MAGIC EYES: The Pain and Genius of Forgiveness

Thomas Browne said that “the vices we scoff at in others laugh at us from within ourselves.” For more than any other relational failure this is true of hurt and vengeance. When the great nineteenth century Spanish General Ramon Narvaez lay dying in Madrid, for instance, a priest was called in to give him last rites. “Have you forgiven your enemies?” the padre asked.

“Father,” confessed Narvaez, “I have no enemies. I shot them all.”

Too often that is the story of our lives, individually, socially and ethnically. Our vampire world drinks the blood of enemies who spat and spar until violence makes all losers. Lewis Smedes wrestled with our inability to reconcile in Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve (Harper San Francisco, 1996). One of his most powerful stories, true but disguised to spare the families, is about people he calls Jane and Ralph Graafschap.

Hell Defined

This couple, said Smedes, had been married for more than twenty years, nurturing three children who were just in those stages of getting married or leaving for college. Ralph and Jane were about to be empty nesters, and though they loved their offspring, they were secretly anticipating a new time of redeveloping their intimacy as a couple. Jane had given up her personal career goals in order to be a full-time mother and homemaker for these last decades, and she began to plan for reasserting her skills outside their home.

Then tragedy struck. Ralph’s younger brother and wife were killed in a horrible car accident. They left three children as orphans, aged 8, 10 and 12. The community rallied for a short while, providing all kinds of assistance and relief, but Ralph knew that he was the big brother, and to him fell the lot of caring for those kids.

So Ralph and Jane took the three into their home, and Jane started all over again—clothes to buy and clean and mend; groceries to stock for voracious appetites; night-time cuddling with scared and lonely little ones; Christmases and birthdays to plan for… Jane’s life settled right back into its old routine for another decade.

Ralph was well-established in his career, and at the height of his business skills. So he traveled a lot and made deals, and spoke about the sacrifices a family makes when tragedies, like that which happened to his brother, happened. Jane, however, was left to shuffle three more teenagers through their changing identities and raging hormones. She had hoped to travel some with Ralph, but this new family required all her attentions. Even her biological children were not able to get all the doting they had hoped from their mother as they married and had kids of their own.

By the time nine years had passed, the toll of raising two families had robbed Jane of her vitality and sidelined any chance of another career. Only the youngest of the second tribe was at home, and he was 17-years-old. When he left for college the following fall, Jane would be relieved but emotionally spent. Ralph’s rocket had been soaring, though, and Jane couldn’t wait to join him for the ride.

That’s when Ralph came home from a business trip and broke the news. His secretary, Sue, was a woman of great personality, huge skills, and a lot of good looks. She had made it possible for Ralph to be the man he has become, while Jane was too busy with the children. Sue had time for him. In fact, they traveled often together, something that Jane never seemed to make opportunities for. More than that, Sue absolutely doted on Ralph in a way that he couldn’t count on at home. Sue really understood Ralph, while Jane didn’t seem to anymore.

So Ralph filed for divorce and married Sue. They were both deeply committed Christians, so they joined a church where they could sing and pray and get fed and contribute their considerable skills and money. They were welcomed by the pastor and the leadership team as if God has just sent a wonderful blessing to the church.

Jane, of course, felt cheated on so many fronts. Even in her own church she had become an outsider. Her social life grew very small, and her children didn’t know what to do with a single parent. Ralph and Sue were always great fun, but Jane was becoming a bitter tag-along nobody cared to have around.

Ralph was truly a nice guy. Even as he slipped easily into his second marriage, he realized his responsibility before God to make things right with his former wife. Motivated by a righteous heart, one day he called Jane and told her of his happiness. While he was still a bit unsettled as to the manner in which it had all come about, he could definitely feel God’s blessing in all of this. But he also was aware that through the process Jane might have felt hurt at times, so Ralph wanted to ask her forgiveness for whatever pain he might have caused. If Jane could just give Ralph and Sue her blessing, he knew God would be pleased.

What could Jane do? What would you advise her to do? What would you do, if you were in her shoes?

“I want you to bless me,” Ralph had said. And before she even knew what she should do, the words spat out of Jane’s mouth. “I want you to go to hell!”

“I want you to go to hell.” That’s really what a relationship that has moved into conflict without forgiveness amounts to, doesn’t it? Hell is the place where justice is never tempered by mercy, where relationships are never mended, where grudges grow and grace takes a holiday. Hell is eternity apart from God’s forgiving love, and hell is the prison of our unforgiveness into which we lock both our enemies and ourselves with no parole hearings. It’s a bit like playing Monopoly and landing on a square that forces you to pick up a card which reads: “GO TO JAIL! GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL! DO NOT PASS GO! DO NOT COLLECT $200!”

Prickly People

Within the moral codes of most religions, forgiveness is urged and taught, and certainly none more powerfully than in the New Testament of Christianity. Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 18 about conflict resolution and forgiveness are spectacular on paper. We read them and nod with understanding and trust. Yet they are some of the most difficult words of challenge that face us anywhere.

Take, for instance, the nasty tale of Gilbert and Sullivan, dynamic duo of the singing stage. They created fun-filled musicals and light operas that gave high school drama departments and community theaters plenty of material to dazzle and delight. The creators’ names always appeared in tandem on the programs: Gilbert & Sullivan’s “H. M. S. Pinafore;” Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Patience;” Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Mikado;” Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance.”

It was as if they were a married couple. Indeed, much of their career felt like that, so it was only right for their names be wedded together in common speech.

At the height of their success, Gilbert and Sullivan even purchased a theater together so that they could exert full creative control over their new works. Then came the nasty disagreement. Sullivan ordered the installation of new carpets, but when the bill arrived, Gilbert hit the roof at the cost and refused to share in payment. They argued and fought about it, and finally took the case to court. A legal judgment settled the claim, yet it did nothing to heal the breach between them.

These grown men never spoke to one another again as long as they lived. When Sullivan wrote the music for a new production he would mail it to Gilbert. Then, when Gilbert finished the libretto, he would post it back to Sullivan again.

One time they were requested to make a curtain call together. Although they normally refused such things because of their ongoing animosity, this time it was a benefit honoring their joint work, and they couldn’t get out of it with grace. So they stayed at opposite sides back stage, entered from the far edges of the curtain, ensured that there were props in between them so that they could not see one another on the platform, and waved in isolation to opposite portions of the gathered audience.

Gilbert quarantined Sullivan in the prison of his mind, and Sullivan banished Gilbert from his social continent. Eventually they each became warders for the prison of the other. Yet like the guards who traveled to Australia on the first convict ships, it became apparent all too soon that there was little difference between the jailer and the jailed. Both came ashore onto a deserted island in the middle of an alien sea with no way to escape.

So Jesus’ words about dealing with the hurts that fester within are necessary. We are social creatures who cannot live in isolation. Yet because of the sin and stupidity that trouble our human condition, we do not live well with those around us. German philosopher Schopenhauer compared us to porcupines trying to nest together on a cold winter’s night. We crouch toward one another because we need the heat of other bodies to survive. Yet the closer we huddle, the more we prick each other with our porcupine quills. And, as Jesus indicates, it is most often those who are closest to us, our “brother” or our “sister,” who feel the pain of our presence and we theirs.

Jesus outlines a strategy for addressing our troubled relationships with one another. It is important to follow him down this difficult path in our attempts to restore relational glue to our fractured worlds, for the alternatives are much more destructive.

Keep It Personal

First, Jesus reminds us that we have to make the process of restoration a very personal matter. When we are hurt and when our pride has been damaged we often become vindictive and belligerent. We charge about and spew venom and seek to build polarized communities of those who are for “us” against “them.” The weapon of response most readily available to us is gossip and rumor. If I can send a toxic word to poison the atmosphere around the person who has hurt me I hold a new advantage over her or him.

In so doing, of course, I demote the other person from humankind and relegate her or him to animal status or lower. She is no longer my equal; she is a slut or a witch or a bimbo. He has become a pariah or a jackass or a scoundrel.

When my friend becomes my enemy, I feel the need to degrade him or her until they no longer deserve respect and have ceased to be bound with me by the rules of gentlemanly conduct or even the combat and prisoner of war stipulations of the Geneva Convention. Then I can blast them with excessive force, and hit below the belt.

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001, our nation experienced something of this intentional projected dehumanization. Those who hijacked the planes, according to many speeches and articles, were not humans but terrorists. They did not play by the rules. They did not value life as we did. They were schooled in barbarianism. For all these reasons and others like them our nation uttered cries for vengeance, many of which exceeded limits of human respect. It was General Philip Sheridan who gave us the striking reflection in 1869 that “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Post 9/11 there were many voices that seemed to echo his advice in the new and painful context.

But Jesus demands that we keep our hurting relationship and all its parties personal. “If your brother sins against you go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.” This instruction strips me of my most destructive weapons and forces me to rehumanize the very one from whom my heart wants to pull away in disgust. Jesus does not claim it will be an easy thing to do. No psychologist would pretend the process is a lark, or carries us along like a carnival ride. Hurt is painful, and so is restoration.

Keep It Communal

Second, Jesus challenges us to keep these matters under the eye of the community. It is hard for us to think communally in our highly individualized societies, yet this is precisely what we need to do. To keep these matters under the eye of the community means to place ourselves in submission to at least some form of group identity. This is not easy. Our consumerist way of life constantly tells us that all of reality revolves around us and our tastes and schedules and desires. In stark contrast, to enter a community means that I give up some of my personal agenda for the sake of the greater good.

We must be absolutely clear here. The Bible never suggests that our individual lives and personalities and desires and actions are of no value. Nor is a complete commitment to communal living the biblical norm. Significantly to the contrary, the scriptures raise high the importance of the individual and the responsibility of the person. In fact, much of economic capitalism, psychological personhood, and political democracy are rooted in and supported by serious reflections on theologies and philosophies drawing on orthodox Christian perspectives.

Yet our strong obsession with personal rights and self-absorbed experientialism turns our attention too much toward myopic self-interest and away from group dynamics or social interdependence. After years of reflection on the human condition in books like The People of the Lie (Touchstone, 1998), The Different Drum (Touchstone, 1998), and The Road Less Traveled (Touchstone, 2003), M. Scott Peck came to believe that one of the primary maladies of our age is our resistance against community. In his book A World Waiting to Be Born (Rider, 1993) he claimed that religious submission was the only cure for the incivility of our age. When we stop being submissive to some form of higher power, he said, we invariably become gods to ourselves and degenerate into a mad world of petty power brokers who are limited only by the striking range of their swinging fists and demanding fingers.

In the church, at least, we must become more aware of what Body Life means. How is it that Jesus has a stake in multiple lives, and what does this mean for our connection to the Head of the Body? What is the implication of the church’s role in multi-ethnic relations for international politics? How do we allow the leadership of the church, empowered by the Spirit and ordained by the community, to speak into the tensions of our lives that disrupt and fracture the fellowship of faith?

There are no easy answers, of course. But Jesus’ teaching demands that we wrestle with the issues. We cannot claim fidelity with God and at the same time play cavalierly in our daily relations with those around us. Each person and each congregation will have to be part of the process of determining how the community and its leadership will invest in reconciliation and restoration.

Thomas Merton, when writing about the religious community with which he spent many years, noted that every prospective participant was initially brought in and made to stand in the center of a circle formed by current members. There he was asked by the abbot, “What do you come seeking?”

The answers varied, of course, in line with the individual’s recent experiences. Some said, “I come seeking a deeper relationship with God.” Others were more pragmatic: “I desire to become more disciplined in my practices of life.” And there were always a few who were simply running away: “I hope to find solace from the world and refuge from the problems that have plagued me.”

But Merton said that there was really only one answer which all needed to voice before they could take up residence. “I need mercy!” was the true cry of the heart. “I need mercy!”

Merton said that any other answer betrayed our prideful assertion of self-determination. We wanted, we planned, we were running away from, we desired… But the person who knew his need of mercy had stepped out of the myopic circle of self-interest long enough to begin to see the fragile interdependence of all who were taken into the larger fellowship of faith. We cannot create community, for it does not revolve around us. We can only enter community or receive it as a gift. Hence, we need mercy in order to walk through its door.

If we know this, then when we experience tension and broken bonds with someone else in the community, it is not ours or theirs to resolve in isolation. The community itself has a stake in all lives and their interactions. Therefore, says Jesus, it is absolutely imperative that we engage the power of the community in addressing the hurts that affect any of its members. Failing to do so does not so much destroy community as it does isolate us from it. We become impoverished when we think we have all the resources to force others into obedience to our way of thinking or living.

Keep It Focused

One more thing that becomes apparent in Jesus’ teaching is that the entire emotional content of our relational difficulties needs to be reframed. Jesus says that our goal is to have a brother restored. Moreover, if that does not happen through our own initiatives and those of the community, the outcome must be that we treat the other person in the broken relationship as if he were a “pagan or a tax collector.”

These designations sound ominous to us. They are off-putting to our sensibilities of associating with “nice” people. But we need to recall that Jesus was accused of spending too much time with tax collectors and sinners. To treat people in this manner is not to throw stones at them or to turn away in disgust. Rather it is a call to re-engage with them as those whom God is seeking and saving.

When Bill Hybels was a college student in Iowa he had a roommate who trained his pet dog to growl whenever the town mayor’s name was mentioned. No matter what might be happening at any time, if someone happened to say the mayor’s name in passing, the little mutt would bristle and growl.

So it is with each of us, when relationships have become strained or undone by someone’s carelessness, craft, or calumny. We bristle and growl. In the middle of other conversations, the name might be mentioned and we can feel our stomachs tighten and our breath catch. There is an autonomic response that drives us to pain and frustration.

Only if we can somehow reframe the other person’s image in our senses as a “pagan or tax collector”—that is, someone who needs to experience the grace of God—can we still the inner growls and get the beast of our hatred to stop bristling. It is not easy. My parents were married in the wave of weddings that followed the Second World War. Dad came home from military operations in Europe to start a new life on the farm, and Mom became his partner in the enterprise. There was only one problem—Dad had an older brother who was destined to take over the family agricultural enterprise, and there was not enough work or income to support two families.

So Dad began to look for other opportunities. For a while he drove a cattle truck, bringing fattened animals to the sales stockyards in South Saint Paul. But then a farming assistant job became available in the neighborhood. There was an older couple with a large farm, and none of their children had decided to stay on to work it. So Dad and Mom became the hired help, looking after the animals and the fields, and beginning a family of their own.

In time they became indispensable to the older couple. When senior years caught up with them and they decided to move to a small house in town, Dad and Mom were asked to take up residence in the “big house,” and manage the farm as if it was their own. So, for many years, our family grew up on an agricultural expanse known as “The Evergreen Lane Farm” because of the trees that lined its drive and the sign posted over its entry at the rural gravel road that ran past.

On that farm we learned to play and work and live. We pulled weeds, raised pigs, hauled water, built tree houses, and slathered gallons of red paint on barns and sheds. We settled in there as if we owned the place. But we didn’t. Dad and Mom knew all too well that we were sharecroppers. Three-fifths of each harvest belonged to us, but two-fifths went every year to the family that still owned the place. We were never to forget that we only stayed there by their good graces.

By the time I had graduated from high school changes abounded. Dad had purchased other land, so he now had farming investments of his own. Moreover, my grandparents had retired, and Dad and Mom bought their land as well. And when they moved to the old Brouwer homestead, the land that they had sharecropped for some many years remained under their care as rental property. After all, no one could be trusted more with its well-being than Dad and Mom, who had invested their toil and sweat and family into it for decades. The old sharecropper arrangement was turned into a self-renewing rental contract. If neither the landlord nor my parents said anything by August 1 each summer, the rental arrangement continued for another year.

Even in rural areas, however, things can sometimes change rapidly. Sugar beets as a cash crop were aggressively spreading in the neighborhood, and land prices shot up astronomically. On August 6 one year the landlord came by to demand more rent. Others would pay it, he said. But Dad rightly pointed out that the rental contract was legally renewed for another year. Perhaps the next spring they should talk about it.

That was the start of six weeks from hell. The landlord demanded more money, but my father remained adamant. Then the landlord started calling at all hours of the day or night, saying nasty things and making strange demands. Since the man was a friend and a neighbor and even an elder in the same rural church of which both families were members, Dad relented and agreed to split the difference with him. It wasn’t necessary on Dad’s part, since he had a legally binding agreement that would stand up in any court. But good relations were more important to my parents than money, so they thought they would make a concession.

It didn’t work. The landlord refused the offer. He had an even higher price in mind, and nothing short of that would be acceptable. He became more and more obnoxious in his demands and dealings. Sometimes he would wait until Dad had gone out into the fields before he would come in his pickup truck and park on the middle of the yard, blowing his horn until Mom went out to talk. Then he would berate her until she was in tears.

That was the limit for Dad. Although he had every right to keep farming that land for another year, and at the rental price prescribed by the contract, he gave it all up. “Go rent your land to someone else,” he told the landlord. And the man did.

My parents said very little about it all after the deed was done. They never spoke harshly of the family that had so crassly abused and misused them. It was almost by chance that I later found out that months after the final incident my father went to the landlord’s place and asked to talk with him. Dad made the trip to ask forgiveness. Dad told the man that he (my father) had been harboring vengeful thoughts and ill-wishes in his heart, and he requested that the landlord forgive him for wronging him in that way.

Playing the Game

I don’t know the outcome of their conversations. All I know is that something inside of me changed when I heard what my father had done. It wasn’t even about him or about the deeply emotional respect I had for him. It was more about what life is supposed to be like and how it had glimmered more brightly in that moment. To wrestle anger and bitterness and revenge to the ground and defuse it with grace and mercy and an all-encompassing desire for restored relationships was as strange as it was redemptive.

I thought, of course, of Peter’s words to Jesus in Matthew 18, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?”

Peter must have felt pretty good about his request. After all, he went on to suggest extravagant limits: “Up to seven times?”

The wisdom of the day said that forgiveness was a three-times matter. If someone did you a misdeed, it was your obligation before God to forgive him or her. If they were so stupid as to repeat their wrong-doing, you should forgive them again, said the rabbis. After all, it was the God-like thing to do. Even a third expression of magnanimous graciousness was encouraged, because it increased your public esteem and your religious long-suffering character. But there had to be limits on mercy, for justice required its day. Therefore three times forgiving was the general rule for the truly devout.

So Peter must have felt very good about his inquisitive request, and quite confident that Jesus would commend him for it. Along with the other disciples Peter was well aware of Jesus’ less-than-complimentary views about the practices of the religious leaders of the day. If they thought three times of forgiving were enough, Peter doubled it and added one for good measure. This, surely, will resonate with Jesus’ high hopes for his followers. A word of praise was certainly about to come.

Needless to say, Peter and those with him were more than taken aback by Jesus’ response. “I tell you not seven times, but seventy time seven.”

Beyond Numbers

Jesus steps outside of the numbers game and creates a new playing field which is so large that no scores can be kept. In effect, the message Jesus sends is not “You must try harder to learn the discipline of forgiving!” but rather “You must continually remember who you are!” This is what Jesus affirms in the powerful story he next tells.

A man owes an insurmountable debt, says Jesus. His creditor decides to close the books on the account and prosecutes him for failure to pay. At the court hearing the man begs for mercy. Moved by the tragedy of it all, the creditor cancels the debt and gives up his legal actions.

Hardly out of court (and jail) this same man bumps into another fellow who owes him a minor sum. In great belligerence the forgiven man pummels the other into submission. This debtor speaks the same words that his own creditor used a short while before to plead his case in the larger debt settlement: “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything!”

But the newly-released debtor feels power surge through his veins. “Not a chance, fellow! You are going to prison until your family can come up with the dough!” And so it happens.

But people are watching. And those who saw what had occurred earlier, when this little bully was treated kindly by his own creditor, report the matter to the one who showed great mercy. He, of course, becomes mightily angry and resumes his legal (and now vindictive) action against the one who refused to show mercy.

Jesus ends his parable with a moral of great force: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from the heart.”

Personal Pain

Several themes emerge from Jesus’ story. First, it becomes obvious that forgiveness is always personal because pain is personal. Peter asks about what he should do when his “brother” sins against him. That makes sense to us, even if we don’t want to admit it. It is far easier to pretend to deal with people and matters that are at a distance. We can choose to hate terrorists and then choose to talk with politically correct understanding about them because few of us have ever actually been terrorized firsthand. But if a murder has happened in our family, or if a drunk driver has destroyed our property or our health or the life of a loved one, things become highly personal and our glib forgiving spirit runs away.

When Eric Lomax was posted to Singapore in 1941 he knew nothing of the horror that lay ahead of him. With hundreds of other soldiers he was taken captive, and then declared a spy by the Japanese victors. They broke both his arms and smashed several ribs, and left him barely alive. Yet somehow he survived the death camps and returned home, albeit a damaged man. For fifty years his seething bitterness poisoned his relationships, first with his father and then with his wife. The former died and the latter was divorced.

In 1985 Lomax received a letter from a former Army chaplain who had made contact with Nagase Takashi, the man who had served as interpreter at Lomax’s cruel interrogation. Nagase was deeply offended by his nation’s treatment of war prisoners and had devoted the rest of his life to whatever restitution or recompense could be made. He even built a Buddhist temple near the place where Lomax and others had been severely beaten or killed.

Lomax felt the anger of boiling vengeance swell through him. He shared his frustrations with Patti, his second wife. She was indignant that Nagase could write about feeling forgiven and at peace, when she knew the troubles that had dogged her husband for decades. In irritation she wrote to Nagase about Eric’s ongoing emotional pain.

To her surprise, she received a letter of response from Nagase. At first she was almost afraid to open it, but with trembling curiosity she finally relented. What spilled into her lap was “an extraordinarily beautiful letter,” as she put it. Even Lomax found himself moved deeply by its compassion and desire for reconciliation.

A year later Eric and Patti Lomax met Nagase at the location of the famous River Kwai Bridge. In halting English Nagase repeated, over and over, “I am very, very sorry.”

Lomax, in tears, took him by the arm and said, “That’s very kind of you to say so.”

They met for hours, and Lomax gave Nagase a short letter. In it he said that he could not forget what happened in 1943, but that he had chosen to offer Nagase “total forgiveness.” Nagase wept with emotion.

When interviewed later, Lomax said simply, “Sometime the hating has to stop.”

There is no end to the hostilities that can erupt between good friends or neighbors or relatives when a slight is incurred or a tragedy can be laid to someone’s blame. No end, that is, until someone chooses to say, “Sometime the hating has to stop.” That is the very personal moment of forgiveness. It does not come easy. But if we live under the umbrella of God’s mercy, it can come.

One-Way Street

A second thing Jesus teaches us in his parable is that forgiveness is essentially one-sided. While we hope for reconciliation—a two-sided outcome—in matters of hurt and broken relationships, forgiveness is not the same thing. Forgiveness is initiated by one party, and is often rebuffed or rejected by the other. That does not undo forgiveness, but it does remind us that forgiveness is essentially one-sided. Forgiveness is what I do or he does or she does. If it leads to mutual restoration, only then does the one-sided forgiveness become two-sided reconciliation.

Jesus emphasizes this in his teaching by showing that when the rich creditor chose to cancel the initial debt, it was neither required nor expected. It happened only because of the choice made by the king. The outcome of the debt cancellation was two-sided, to be sure, but it was initiated as a one-sided movement on the part of the king.

This is a very important point to remember. If we can’t have our way in some matter, we often want to make sure that at least the other person can’t have her way either. If I hurt, he has to hurt. If I have been wronged, at minimum the other person should be required to make a public show of sorrow. Tit for tat. We want the scales to be balanced somehow, even if it is by way of some kind of mutual expressions that hurt had been caused.

But Jesus is not asking us to be fair people. He is asking that we become excessively unfair in mercy, in the same way that our Father in heaven is merciful with us. It begins as a one-sided initiative.

In February of 1982 Max Lindeman and Harold Wells were sentenced to modest prison terms by a New York judge. Police had booked the pair on rape and assault charges in a highly publicized case. Four months earlier they had entered a convent in New York City and had brutally victimized a 30-year-old nun. Not only had they repeatedly raped her, they had also beaten her and then used a nail file to carve twenty-seven crosses into her body. It was a crime which brought even the insensitive to tears.

But when it came time to press charges, the nun refused. She was fully aware that these were the men who attacked her. Nor did she deny that something evil had happened to her at their hand. Yet when it came time to overtly accuse the men of their crimes, she chose instead to tell the police and the reporters that, after the model of Jesus, she forgave them. She hoped, she said, that they would learn something from this act of one-sided forgiveness and change their ways.

The police were almost livid. Here were two rotten scoundrels who needed to be punished, yet the nun had tied their hands. Social outrage mounted as the two were tried on lesser charges and jailed for significantly shorter sentences than their basest crimes really demanded.

Did it work? Did the nun’s forgiving spirit soften the hearts of Lindeman and Wells? Did they change?

The nun believes that is the wrong question to ask. In her heart, forgiveness works. She is more like Christ, and lives in greater harmony with the Spirit of God than if she had followed through on the requests to press charges.

We cannot know, of course, whether the nun’s actions are better or worse for the men or for society generally. We probably could not endure a world where no justice was meted, and where the fabric of social responsibility became a mockery through expectations of convenient unilateral forgiveness.

Nevertheless, the wisdom of Jesus words is found precisely in their unusual instruction. Jesus himself would die upon a cross that he did not deserve, and while hanging there would breathe words of divine forgiveness. It is the very contrary nature of forgiveness that requires of us respect. To forgive is an unusual way of life that cuts across our otherwise jaded senses and renegotiates the character of power in our world.

Michael Christopher probed it well in his play The Black Angel. He told of Hermann Engel, a German general who was sentenced to thirty years in prison by the Nuremberg court for war crimes. Nearly forgotten by the time he was released, Engel escaped from society and built a small mountain cabin near Alsace to live out his final years in obscurity.

But a journalist named Morrieaux would not let the story die so easily. After all, it had been his village and his family that were destroyed by Engel’s brutality. Working carefully by spreading rumor and stirring up old feelings of bitterness, Morrieaux fomented a plot to burn the man’s house down around him, and sear him painfully to death.

Even this, though, was not enough. Morrieaux had a thirst for revenge. He wanted to hear a confession from Engel. Then he wanted Engel to understand what was about to happen to him. Morrieaux desired to watch the horror invade Engel’s eyes at the moment when his destruction was assured.

So Morrieaux sneaked ahead of the mob he had stirred up, and connived to enter the general’s cottage on pretence. But the person he met there was not at all what he expected. There was no gruesomeness about him; he held no monster-like qualities. This was just a feeble old man. In fact, as Morrieaux tried to draw out from him the awful details of his war experiences and crimes, Engel was halting and confused. He could not fully remember all that took place. Dates had blurred and incidents were lost or rewoven.

Morrieaux began to realize that his vengeance would not be sweet, and that the plot he had instigated against the old man was a terrible act of murder. In desperation he revealed himself and his intentions to Engel, begging that the general escape quickly with him. Even as they spoke there were distant sounds of the mob climbing to do the nasty deed.

Engel finally understood what was going on. But before he would leave with Morrieaux he required one condition. “What is it?” asked Morrieaux.

“Forgive me,” replied Engel.

The journalist was frozen. What should he do?

As the lights come down Morrieaux slipped out of the cottage alone. The mob did its work and the horrible war criminal died. But the journalist remained forever locked in his own prison of unforgiveness.

Forgiveness is a choice, and a unilateral one at that. It cannot go on the bargaining block or it becomes something other than its essential character. Forgiveness is not fair. It is mercy offered, and that act alone sets aside certain demands of justice. It does not negate justice, but it says that a higher power will be entered to trump the ordinary scheme of things for extraordinary purposes.

Growing in Grace

There is a third element of meaning to note in Jesus’ teaching parable, and that is that forgiveness is not merely a one-time event, but rather a growing disposition of graciousness. Matthew makes this clear by placing the parable in the middle section of his gospel. Those events leading up to the Transfiguration in chapter 17 show Jesus focusing most of his attention on the crowds who gather around, and emphasizing the character of the Kingdom of Heaven. Later, following the entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (chapter 21), most of Jesus’ teachings will anticipate his death and resurrection and the Messianic Age that these usher in. But here, in between, Jesus spends most of his time with his disciples and tries to help them understand the character of a committed spiritual lifestyle. We call it discipleship.

Jesus makes it clear in his story to Peter that there are others looking on as they practice their piety. It is a group of otherwise undescribed folks who notice how the forgiven debtor treats the man who owes him a little. These people also report the man’s actions to the king who had originally laid aside the huge obligation that could never have been paid.

In telling this part of the story Jesus reminds his disciples and us that the goal of any spiritual formation in our lives is not merely to make us feel good, or to give us a sense of accomplishment. This is quite important, since it was Peter’s question that sparked the teaching in the first place. Peter had come asking what it would take for him to know that he had done enough, that he was good enough, that he had arrived as some new level of spiritual graduation.

But accomplishments that become self-serving and occasions for self-congratulations are not the goal of discipleship. Jesus, in fact, had said earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount, that those who pray in public and make a big show of giving to the poor have their immediate gratification, but it holds no heavenly value. The goal of spiritual growth is transformation, not arrival. We are to be engaged in a process whereby we become different people, and through which our world begins to look more and more like the Kingdom God intended it to be.

So forgiveness is not merely an act that is repeated on occasion to make us feel good in our accomplishments. Rather, it is a growing disposition of graciousness that is an unfolding process of discipleship identity and lifestyle. Peter ought not to think about how many times he forgives one person or a hundred. Instead, the question is whether his character is continually evolving to become more reflective of God.

Magic Eyes

Lewis Smedes imported a powerful parable from the Netherlands to illustrate that point. Fouke was the baker in a small Frisian town named Faken. He was a very righteous man. In fact, it seemed often that when he spat out his few words, they sprayed righteousness from his thin lips. He walked with upright dignity, and no one could find a fault in him. Except, maybe, that few found him warm or tender. But then, one does not become as righteous at Fouke by blurring the edges of rigorous spirituality through relational compromises.

Fouke was married to Hilda, and they lived a rigid life of regular hours and faithful church attendance. Fouke carried his Bible prominently in his arm as they strolled with purpose to and from worship services each Sunday, and all could see that this book was well used in between. Fouke was a righteous man, and expected others to be as well.

So it was shatteringly shocking when he came home from the bakery one day to find Hilda in bed with another man. How could she do such a thing? How could she violate their bed? More importantly, how could she tarnish the righteousness of their home, or Fouke’s reputation in the community?

Word spread quickly in the small town of Faken, and soon everyone knew that Fouke was about to send away his wife in disgrace. So all were surprised when that didn’t happen. Fouke chose, instead, to forgive Hilda and to keep her on as his wife. Fouke made it very clear that he was choosing to forgive Hilda, like the Good Book said. Everyone knew it, and they commended the baker for his fine show of spiritual depth and mercy.

But Fouke’s forgiveness was something he wore like a badge of prideful humility, and never did it actually penetrate his heart of hearts. Not a day went by but Fouke reminded Hilda of his gracious mercy toward her and how undeserving she was of it. She was a tramp, a hussy, a damaged woman with a weak and willful conscience, and she should be glad that a man of his righteous stature did not get rid of her or hold her to public ridicule.

Every day Fouke’s righteousness and forgiveness sparkled like a cheap bauble that weighed them down like costume jewelry. But in heaven Fouke’s fakery didn’t sit well. Every night an angel was sent down to Faken to drop a small pebble into Fouke’s heart. In the morning, when he exercised again his righteous vindictiveness, a sharp pain slashed through his body.

Day after day the tiny pebbles accumulated, and the hurting in his chest increased. Before long, tall and upright Fouke began to walk with a bit of a bend, and stoop more when he was working. And his boundless energy seemed sapped by the changes taking place in his body. Within several months Fouke trudged down the street nearly doubled over, and his face wore a constant grimace of pain. In desperation he cried out to God. Surely he did not deserve this! What was happening to him? How could he find relief and release from the awful torment?

That night an angel was sent to Fouke in Faken. Very patiently the angel told Fouke of the observations that had been made, and the decision to drop a pebble into his heart at every expression of righteous bitterness toward Hilda. By this time Fouke was in too much pain to protest, or to sputter a declaration of his righteousness over against Hilda’s gross waywardness in this sordid matter. All he could do is plead for some way to be healed.

The pebbles could be stopped, he was told, and the pain lessened, if he gained the miracle of Magic Eyes. What might these be, he asked, these Magic Eyes?

The Magic Eyes would allow him to see Hilda as she was before the adultery, Fouke was told. “But you can’t change what happened,” he protested.

That is true, came the angel’s reply. No one, not even God, can change the past. But sometimes the future can be changed. Sometimes hurts can be healed. This is why Fouke needed the Magic Eyes.

“Where do I get them?” he pleaded.

You only need to ask with genuine desire, he was told.

But Fouke was too proud to ask for the Magic Eyes. After all, he was righteous. And besides, Hilda was a guilty woman; why should he look at her in any other way? She was the one who nearly destroyed their marriage. If it were not for righteous Fouke, it could never have been saved.

Yet day by day Fouke’s debilitating pain increased, as angels continued to drop pebbles into his heart. By the time he finally relented, he was almost walking on his head, and there was no longer any way to hold himself high and rigid with pride. So, in the dark of night, as a lightening bolt of agony ripped through him, he cried out, “O God, save me!”

The relief didn’t happen at once. At least Fouke could not notice any difference for several days. But then life became nuanced in little ways. First, through sideways glances from near the floor, Fouke thought that Hilda was looking prettier than he remembered. She seemed to have a new glow of beauty emerging from within at times. He couldn’t believe it, of course, for the adultery had made her very ugly to him. Yet there it was, and he found himself looking at her more and more often.

Then the critical edge of his chest pains began to subside. After several weeks he found he could walk with less bend and stand with less stoop. His work at the bakery was easier, of course, but so was his time at home with Hilda. Another month or two went by, and Fouke was walking the streets upright, with a lighthearted step. More importantly, the citizens of Faken noticed that Fouke often took Hilda by the arm, and that there was a genuine warmth between them. Some thought, too, that Fouke’s lips were less thin than they used to be, and all were certain that the spray of righteousness had subsided.

No one thought Fouke had become less godly in the process, though. In fact, there was a new aura about him that made people sidle up to him in a way they had never desired before.

Hilda was never sure what had happened to her husband. He never told her about the Magic Eyes. But the way things were turning for them, she didn’t need to know.

It makes me wonder though, whether I need those Magic Eyes? How about you?