your roof, who suddenly wake up one morning to subtly but publicly stamp upon you the sad name of an uncaring and irresponsible father depriving them of due access to good fortunes.  Such sons might not appreciate the value of unasked-for forgiveness mailed to their ‘far country’ address.  But if they should travel so far back home to seek it, after having been bitterly bitten by the storms of a hard life, they would deserve it better and value it more.  The prodigal son was received back home with a public celebration announcing his wisely return from a foolish far country. That celebration was as public as the widespread embarrassment that he had caused when he fled home.  That son was unlikely to repeat the foolish trip.  In the name of ‘love’ and ‘care,’ some indulgent fathers have sometimes interfered with the development process of their sons and, unfortunately, left them worse, having hurried them out of the oven half baked, just because they cried aloud about the transforming heat that had been purging their tough prodigal character.

The Initiative of the Righteous

Notwithstanding the foregoing, there are situations where maturity would compel the stronger to take the righteous discretion to make the move to the other, even though that other is the undeserving guilty one.  That is as Jesus prescribes to His followers (Matthew 5:23-25), not because it is the right of the sinner.  It is especially a prescription for ‘brothers’ who cannot afford to live day after day under the same roof with their hearts out of alignment with each other.  In such a scenario, the one who is closer enough to hear and obey the voice of the Master, takes the initiative.  Let’s look at the following passage:

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;

24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matthew 5:23-24).

The one who brings a gift to God’s altar is a worshipper of God.  The other ‘brother’ who is far from the altar when worshippers are taking sacrifices there is likely not a worshipper himself, or not a good worshipper.  A ‘brother’ like that, who keeps away from the altar of God when others are making sacrifices there is very capable also of hoarding an “ought AGAINST” anyone, even against more righteous and committed worshippers who keep frequently close to the altar of God.   In such conflicts with a guilty altar-far ‘brother,’ the altar-close worshipper could take the initiative for forgiveness.

By his nearness to the altar of sacrifice, the worshipper hears the voice of God more clearly than the altar-far brother.  His peace initiatives are a sacrificial response to that Voice, not to the wrongs of his altar-far assailant.  In other words, even though it is not the protocol for prodigals, the righteousness of the Altar sometimes compels the person trespassed against to go to the trespasser to dispense forgiveness and ensure peace.  It is not a right to be claimed by the trespasser; it is merely an onus upon the worshipper because of his cherished nearness to the altar of God.  The closer one stands to the altar, the more different would be one’s approach to matters; the farther one gets from the altar of God, the more ‘ought’ one carries “against” people, even against more righteous worshippers at their customary altar of sweet sacrifices.

The altar does not permit in some lives the stains that others might take for granted.  The glorious light of the altar does not ignore even little spots in the garments of those who draw nigh to worship, even though larger stains might matter little in the garments of other ‘brethren’ who frolic with swine in dark and shadowy far-far countries (Isaiah 6:1-5).

References

Hill, Cherie. The Forgiveness Factor: How to Forgive what you can’t Forget. Bloomingdale: Three Streams Publishers/Struik Christian Media, 2016. https://books.google.com.ng/books

Hubbard, Elbert. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/elbert_hubbard_133616?src=t_forgiveness

Lazare, Aaron. “Making Peace through Apology.” (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/making_peace_through_apology