FORGIVENESS – Series 9 Part 1

Repent and Return

Some people are near impossible – if not impossible – to please or reform, even when they are the guilty ones.  That is implied in Paul’s remarkable admonition in Romans 12:18, to “live peaceably with all men,” but to do so “as much as” lies within one’s ability.  In other words, be notified that you will not succeed to win the peace in every case or with every person, no matter how much you try.  You should not blame yourself for such folks, for trying much but not succeeding.   Even if you died trying to please them, your carcass still won’t soften them.  They will ever find fault.  That is probably also why St Luke adds the “if” clause in his scriptures on forgiveness.  It might seem a humbling act to return and request forgiveness, but the action is the offender’s important part of the ‘investment’ into the peace process.  It is no cheap investment.

In Luke 17:3-4, which has been repeatedly quoted, it is said that the trespasser should be forgiven “if he repent,” and if he “turn again to thee.”  In other words, two things are expected from the truly penitent trespasser; two things that he should do, not what should be done for him: first, to repent, and next, to return; to return ‘to thee,’ not to a different ‘address,’ with his own legs.  That creates at least four scenarios:

• he could repent and return
• he could repent but not return
• he could refuse to repent but wish to return
• he could refuse to repent and refuse to return.

The Four Scenarios

Scenario 1: Those Who Wish to Return but won’t Repent

Those who wish to return to the bountiful palace of pardon but are unwilling to pay their due sacrifice of repentance are a dangerous breed, less honourable than the Prodigal Son.  They want back their lost glory, but on their own terms, in their own court or pigs’ pen.  They want the father’s honour while they continue their prodigal lifestyle.  They want back the proclamatory family ring of honour on their rebellious finger, and the protective shoes on their blistered feet, but in their distant prodigal land while they still frolic with swine.  They expect the father’s fatted-calf meaty party, but in their Far-Country rather than humbly under his roof.  They expect the father’s ‘forgiveness’ for a lifestyle that they are not prepared to change.  They take no responsibility for their waywardness.  Finally, if they don’t get it as they want, they blackmail the father for being wicked and  ‘unfatherly’; for being very unwilling to ‘forgive’ – forgiveness according to their dictionary.  For them, forgiveness is a right that you must concede to them in the interest of your righteous soul that must not go to hellfire.  They see no wrong in what THEY do but won’t miss the smallest detail of the wrongs in what THE OTHER does.

Forgiveness should not concede to blackmail.  It should not appear to endorse the prodigal lifestyle.  Forgiveness is not an appeasement.  Forgiveness on the Prodigal’s terms is a tacit endorsement of his prodigal ways.  Good fathers are careful not to send out such a signal so that they don’t turn other sons into that apparently ‘profitable and pardonable’ prodigal path. Strayed prodigals should repent and then return – in that order; not return in the hope that they would or could later repent.  If they (or are returned) without repentance, there is little guarantee that they will repent thereafter.  They might then hasten the old man’s death for a fresh and faster ration of the ‘inheritance.’

Scenario 2: Those Who Would Repent and Return

Those who will repent and return with their own legs back to the house that they abandoned, are noble.  They had been good students of the Far-Country College of Practical Suffering. They deserve the fatted-calf party.  Their ‘homeward’ actions match well with their confession of sin to Heaven and to earthly father.  In the past, they had taken their selfish steps away from the house, now they are taking the same steps penitently back towards the same house.  It is commendable repentance and return.

‘Returning’ might not necessarily be physical, so far as relationship is re-established.  It could be an emotional ‘return,’ especially in an age of technology.  A soul can return and reconnect while the body is still distances away, separated by mountains and oceans and other circumstances beyond personal and immediate control.

Scenario 3: Those Who Would Repent but Wish to ‘Move On’

There are also those who will verily repent yet not wish to return.  They probably have seen that the father they fled from was and still is a hireling, not a shepherd.  They are unwilling to risk their souls again in his prison house – or slaughterhouse.  They have repented, but won’t return.  Their safety is not guaranteed in that house, and the ‘father’ knows.

Scenario 4: Those Who will Neither Repent nor Return

These break your heart and walk away, claiming their right to hurt you so badly so often.  They will not repent; they will not return. They still have an unfinished fight with the father, so why would they return!  These don’t hide their malice.

It is safer for the grieving father that these remain where they are.  They probably need to take a few more practical classes in suffering, in the prodigal Far-Country of lack and pain.  Some of them, long resisted by their own pride that will not let them make the saving journey back home, will be buried in their adopted Far Country – among their ‘swine’ kin.

Conclusion:  Attracting the Father’s Blessing

Those who return without repenting usually cause more harm than before, and often depart again. Those who repent and return are blessed.  They are likely to remain; less likely to carelessly offend again.  Those who repent but choose not to return are not unwise.  They might be taking precautions against future outbreaks in a home that has not made sufficient efforts to not offend again.  Those who repent but ‘return’ to a different address probably have some inner struggles that they are yet to overcome.  They may not have told all the truth about why they left in the first place.  Repentance plus voluntary return is what attracts the Father’s feast.

The following further relational details may be gleaned from Luke 17:3-4:

• there is offence
• the offended takes the initiative to give rebuke
• the offender receives the rebuke
• he returns
• he returns as often as he offends
• he returns by himself
• he returns to the offended
• he says something, by mouth or in other concrete form
• he owns up to his offence and asks for forgiveness
• he is forgiven.