Midweek Lent 2012
February 29-March 21, 2012
Luke 7.36-50
“Forgiving Ourselves”
I’m glad we chose the topic of forgiveness for our series this year, because I think it’s a big deal, for our churches and for our society. One reason is that many people come to me, asking how to forgive. Another reason is that it’s been cheapened by our society and culture. What passes for “I’m sorry” in our society and culture is a shadow of biblical repentance. What we hear instead are what my colleague, Pr. Collette Broady Preiss, calls “faux-pologies,” or “false apologies.” “I’m sorry” usually means, “I’m sorry you found out,” or “I’m sorry you are so upset about this.” However, Ash Wednesday unmasked the insincerity of cheap repentance and showed our need to come clean.
We need to come clean and we need to forgive, mainly because of that little prayer we offer at least once a week, if not daily. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Interestingly, scientists have found that the ability to forgive is directly related to our health. People who forgive and experience forgiveness live longer and healthier lives. As one of my favorite observers on things theological, Anne Lamott says, “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” However, not forgiving affects us in a far more important way: it hampers our ability to love. In our reading from Luke 7, Jesus says, “The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”
This is a terrific story on many levels, but I think it shows something we don’t always realize. Our ability to love is hampered by our ability not to only forgive, but also to accept forgiveness. The contrast between Simon the Pharisee and the unnamed woman sinner couldn’t be greater. Simon is a named male and presumably respected religious leader who occupies a position of power and authority. The woman is an unnamed female who is clearly disrespected who occupies the position of being an outcast. Yet, the important contrast that Jesus focuses on is their ability to love as an expression of forgiveness. A valid reading of the story is that Simon had little to be forgiven. But maybe it is also valid to say that he couldn’t forgive himself.
Forgiving ourselves is one of the hardest things that to do. Often, it’s because we don’t see our sin or rationalize it away. Most of the time, though, we don’t forgive ourselves because we can’t let it go. We know we are forgiven in our head, but not in our heart. In Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve[1], Lewis Smedes offers some help when it comes to forgiving ourselves. First, he reminds us that the four stages of forgiveness apply to forgiving ourselves as well as forgiving others: we hurt, hate, heal, and become whole.
We hurt others, from what we do and don’t do, and then usually ending up hurting ourselves in the same way. Then, the pain we cause other people becomes the hate we feel for ourselves, a hate that can be either passive or aggressive. Aggressive shows itself in self-destructive acts, such as drinking, taking drugs, cutting ones’ self, or other harmful act. Passive hatred shows itself in our inability to love. The healing comes when you rewrite the script of your life, knowing that the person who did what you did is no longer the person you are now, that God has redeemed you through love. This is when you start to become a whole person again. This does not mean that you are smug or indifferent, but rather secure in who you have become.
So, how do we do this? Smedes says we need clarity, courage, concreteness, and confirmation. First, we need to be clear and honest about what we’ve done. There is no passing the buck or minimizing our actions. Jesus was clear about what the woman saw in herself: she had many sins. Second, we need to have the courage to forgive our self, especially when others are condemning us. The sinful woman showed great courage in facing her sins by coming to Simon’s house. Next, we need to be concrete about what we are forgiving ourselves for, the actual sins we have committed. We tend to weigh ourselves down with guilt, saying things such as, “I’m worthless and a horrible person.” Those gather in Simon’s house did the same thing by calling the woman a sinner. In contrast, Jesus focuses on her sins, preserving her worth as a human being.
Finally, Smedes says, we need to confirm our self-forgiveness with a reckless act of love. Love, he says, is a signal that we’ve forgiven ourselves and that we refuse to stay in a broken place. That’s what the woman was expressing through the anointing of Jesus’ feet. The love of God in Jesus not only gives us the right to forgive ourselves, but also the power to do so. I think that we can also love ourselves into self-forgiveness, not as a way to earn it, but as a way to live into it.
Forgiving ourselves is important, and I was recently reminded of one important reason. When we reach the end of our lives, it is natural for us to look book and evaluate what we have done and what we haven’t been able to do. Regrets are as much a part of that process as thankfulness. To the extent that we have been able to forgive ourselves for the hurts we caused ourselves and others, that passage will go much smoother. Forgiving ourselves doesn’t happen overnight, and our inner critic doesn’t let us forget. But the love of God never lets us go and gives us the confidence that we will become what God wishes for us to be, vessels overflowing with God’s love. Thanks be to God, Amen.
[1] Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984).
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