Safeguarding 4 Forgiveness – the last step?
St Matthew 6: 9-14
Jesus said: ‘Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Reflection
Almost every service of Christian worship includes the Lord’s Prayer in some form or other. It is the prayer that every Christian knows by heart and, if we are honest, is often prayed without too much thought. The rhythm and familiarity give comfort. Yet, for some the prayer can be terrifying.
Forgiveness can be used as a weapon by the Church; those who have experienced abuse, oppression, and injustice can be silenced by those who tell them they have failed to forgive their abuser. Jesus’ words implying that God’s forgiveness is linked by our forgiveness of others can be a text of terror. Winnie Johnson, the mother of Keith Bennett murdered in the 1960s, was a faithful Christian but could not bring herself to pray the Our Father. Forgiveness can be a weapon we use against ourselves.
Yet, perhaps, we could reimagine forgiveness to be something rather liberating.
- To forgive does not mean we forget.
- To forgive does not mean we say that what happened does not matter.
- To forgive does not mean we would trust an abuser not to abuse again.
- To forgive does not mean we don’t deal with the issue.
Instead, forgiveness could mean not allowing the abuser, the bully, or the torturer to have power over us anymore. It might mean letting go of the bitterness that holds us back. It might mean living our lives without reference to another’s desire to control.
Forgiveness might be a final step in a journey of healing and freedom; it might be facilitated by true repentance (not just saying sorry but facing up to justice) and the administration of justice itself – which we will look at tomorrow. Whatever forgiveness is, it must not be a weapon used by the Church, or its well-meaning members, to make itself feel less uncomfortable. Instead, we need to think more about the power of forgiveness and diverse ways in which we might understand it.
Prayer
Forgive us, good Lord,
when we use your words as weapons,
when we insist the bruised are further hurt,
and when our discomfort makes us insist
others act to make us feel better.
Help us, instead, to see forgiveness as freedom from bondage,
liberation from control, and power to change.
Amen