Forgiveness and Reconciliation

One of the most consistently attractive temptations that religious people have had to face over the centuries is the temptation to codify their faith, to find ways to express it in formulas, standards of measurement, yardsticks against which faith, morality, worship, the very hope for salvation can be held up, measured, and judged as good, bad, satisfactory, wanting, etc. It is not just Christians, but all believers have wrestled with this. Over the centuries, lots of different codes and formulas and yardsticks. Success, prosperity ... asceticism, detachment ... activism, involvement ... the law, Mosaic or Canon ... off and on over the years, some rather more spectacular yardsticks have been proposed as measures of holiness, marks of salvation, speaking in tongues, membership in such and such a sect or cult, membership in such and such a political party or movement, and on and on. All have one thing in common — they don't work. None of them are even remotely an accurate measurement of one's progress toward salvation. Each of these, and so many others are specifically, and even easily countered in Scripture. None of them come near close enough to addressing the mysterious complexity of the human spirit, and none of them come near close enough to reflecting what Christ held to be critical in the movement of a believer toward salvation.

This might lead a person to believe that such a yardstick is impossible, that spiritual progress, growth cannot be measured. This belief is partly true, partly not true. There is indeed a yardstick, a measure of salvation, proposed for us in Sacred Scripture by Christ Himself, not once, but over and over again. That part certainly is true. The not true part is that that yardstick can be used to measure anyone else. It can't. It can be used by me only to measure myself, by you, only to measure yourself. There truly is no such thing as a measure of salvation that anyone can apply to anyone else.

But there is a very clear yardstick I can apply to myself. I not only can, but must, if I am to take Christ at His word. To get a sense of this yardstick, close your eyes for a moment, and picture a person. A real person, someone with whom you actually interact, not a politician, or TV star or some such. Now, make it a real person you don't like, if you can't imagine someone you don't like, you are either dead, or already well beyond the archangels, though actually, even archangels have people they don't like. Go further, picture someone who doesn't like you, who thinks you are a real jerk, and lets you know that just about any chance they get, someone with whom you are really at odds, perhaps even bitterly so. Go further still, picture someone who has truly hurt you, perhaps someone who has made fun of you, ridiculed you, not ridiculed your ideas, that really doesn't matter much, but ridiculed you, the way you look, act, what you are, what you value, someone who truly believes that they are your superior in any way imaginable.

Is the picture developing? A picture of a person whom you would dearly love to see subject to some misfortune, nothing tragic mind you, but just get taken down a peg or two, maybe just a little tragic, someone to whom, should that happen, it would be a pleasure for you. A guilty pleasure perhaps, but still a pleasure. Well, the fact is, that person is one of the most valuable individuals in your life. That person. Not someone like him or her, but that person, because that person is the yardstick, the measure of salvation of which I spoke, the yardstick proposed to us, by Christ. A better way to say that, the relationship between myself and that person, that relationship as it is lived out, not experienced necessarily, but lived out, that is that yardstick.

Now, that is a notion worth looking at more closely. Where in the world does Christ ever tell me that my relationship with this perfectly objectionable creature is in any sense the measure of my salvation? Well, He said, "before you come to the altar, before you approach me, go first and be reconciled with your neighbor, then come to pray." Elsewhere He said it even more, "Love your enemies ... do good to those who hurt you." Perhaps most clearly of all, He tells us, "forgive one another, as I have forgiven you ... ." Somewhere in the parables of Matthew, the parables of the Kingdom, "As you forgive one another, so will your heavenly Father forgive you ... If you do not forgive one another, neither will your Father forgive you." Can't be put much more clearly than that. Reconciliation, the healing of wounds, the closing of gaps that separate us, no matter how lovingly nourished those gaps may have been, that is the measure of salvation, because it is the measure of the gap that separates myself, and the Father.

That is why that terrible person I had you picture earlier is so important to you, to each of us. What I build into my relationship with that person is the clearest measure there is of what I have built into my relationship with the Father. I want to underline that phrase "what I have built in". I made a distinction earlier between that relationship as it is lived out, and as it is experienced, what it feels like, how I feel about that person.

It is important to realize that that feeling is not at all, in any sense a measure of salvation. No feeling ever possibly could be. The fact is I have every right in the world to dislike anybody I choose, and do so in perfectly Christian orthodoxy. Actually, anybody I choose is not a good way to put it, because in fact we really don't choose whom we like and whom we don't. It is something that happens to us. True enough, there is a lot that any one of us can do to change the feelings we have about any other person, but we do that really for our own sakes, because it is more pleasant to like people than to dislike them. It's a lot easier on the stomach, and you don't have to be nearly so careful about whom you bump into walking down the corridor. But changing those feelings is the stuff of a whole other session, so for now let's stick with the guy we don't like, and openly admit that fact, and recognize that liking or disliking really has nothing much to do with forgiveness and reconciliation. At least, not until way down the line, if even then. Disliking people is a waste of energy, certainly, and that is a little sad, I suppose, but it is morally neutral.

I'm a great believer in the use of mental images in prayer, and I've built up something of a little library of them to draw on from time to time. One of my favorites is always sparked by the scene in the Gospel where Christ is surrounded by a pack of what the Gospel calls lawyers, and they're firing questions at Him from all sides. You can just see Him turning from side to side, and struggling more and more to stay polite and in control. Matthew, I think it is, introduces the scene by saying, "To trip Him up, the lawyers asked questions," so clearly not a friendly encounter. Lots of little questions, "The Law says ... what do You say?" Each one answered, or avoided, patiently, even kindly, then the big one, should we pay taxes to Caesar? Then the little game with the coin, that really says nothing at all, and brings the session to an end. And As they are all breaking up, the lawyers go off in twos and threes replaying every question and answer, looking for flaws and loopholes, and as Christ and His followers turn away to leave, Christ mumbles under His breath to Peter, "What a bunch of jerks," or whatever the Aramaic equivalent of jerks would have been. I like that image. It sustains me.

So whether or not I like or dislike that person I imagined earlier really isn't important, and is not a measure of my nearness to the Kingdom. But, what is such a measure is how I treat that person, how much importance I give to that feeling, whether or not I let that feeling blueprint what I do. I said earlier that what matters is what I build into my relationship with that person and that is a good word to keep in mind, what I build, because that points to what happens next. The feeling, after all is the beginning of that building process, not its end point. The feeling is what is here. What matters is where do we go from here. That is the spark of reconciliation.

Let's carry that image a bit further. What would Christ have done if He had met a couple of those same lawyers the next day? Would He have crossed the street to avoid them? Would He have greeted them? Would He have made the overtures, taken the initiative in a conversation that was civil and pleasant, even though the last time they met it turned into a battle ground? I think so. Let's imagine that He knew that one of them was in fact a real good lawyer, and later that afternoon, Joseph of Arimathea comes to Christ and says to Him, "Look, You get around, You know a lot of people. Recommend a good lawyer to me. I'm in the middle of a big case, and I need expert help. I'd be willing to pay plenty." Would Christ have actually recommended the guy who had earlier tried to make a fool of Him? I think so.

That is the heart of it, the heart of what reconciliation means. Not to let the hurt be the blueprint for the rest of the relationship, not to let the hurt dominate, color everything else. Putting the hurt in perspective, in proportion. In fact not even putting it in proportion but simply letting it sink into proportion by not focusing one's attention on it. There is probably nothing in life that grows faster and stronger than an injury, or even just an irritation, that is fondly re-played, re-lived over and over again. Reconciliation doesn't mean pretending that an injury or a rift didn't happen. It does mean believing, and being willing to act on the belief, that whether it happened or not really doesn't matter very much. Reconciliation means a constant willingness to start over, to build on what is good in a relationship, in spite of what is not good. Reconciliation means the belief, and the willingness to act on the belief that nothing, not a person, not a relationship, need be perfect in order to be named and accepted as good.

I'm always a bit leery of definitions, but if we need one, that is probably as good a definition of reconciliation as any. To affirm that there is goodness in a bond, a relationship, a person, a God given goodness. To affirm that that is so in spite of hurt, of bad feelings, of real differences. A goodness that must be honored, nurtured, built upon. If I do that, if I affirm and nurture goodness in a bond, then reconciliation has in fact already happened, at least to the extent that I can control it. If I do that then any gap that exists between myself and that individual I imagined, or anyone else, really has already begun to be drained of its destructive power, and the gap between myself and the Father has been narrowed.

Well, fine. That is what is supposed to happen. But, sometimes it doesn't. Why not? Why don't we affirm goodness in our relationships, in one another? Why don't we reconcile? There are lots of reasons, some of them understandable, none of them good. Plain ordinary sheer vanity. I don't want to look like I'm coming out second best in this whole business. So and so has to apologize to me, not me to so and so. After all, I have my pride, you know.

I remember reading somewhere, perhaps in one of those little pamphlets that used to always be in the back of churches, vanity described as a pitiful, passionless vice. Point was it didn't even have the vitality of passion to recommend it, doesn't even make you feel good. Phrase stuck in my mind, has a nice ring to it. May be so, certainly so that vanity is a terrible block to spiritual, emotional growth, guaranteed to keep a person locked into the surface of life. Seems the more we are concerned about our image, the less we are capable of being concerned about our substance.

Self-righteousness is another blocker to reconciliation. This whole thing isn't my fault, I didn't cause it, its not my responsibility to fix it. I am the injured party in all of this. So and so is going to have to change before the relationship can change. Self-righteousness is really just another form of vanity after all, but with perhaps just a bit more passion. Being overly impressed with one's own virtue, one's self-image. Christ reserves some particularly harsh words in Sacred Scripture for the self-righteous.

Often enough reconciliation breaks down because of an odd sort of twist to the notion of self-righteousness, a twist that carries at least a veneer of nobility. Sometimes, in a strange sort of deep-down way, the notion of forgiveness and reconciliation can seem to offend our sense of justice. A wrong has been done here. I can convince myself that I am not concerned with the fact that it was me that was injured. I am far too noble to be so self-absorbed after all. What matters is the principle. The right order of things has been upset, the scales of justice need to be re-balanced, and the most authentic contribution I can make to real reconciliation is to myself see to the re-balancing. Where there has been crime, there must be punishment. And so we do, we spend a great deal of time punishing one another for crimes, real or imagined, and feeling really very justified in the process. We are not very creative most of time in our choice of punishment — the cold shoulder, silent treatment, sarcasm, exaggerated politeness, and of course, never missing the chance to criticize, when any sort of weakness or fault in the one we are punishing is exposed.

Interestingly enough, this crime and punishment relationship is not limited to the interaction between individuals. I can set out to punish the community, the Church, if I am mad enough, I suppose, the whole world. Remember that interaction between Christ and the lawyers. Law lent itself very easily, immediately to the notion of crime and punishment. Under the law, when the scales were upset, the right order of things was re-established by retribution, by spreading the misery around more evenly, an eye for an eye and so on. But for Christ, there really wasn't anything very virtuous about retribution, no matter how just it may seem to be. In Christ's view, the right order of things is re-established by spreading the goodness around a little more evenly — asks for coat, give him shirt, hits you on one cheek, turn the other, asks you to come along for one mile, go for two, and so on. Christ counters the notion of retribution with the notion of reconciliation.

I suppose another blocker to reconciliation is just plain fear. I get gun-shy. I got burned once, if I make an attempt at reconciliation, what guarantee is there that I won't get burned again? The answer is simple, absolutely none. There is no guarantee that so and so will meet me with open arms instead of a sneer and a put-down, in precisely the same sense that there is no guarantee at all that anybody will ever do anything. That is what makes human relationships human, that is what makes human relationships a leap of faith, not a mathematical formula. When I approach my computer and push a button, I know exactly what it is going to do in response, every time. When I approach another human being, and poke a nerve, I don't know what the response will be, ever. A relationship utterly empty of risk is simply not human.

Another blocker to reconciliation can be called something like a sort of nostalgia. My relationship with so and so was a good thing once, now it has been damaged, and I am afraid it will just never be the same, no matter what I do. Well, again, it is perfectly true. It won't be the same. I talked about reconciliation as building on the goodness that is in a bond, no matter what else may be there as well. Well, we don't build for the past, we build for the future. I suppose if you are building a museum, then you might say you build for the past, but who wants their relationship to be a museum piece? A good way to counter that kind of nostalgia is to ask oneself what would my relationship with so and so be like today if the injury had never happened? Would it still be just the same today as it was ten years ago? Easy answer. Not if that relationship is good one. If that relationship is a good one, it would have changed anyway, grown, matured. In the reestablishment of a relationship that was once good, reconciliation is really just catching up.

Well. As always, we say only a little of what there is to be said. As with any dimension of human relationships, the experience of reconciliation is at once utterly simple, and infinitely mysterious. After all the analysis and discussion, reconciliation begins to happen when a person whose life has been touched by hurt and estrangement looks at that and says simply enough, "This is bad. And it could be good. All that really matters is that I don't want to go on like this any longer." And once that choice is made, a genuinely divine grace is stirred up in the life of that person. Human beings come closer together, as they were meant to be, and the nearness of God becomes more real. That is so by His design. In His own words, "As you forgive one another, so does your heavenly Father forgive you."

What sort of injury do you find most difficult to get over? For me an attack real or imagined on my integrity. Which of the blockers to reconciliation comes most strongly into play? Vanity, self-righteousness, offended sense of justice, fear of further injury, nostalgia. With me vanity and fear of further injury.

What kind of head work, mental gymnastics do you go through to overcome those blockers? It's important that active steps be taken, reconciliation will never happen just by sitting and waiting for it. I start with simple good manners, then I make it a point to ask that person for a favor, nothing big enough to be the least bit difficult or inconvenient for the other, just enough to let them know that they have some importance in my life. I have no idea why that works, but it seems to.

Homily was preached at a Mass celebrated in association with a Retreat for School Principals, 14-15 May 1987.