Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin,
you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. –St Paul
Gently…
Not pedantically nor
Pharisaically
Not accusingly or
condemningly
Not condescendingly nor
contemptuously
But with the gentleness of a
loving spirit, we are to go to the individual and do our all to see him reconciled
and restored.
Of course, when the “sin” is
against me, I encounter a number of challenges.
Do I, A, give him the cold shoulder and cast him out of my universe; or, B, Do I go and give him both barrels of
my anger and hurt? Hmmmm. That would be C:
Neither.
Sure. There are cases where
I am left with no alternative other than keeping the offending person at a
great distance. This step, however, doesn’t come until well after I have done
my best to see the individual restored and for us to be reconciled. Rejecting
the offender without any opportunity for the giving and receiving of
forgiveness makes me an offender. But, in the heat of the hurt, it feels so
reasonable and righteous to skip over seeking to sort things out doesn’t it.
Why is it that we so easily
throw people and relationships away?
Sometimes it is a case where
we are fearful of seeking reconciliation because to do so leaves us vulnerable
to more pain. So, we silently hold on to our offenses with their accompanying accusations
and condemnations, ready to hurl them in the offender’s face, if he gets too
close. Or we place him in the category of Someone I Use to Know, bury the pain
of the offense, and walk away, as if that individual never existed. And in
doing such things, we now are breaking the laws of love, which says we are to
drop everything and go seek restoration. Yes, love does make us vulnerable but
it is only with such vulnerability that touching the soul of another and being
reconciled is possible.
Another challenge is holding
on to our rights. “I have a right to my boundaries.” “I have a right to justice
being served.” The rub here is that, if all he encounters is my Rights (aka righteous indignation), the possibility
for reconciliation dwindles to almost nothing. But if he primarily meets my
love, my commitment to his welfare, my gentleness, the possibilities for
restoration increases, exponentially.
Some people choose to
circumvent these and other challenges by granting a faux forgiveness. There is no working through the substance of the
offense, no seeking to get at the root of the conflict, no bearing of the
souls: only a kind of Get Out of Jail Free card that changes nothing and no
one, that brings no reconciliation, healing or restoration. How could it be
otherwise when the light of truth was never turned on?
Faux forgiveness
creates faux relationships. Not
exactly what St John had in mind when he wrote, “Love one another,” and, “Walk
in the light (with one another) as He is in the light.”
When an individual sins, his
repentance must be to the depths of the offense. Light must shine all the way
down into the depths of the darkness. Asking for or giving forgiveness for
knifing someone in the back as if it were merely a matter of stepping on his
toes won’t cut it. In this case, the offended and the offender then walk away
knowing nothing changed. And they will continue relating accordingly. Which is
to say, not really.
I think the key to getting
all this right, to fully obeying the laws of love in such situations, is seeing
that forgiveness is not the goal: restoration is. Once we set our sights on
this, we will not be tempted to offer or receive a cheap imitation of
forgiveness, because such will never achieve genuine restoration.
