Forgiveness Challenge: Completed

A while ago actually. I hope you can forgive me for the delay. Consistent, perhaps, with my expectations, the challenge did not offer much spiritual transformation for me personally, but I suppose I didn’t sign up because I had a lot of unforgiven memories to deal with. I signed up more for academic and spiritual curiosity. It was a way to equip myself for future ministry and for future forgiving. In that sense the challenge was successful.

Desmond and Mpho Tutu laid out a four-step scheme for forgiveness that can be applied to forgiveness of others and forgiveness of self.

1.       Telling the Story: The forgiveness process begins, in theory at least, by acknowledging the facts of an event that resulted in hurt.

2.       Naming the hurt: the story is incomplete if we cannot recognize what feelings emerged as a result of somebody’s actions. Disappointment, anger, loss, betrayal, whatever the damage, it is important to understand where the pain comes from.

3.       Granting forgiveness: The key to this step is a recognition of shared humanity. We are all human, which means we are relational creatures. We seek people with whom to share love and experience life. But it also means that we occasionally act out of our brokenness. When we are hurt by the actions of another, we must remember that the other should not be reduced to that one action, just as we should not be reduced to that one moment of pain. Forgiveness means recognizing the humanity of an offender, remembering that they also have pain in their past, and our own past mistakes are rooted in the same brokenness.

4.       Renewing or releasing the relationship: Forgiveness paves the way for a renewed relationship. While acknowledging the hurt, we can still love the other. Their sinfulness never entirely obscures their humanity, and ideally we can reestablish bonds of affection with somebody who has hurt us. Relationship and community are essential parts of the world that God created, and we should not abandon them thoughtlessly. Desmond and Mpho recognize, however, that releasing the relationship must be an option to follow forgiveness in cases of abuse.

This structure is consistent (or at least claims to be) with psychological research and the experiences of victims. The course emphasizes that forgiveness is a healthy thing for the victim. People often believe that refusing to forgive is a way of punishing an offender, but in fact the victim continues to suffer from the bitterness that needs to be dealt with.

Looking beyond the individual, forgiveness is an essential precondition for the peaceable world imagined in the gospels. The kingdom of God, revealed in the person of Jesus, is a world reconciled to itself and to God. In the Kingdom, we treat people as people. We forgive the fruits of our brokenness, and glorify God in our renewed relationships.

Desmond Tutu’s forgiveness project makes no theological claims, inviting people from all traditions to learn and experience forgiveness. But I can say with confidence that if you ask the Archbishop, he would say that the Kingdom of God is the central vision of his project.

The violent history of Northern Ireland has produced many moving case studies for the study of forgiveness. The forgiveness project has recorded hundreds of stories of forgiveness from participants, and there is a way to filter by country. A couple weeks ago I spent a good chunk of my afternoon reading the remarkable stories of forgiveness that have emerged from this tiny country. I have included the link below. I encourage you to read through a couple and see how forgiveness has the potential to transform individuals and communities in Northern Ireland. In every place for that matter. It is worth learning and worth teaching to our youth, pupils, and children.

http://theforgivenessproject.com/country/northern-ireland/

Easter Stories

On Easter Sunday I sat down for a dinner of fish, potatoes, creamed spinach, and pavlova with one of the very gracious families from Whitehouse Presbyterian. I enjoyed my meal, accepted a chocolate Easter egg to take home, and helped them celebrate a birthday, before returning home. Then I finally climbed into bed, setting an alarm for the start of the Cubs’ opener at Wrigley Field.

And now I have sat down to reflect on my experience of Holy Week in Belfast, a week of diverse excitements and down-to-the-wire preparations. Whitehouse gave me something to think about for every day of the week, and on a couple of occasions I had the chance to provoke some thoughts, hopefully.

Palm Sunday: Jesus has entered Jerusalem with glory and Hosannas and striking humility. The Whitehouse youth made preparations for leading the Thursday evening worship service. Then we played games.

Monday: The theme of the evening service was “Perfumes,” in reference to the woman, named in at least one gospel as Mary, who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume. When challenged, Jesus affirmed her actions, suggesting that it is appropriate to anoint the body of a man that is soon to die. Several people from Whitehouse Presbyterian Women spoke about the perfumes they use, with names like “Poison” and “eternity.” I don’t wear perfume, and at the start I found it hard to relate to their reflections. But it occurred to me that I have always had difficulty relating to the story. Judas’ objection is somewhat convincing. Should we not banish luxuries from our lives in a world with such desperate poverty? Hearing the women on Monday night challenged me think of perfumes as a way to affirm the value of self, and as a way to honor others. It becomes more meaningful and valuable than just a nice smell.

Tuesday: The Rwanda team presented on the theme of “Pigeons.” Jesus cleared the temple, including the pigeons, and lamented that his Father’s house had become a den of thieves and robbers. The team explored dramatically the disciples’ responses to Jesus’ alarming actions. Uncertain and fearful, some of them wonder if perhaps Jesus has gone too far this time, a reminder to all of us that following Jesus might mean getting in trouble, and it always means thinking critically about the status quo and the structures that dominate our lives.

Wednesday: I was not raised to have any special appreciation for Billy Graham, but he seems to have earned tremendous respect among British Christians. He produced a short film exploring the meaning of the cross that we screened in Whitehouse and, I think, many other churches did the same. I must say it was well done. Even more compelling than the words of Billy Graham were the testimonies of two young Americans who spoke to the power of the cross to transform a heart. They spoke movingly about liberation, breaking the bonds of sin. They demonstrated that death is always part of the Easter story. Something must die before we can rise again, forgiven and free.

Thursday: The Whitehouse youth group elected to host a Passover dinner for the congregation and so we gave it our very best shot. It didn’t all taste great, but thankfully some of it isn’t supposed to. We explicated each component of the meal, hoping to illumine the story of Jesus’ Passover dinner with his disciples. Appropriately, a lot of the symbolism of the Passover has to do with acknowledging sin in our lives, breaking the bonds that constrain us, and committing ourselves to being better people. I also had an opportunity to portray the disciple John, in conversation with Simon Peter. With prayers and jokes, we reflected on the drama of the past week, wondered at Jesus’ frightening predictions, his reckless actions in the temple, and his tender moments with disciples.

Friday: In the morning I accompanied several folks from Whitehouse to a church up the road, where we met up with other local congregations for the annual community prayer walk. We passed through Protestant, Catholic, and commercial areas, offering prayers for peace and healing at each stop. We appeared at about 9 churches overall, from my memory. In between I had a delightful conversation about sweets with a few of the youth. In the evening was the Tenebrae service, a service of shadows. As we watched a film depiction of the account in the gospel of John, the lights grew dimmer in the church as Jesus approached the cross. Hope seemed to grow dim as well, as we watched God’s blameless son dying because it is a crime to speak the truth, to challenge oppression, to seek peace. And if that is the way of the world then what hope is there?

Saturday: I do not know when the tradition started, but on Easter Saturday the Whitehouse youth stumble through the front doors of the church and unload sleeping bags, pillows, extra clothes and salty snacks. The WhY-F lock-in. It was a great time. We ordered Chinese; we had balloons wars, we attempted gluten-free cupcakes and failed spectacularly. My favorite part was the karaoke, which didn’t get underway until about 1 a.m. At 6:30 a.m. the youth joined the rest of the congregation for the sunrise (Son-rise?) service at hazelbank park. Miraculously, 16 teenagers were awake and singing their praises, celebrating the real miracle of Easter. They were rewarded with breakfast back at the church. We all slept an hour or two before bravely rising for the 11 a.m. service, more singing and more Easter blessings. Joy mingled with exhaustion, and then they all returned home to meditate on the resurrection mystery in their dreams.