Jesus teaches that we should forgive other people their failings. We should not hold them against them. We should let bygones be bygones and should not nurse feelings of anger and unhappiness for things that happened in the past. We should place no limit on the number of times that we forgive a person. If someone has something against us, we should take immediate steps to be reconciled with that person. Reestablishing good terms or friendly terms with that person takes precedence over our religious obligations. We should be merciful—kind and forgiving—like God is merciful. When we are, we show that we are God’s children. A child imitates their parents’ good qualities.
Jesus points to our attention that if we do not forgive other people their failings, we cannot expect God to forgive ours. When he taught the original disciples to pray, he taught them to ask God to forgive the wrongs that we have done as we forgive the wrongs that others have done us. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer in church every Sunday, we ask God to do the same thing, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We ask God to forgive us to the extent that we forgive others.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord with power and authority to command our obedience as well as everyone else’s obedience and has the final say-so in all matters, then we have no wiggle-room when it comes to forgiving other people their failings. Forgiving them does mean that we have to accept what they may have done as right and proper, but it does mean that we cannot hold it against them and keep throwing it in their face. Forgiving them means that we stop being mad at them or blaming them for what they may have done.
I say “may” because if we dig deeply into a situation, we may discover that the reason that someone is upset or unhappy with someone else may not be the reason which we thought it to be. We may have gotten the wrong impression. When scant information is available, it is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion.
Things, however, are not always what they seem. There is the danger of making assumptions, forming an opinion too early, and then trying to fit what few facts we may have into what we have decided happened. If we dig deeper, we may find that the real facts do not support what we have come to believe. The individuals in question may have experienced difficulties in their relationship but these difficulties were different in nature from what we thought, for example, poor communication, unstated expectations, and other similar things.
While we may equate throwing something in someone’s face with forcefully or angrily telling someone they should not have done a particular thing and criticizing them for having done it, refusing to speak to them, ignoring them, and avoiding them can also express feelings of anger and feelings of having a negative opinion of someone. Feelings like anger and disapproval do not have to be spoken. Different people learn to express anger and disapproval in different ways, depending upon the way their parents expressed anger and disapproval. In one family a child might have been upbraided when they did something wrong. In another family a child may have received the silent treatment. We tend to pass on to our children the way that our parents expressed anger and disapproval toward us.
In my family if I said something unkind to my grandmother, she would retreat to her bedroom with hurt feelings. My mother would tell me to apologize to my grandmother. I would. My grandmother would forgive me and that would be the last of it. In my family we did not hold grudges against each other. We did not bear a grudge against anyone outside the family. If my older brother or I did something wrong, it was brought to our attention with the expectation that we do something to correct it. We were expected to own up to what we had done and to make amends—to do something good to show that we were sorry about what we had done. The only person whom I remember getting cross was my grandfather, usually because he got the wrong end of the stick, he did not understand a situation correctly, and his anxiety got the better of him. My grandmother would talk to him and calm him down.
When someone refuses to speak to us, ignores us, and avoids us, and through a third party, informs us that they want nothing to do with us, it is reasonable to conclude that they have something against us, and they are not willing to forgive us. What they tell the third party and what they have against us may be two different things.
It is not uncommon for someone to give as an explanation of an impaired relationship something other than the actual reason or reasons. These reasons may be far more complicated and less flattering to themselves. The explanation that they settle upon may also garner them more sympathy from those to whom they are offering their explanation and prejudices the latter against the other person involved in the impaired relationship.
Children learn to do this sort of thing at an early age. They may develop a knack at playing one parent against another, using the sympathetic parent to defend them against the critical or disapproving parent. They may not be able to express their anger directly at the critical or disapproving parent and use the sympathetic parent to express their anger for them.
If there is no credible evidence of physical violence; verbal abuse; bullying; cruel behavior—behavior that is extremely unkind and unpleasant and intended to cause pain to someone; unwanted or offensive sexual attention, suggestions or talk; acts of making someone take part in sexual activities against their wishes or without their agreement; the use of sex, or sexual images of someone, in order to make money or gain some other advantage; and the crime of illegally following and watching someone over a period of time, actions which would explain why a church member is exhibiting fearfulness toward another church member and avoiding contact with them, it is reasonable to conclude that the church member who refuses to speak the other person, ignores them, avoids them, and wants nothing to do with them, has something against that person and is unwilling to forgive them. They may not be entirely candid about what is troubling them. They themselves may not fully understand their negative reaction to the individual in question.
By credible evidence, I mean evidence that can be believed or trusted and is considered satisfactory and acceptable in a law court. This rules out guesses about something based upon how it seems and not proof.
We may not like a particular individual. We may find them overbearing, boring, too friendly, too interested in what we are doing and wanting to discover too much about us, and other similar things. They may grate on our nerves. They may say things which hit too close to home. They may have caused us embarrassment or wounded our pride. However, none of these things is justification to ignore what Jesus taught. Our argument is not with them if they are the one drawing it to our attention. It is with Jesus’ himself. Jesus says to love them. Jesus says to forgive them.
What Jesus does not say is that we may refuse to speak to them, ignore them, avoid them, and have nothing to do with them and make sure that they know that we do not want anything to do with them. Jesus does not give us those options.
As the apostle Paul wrote the church at Corinth, God puts us where he wants us. We and our fellow Christians who form a local church are members of the Body of Christ. None of us can say a member of that body, “I don’t need you.” We are in each other’s care. When one suffers, all suffer. When one is honored, all are honored.
One of the reasons that we may have difficulty in forgiving a brother or sister in Christ is that we ourselves have not received much forgiveness. It can be a struggle to forgive if we have not experienced forgiveness ourselves. When we were small, our parents may have shown us little empathy. They were not able to understand how we felt by imagining what it would be like to be in our situation. They were preoccupied with their own feelings and gave little thought to ours. They did not grasp what a burden it is for a child to always be the object of their parents’ anger and disapproval. They may have relied heavily on their anger and disapproval to manipulate and control us and to get their own needs met to the neglect of ours.
By refusing to forgive a fellow Christian for something that they may have done and holding it against them, by refusing to speak to them, by ignoring them and avoiding them, by not want to have anything to do with them, we are not only distancing ourselves from that person, but we are also creating a predictable situation for ourselves, one in which we have the illusion of being in control. We do not have to deal with the other person’s reactions to our behavior, with their feelings, or any guilt or shame that we ourselves might experience.
If we forgive them, our situation becomes less predictable. Our sense of being in charge of our life is diminished, and our sense of uncertainty and any accompanying feelings of anxiety are heightened. The unrealistic fear that the person who we have forgiven may engulf us and we may lose our identity may affect us.
When we forgive other people’s failings, we are choosing to rely less on ourselves and more on God, trusting his grace, his merciful kindness toward us. We, in turn, are showing grace to others, emulating our merciful Father in heaven, and showing ourselves to be his children. We may make life more complicated for ourselves, but we draw nearer to God and yield more of ourselves to him.
We may not understand the need for forgiving a fellow Christian’s failings and lifting from their shoulders the burden of our anger and disapproval. We may not fully grasp Jesus’ teaching about forgiving others and restoring friendly relations with them. We may misunderstand what is expected of us.
For this reason, it is important that pastors and others who teach in the church should be clear in the pulpit, in the classroom, and in personal conversations that forgiving others is an integral part of Jesus’ teaching as is seeking to be reconciled with those who have something against us and becoming friendly with them again. They are not suggestions that Jesus made to his original disciples. They were instructions that Jesus gave to the disciples with the expectation that disciples follow them. He expects us to follow them too.
Pastors and others who teach in the church need to help Christians to understand that reconciliation does not demand that estranged Christians become best of friends. It does, however, require that they put an end to any bad feelings between each other; are once more on speaking terms, ready and willing to communicate with each other; and are behaving in a kind and pleasant way toward each other. They are no longer keeping away from each other but are willing to work with each other and be helpful to each other.
What if we find ourselves in a situation where a fellow Christian is showing an unwillingness to forgive us? They refuse to speak to us ignore us, avoid us, and have nothing to do with us and make sure that we know that they do not want anything to do with us. When we have made a small gesture of friendliness toward them, they have continued to do what they are doing in an even more determined way than before.
We are not free to disregard our Lord’s instructions to pursue reconciliation with them. If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we give heed to what he says and act on it. If it is possible to ask someone to intervene on our behalf, we do so.
In any event we pray for them. We ask God’s healing for them. We keep on loving them as a fellow human being and as a brother or sister in Christ. We love them for who they are, good qualities, bad qualities, all of them. As Trevin Wax put it, “we love the one we see and see the one we love.”
We pray for ourselves. We ask God to make us more understanding, more patient, more gentle, more loving. We ask God to show them and our fellow Christians that our love and caring for them is genuine and not affected.
Here are seven passages—six from the New Testament and one from the Old Testament—which touch on forgiveness. While they are not the only Scripture passages about forgiveness, they do specially address what we have been discussing. They are a reminder that forgiving others is very much a part of being a disciple of Jesus.
Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4: 32
If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. Matthew 6:14
Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Colossians 3: 13
Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven. Luke 6:37
But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. Mark 11:25
But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:15
Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends. Proverbs 7:19
