Stories of Forgiveness

I offer you two stories.

The first comes from a parable Jesus shares in Matthew 18: 23-35.

A servant owed a king more than he could pay back in a lifetime - more than he could pay back in hundreds of lifetimes. How he got this debt is unclear. The law, though, was very clear. Since the servant couldn’t pay, the king could either have the man thrown in jail until his debt could be paid (in this case, a life sentence), or the king could sell the servant as well as his entire family as slaves to get back whatever of the debt he could.

The king decided to do just that. The servant, having a wife and child, fell on his knees before the king and begged him to give him more time to pay back his debt. The king, moved to pity at the sight of the servant’s pleading, forgave his entire debt and let him go. Can you imagine owing hundreds of thousands of dollars and someone just erased it entirely? That is exactly what this king did for his servant.

After being forgiven this impossible debt, the servant went to another servant who happened to owe him about a day’s wage. This second servant, not being able to pay, also fell to his knees and begged to be given more time to pay back his debt. The first servant, though, was unrelenting and had him thrown into prison until he paid back the money.

The king heard of this and was so angry he called the first servant before him again. “’You wicked servant,’ he said. ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’” The king then threw the man in prison to be tortured for the rest of his life.

And now for another story.

There once was a little girl whose dad abandoned her for years. From the age of two to about 13, she heard almost nothing from him. He had another family. He lived another life. The little girl carried deep hurt and pain inside her heart from this abandonment. When she grew a bit older, her father returned, saying he wanted a relationship with her. The now teenaged girl was willing to open her heart again, but things were still rocky. Months would go by with no word from her dad. He had yet another family now, and she felt left out. He got married, but she was not invited. They would go on family trips without her. The hurt within her grew. It was almost harder to have a part-time relationship than no relationship at all.

There were times when her dad tried, and the girl loved those times. There were times where there was only silence, and the girl dreaded those times. As she grew into a woman, she was more open about her feelings with her dad. The girl shared about her pain, but often, he only deflected her feelings, blaming being busy or his just being bad at communication or the girl expecting too much. She would eventually forgive him, and things would be okay between them. Until they weren’t.

When she became a mom herself, she also had the burden of seeing her own child forgotten by her father. The hurt this time was deeper and stronger. She saw him take an interest in the lives of other family members. They got phone calls and regular check-ins, and she only got birthday texts, but no calls or visits.

Finally, she was done. She decided not to try anymore. The pain of being forgotten was too much. She convinced herself she could forgive her dad and just let him live his own life, without trying to insert herself into it. It would be so much easier. There would be much less pain.

She got away with it for a while. For months she ignored her dad. He didn’t know she was doing this. She didn’t tell him. She didn’t call or ask about him. She let the silence remain. Though she told herself she’d forgiven him, it wasn’t so, and the peace she hoped would come, didn’t.

Instead, she felt the Holy Spirit whispering to her: Make the call. But she wouldn’t listen. Oh, how she argued with the Holy Spirit. She had no reason to call. She had done nothing wrong. It was UNFAIR for her to have to make the call and to set things right.

Yet, the whisper remained. Make the call.

She argued on. It would hurt too much. He wouldn’t care what she thought or how she felt. She’d just cry and nothing would change.

That may be true, the whisper responded. Make the call anyway.

It took the girl another month of arguing before she agreed she would make the call, and it took her another month of praying to have the strength to do it.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I am that little girl. I am quickly approaching forty years old, and I still struggle with forgiveness. Forgiveness is hard. It’s hard like running in a yard full of sticker burrs with no shoes on and then falling face-first on a cactus. The hardest part about forgiveness is there is nothing “fair” about it. The person you are forgiving doesn’t get what they deserve. Justice isn’t served.

I’ll tell you something I learned through my life-long journey with my dad. Forgiveness was never really about him at all. Forgiveness was always, is always, about MY obedience. Forgiving others is really about how grateful I am for Jesus dying on the cross for me. If I choose not to forgive another, then I am like the servant in Jesus’ parable who was forgiven hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and then refused to forgive a debt of ten measly bucks.

I will have you know I did eventually call my dad. You also need to know it was one of the hardest calls I’ve ever made, and there is a zero percent chance I ever would have done it without the Lord’s help. But, after lots of prayer, I made that call. I told my dad I was feeling ignored (again), but I loved and forgave him. For the first time in my life, he accepted full blame. He cried, and he told me he didn’t want me to feel that way and he was sorry.

That was about a year ago. For a few months, my dad called every few weeks. Then, the calls, again, became sporadic. I got a text on my birthday. So, I don’t know if my dad has changed or if he will change. But that’s okay.

Because I have been changed. You see, forgiveness isn’t really about the other person. It’s about us. In this story, I was given the chance, just like the ungrateful servant, to forgive. Like the ungrateful servant, I didn’t want to. Even though I have been forgiven every single bad decision, hateful thought, judgmental look, mistake, and sin in my life, I wanted to withhold forgiveness from my dad. I wanted to say his sin and mistakes were not worthy of forgiveness. That’s what I wanted to do.

But, by the grace of God and an awful lot of work by the Holy Spirit, I didn’t do what I wanted, or what I deemed “fair.” I forgave my dad; not just for things in the past, but I also determined to forgive him for whatever he does (or doesn’t do) in the future. Let me tell you there is such peace in that kind of forgiveness, the forgiveness that is without stipulation or caveat.

Jesus told the story of the ungrateful servant as a response to Peter, who had asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18: 21). At the time, religious leaders would teach you should forgive someone up to three times. Three strikes and you’re out, buddy. Peter probably thought he was being generous and deserving of a great big gold star when he suggested up to seven times.

I’m not so sure he got that gold star, though. Jesus responded, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven times” (Matthew 18: 22). He then follows with the parable of the servant we’ve just discussed.

Jesus is pretty clear in the parable about what happens when people aren’t willing to forgive others. What’s more, we are to forgive them not once, but over, and over, and over, and over… in perpetuity. Forever. There is no end to forgiveness.

No, it isn’t fair.

Yes, it is hard.

No, the person you need to forgive probably doesn’t deserve it.

No, they may never say sorry or ask for forgiveness.

But Jesus dying on the cross for our sins was unfair, and it was hard. None of us deserve what he did for us. I certainly don’t.

Even though it is crazy hard, forgiveness is pretty simple. Just decide to do it. The debt Jesus has forgiven us is astronomical in comparison to what any human owes us. We love because he first loved us (1 John 4:19), and we forgive because we are fully and unconditionally forgiven. It’s that simple