FORGIVING THE ANGER
Fourth in a Series on the Lord’s Prayer
"Forgive us...as we forgive others..."
In the current movie, COURAGE UNDER
FIRE, Denzel Washington plays a soldier who
makes a tragic error. At the beginning of the film,
he and his men engage the enemy. It is night, and it
is a dark. The battle is filled with bullets,
explosions, fear and courage, but more than
anything -- it is filled with confusion. At one point,
given only seconds to make a decision to fire the
guns of the tank, Denzel Washington’s character
gives the order to fire. Moments later, he realizes
the enemy his men has been firing upon are fellow
Americans. They have, in fact, made a direct hit
upon his own best friend, who dies due to friendly
fire.
Throughout the rest of the movie, Washington’s
character struggles with this tragic error. Several
times he begins to write a letter to the parents of his
best friend, but the words always fail him.
And his character is not alone. Other soldiers in
the movie have made their own tragic errors. Some
find freedom from the guilt for their mistakes
through drugs. Another finds it in anger and
bitterness. Another finds it in denial. Another
finds it in suicide.
It is not until the end of the movie that Denzel
Washington makes a pilgrimage to the home of his
friend and faces his friends mother and father and
admits to him that while their son died heroically
and in devotion to duty, death came not from
enemy fire, but from a fellow American.
The mother stands in silence, the father sits
quietly as they listen to the confession of
Washington’s character, who finishes by saying, "I
know you can never forgive me."
The father looks at the soldier and says,
"You’re right."
Forgiveness. We need it. We long for it. We
hunger for it. And we know that sometimes it does
not come from those around us.
In the Lord’s Prayer, there is a reflection of that
hunger for forgiveness.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And in the Lord’s Prayer, there is the realization
that forgiveness is something we need on three
distinct levels.
We need to first find forgiveness from God.
In the book A FORGIVING GOD IN AN
UNFORGIVING WORLD, Ron Lee Davis retells
the true story of a priest in the Philippines. He was
a much-loved man of God, but he carried the
burden of a secret sin he had committed many
years before. He had repented, but still had no
peace, no sense of God’s forgiveness.
In his parish was a woman who deeply loved
God and who claimed to have visions in which she
spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest,
however, was skeptical. To test her he said, "The
next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask
him what sin your priest committed while he was in
seminary." The woman agreed.
A few days later, the priest asked, "Well, did
Christ visit you in your dreams?"
"Yes, he did," she said.
"And did you ask him what sin I committed
in seminary?"
"Yes."
"Well, what did he say?"
The woman smiled and said, "That’s the
most interesting thing I’ve heard him say yet. When
I asked him what you did that was so sinful, he
looked at me and said, ’I can’t remember’."
God’s forgiveness for us is complete.
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that
God would forgive us. And when he does forgive
us, it is total and complete.
This is, of course, of great comfort, but in
the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus mixes a bit of comfort
with a bit of discomfort -- because in the Lord’s
Prayer he tells us that our forgiveness from God is
closely tied to our forgiveness fro others.
The prayer says, "Forgive us our debts, as
we also have forgiven our debtors." And then
Jesus goes on to give the only exposition of any of
the phrases of this prayer, by saying "For if you
forgive men when they sin against you, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you
do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not
forgive your sins."
There is, in the Bible, a continual relationship
between our ability to receive forgiveness FROM
God and our ability to give forgiveness to those
around us.
And this is the second dimension of
forgiveness found in the Lord’s Prayer. The first
dimension is our forgiveness from God. The
second is our forgiveness to others.
And forgiving others is a difficult thing to
do.
Barbara Reynolds is a former columnist for
the USA TODAY newspaper. Several years ago,
at a time when two senators were watching their
careers crumble because of past relationships they
had with women. In both cases, the relationships
were prime examples of harassment and abuse of
power. Reynolds wrote about the courage of the
women who spoke up and held these men
accountable, but then she went on to advise them
to do one other thing.
She said, "It takes courage for women to
confront the men who have the power to hire, fire
or seek retribution. I admire them. But whether
you’re going to fight back or not, forgive. And the
sooner the better."
Reynolds went on to write about her own
experience with abuse, in which an adult relative
abused her sexually when she was a child. She
described how one day, as an adult, she faced that
man and confronted him with the facts of the
incest. She recounted every bit of pain he’d
caused. Her tears flowed freely. She wrote this:
:"When I confronted the relative involved,
amazingly, he didn’t identify with my pain. He did
not break down and beg for my forgiveness. He
simply looked at me with vacant, bored eyes and
said, "It’s the way I am."
So what could I do? Shoot him? Sue him?
Shun him? He didn’t understand then. He
probably never would. So I did the only two
things I could do. First, I left him, never to speak
to him again. And secondly, I forgave him."
She went onto say that after years of analysts
and psychiatrists and group counseling sessions,
forgiveness was the best therapy of all!
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. We forgive others not so much for the
soul of the one who has done us wrong. We do it
for our own good. For our own salvation.
And forgiving others is hard to do. Corrie
ten Boom describes forgiveness like letting go of a
bell rope. If you have ever seen a country church
with a bell in the steeple, you will remember that to
get the bell ringing you have to tug for awhile.
Once it has begun to ring, you merely maintain the
momentum. As long as you keep pulling, the bell
keeps ringing. Miss ten Boom says forgiveness is
letting go of the rope. It is just that simple. But
when you do so, the bell keeps ringing.
Momentum is still at work. However, if you keep
you hands off the rope, the bell will begin to slow
and eventually stop. It is like that with forgiveness.
When you decide to forgive, the old feelings of
unforgiveness may continue to assert themselves.
After all, they have lots of momentum. But if you
affirm your decision to forgive, that unforgiving
spirit will begin to slow and will eventually be still.
Forgiveness is not something you feel, it is
something you do. It is letting go of the rope of
retribution.
There is a third dimension of forgiveness in
this prayer.
The first is the forgiveness we receive from
God.
The second is the forgiveness we give to
others.
The third is not so clearly stated in the
prayer, but it is there. It is the forgiveness we give
ourselves. Sometimes the person we need to
forgive, is ourself.
The story of Roy Riegels involves a football
game back in 1929. It was New Year’s day and
Georgia Tech was playing UCLA in the Rose
Bowl. In that game a young man named Roy
Riegels recovered a fumble for UCLA. Picking up
the loose ball, he lost his direction and ran 65 yards
--- toward the wrong goal line. One of his
teammates ran him down and tackled him just
before he scored for the opposing team. Reigel’s
team was demoralized and began to lose the game.
The strange play came in the first half. At
halftime, the UCLA players filed off the field and
into the dressing room. As other sat down on the
benches and on the floor, Riegels put a blanket
around his shoulders, sat down in a corner, and put
his face in his hands.
A football coach usually has a great deal to
say to his team during halftime. That day the coach
was quiet. No doubt he was trying to decided what
to do with Riegels.
When the timekeeper came in and announced
that there were three minutes before playing time,
the coach looked at the team and said, "Men, the
same team that played the first half will start the
second." The players got up and started out, all
but Riegels. He didn’t budge. The coach looked
back and called to him. Riegels didn’t move. The
coach went over to him and said, "Roy, didn’t you
hear me? The same team that played the first half
will start the second."
Roy Riegels looked up, his cheeks wet with
tears. "Coach," He said, "I can’t do it. I’ve ruined
you. I’ve ruined the university’s reputation. I’ve
ruined myself. I can’t face that crowd out there."
The coach reached out and put his hand on
Riegels’ shoulders and said, "Roy, get up and go
on back. The game is only half over."
Riegels finally did get up. he went out on the
field, and the fans saw him play hard and play well.
All of us have run a long way in the wrong
direction. Because of the forgiveness offered in
Jesus Christ, however, the game is only half over.
In the movie, COURAGE UNDER FIRE,
Denzel Washington plays a soldier who makes a
tragic mistake. In the midst of confusion, he
orders his men to fire on a fellow American soldier.
At the end of the movie the character makes a
pilgrimage to the home of his friend and faces his
friends mother and father and admits to him that
while their son died heroically and in devotion to
duty, death came not from enemy fire, but from a
fellow American.
The mother stands in silence, the father sits
quietly as they listen to the confession of
Washington’s character, who finishes by saying, "I
know you can never forgive me."
The father looks at the soldier and says,
"You’re right."
And then the father adds, "But it is a burden
you will someday have to let go of for yourself."
In the Lord’s Prayer, we find a way to let go of
our own burdens of guild.
