On Love and Forgiveness

Last week I wrote a post based on my reactions after watching the 1978 move Same Time Next Year. A reader took issue with my reflections, apparently thinking I was condoning adultery. I read his or her comments just before going to prayer this morning and have had several hours to prayerfully reflect on this subject.

I want to stress that my post was not meant to condone adultery – which I think can have some very painful results. Adultery leads to a loss of trust, fractures relationships, and maybe worst of all, leads people into a place of guilt and self-hatred that distances them from God: “How could God ever love or forgive me after what I’ve done?”  That, I think, is the definition of sin: how much it destroys our relationships with God, ourselves and others.

My thoughts were based more on my (most of ours, I imagine) tendency to judge other people so quickly. Because that, too, I believe distances us from others and separates us from God. We are in essence putting ourselves in the place of the only One who is qualified to judge us. As Jesus said in Luke 6:37: “Do not judge others, and God will not judge you; do not condemn others, and God will not condemn you; forgive others, and God will forgive you.”

The Book of Exodus recounts God giving TEN commandments to the Hebrews but we all seem disposed to focus only on the one dealing with sex. There are NINE other commandments. There’s that one about keeping holy the Sabbath (in the very unchurched Northwest it might be one to reconsider). There’s the coveting your neighbors’ possessions. We’re all pretty good at doing that coveting thing.  There’s that one about having no other gods; what about all of us who worship at the altar of consumerism, who desire more money, more material goods.  And what about taking God’s name in vain? There are plenty of sins out there, enough that we could all be spending most of our time pointing fingers at each other.

There is a lovely and thought-provoking essay in this week’s issue of America Magazine, Forgive Us Our Debts : What Victor Hugo Taught Me about Justice (http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12919). In it, Jesuit Fr. William O’Malley, who teaches at Fordham Preparatory School in the Bronx, reflects on the difference between justice (following the rules) and Christianity. He cites several examples from Jesus’ life in which Jesus seemed to go out of his way to be present to people society viewed as terrible sinners. The example that leapt immediately into my mind this morning, before reading this article, was Jesus dealing with the woman caught in adultery, John 8:1-11. When the “teachers of the law and Pharisees” brought the woman before him for judgment, he refused to condemn her. Instead, he reminded them that none of us is without sin and so none of us had the right to throw stones at others.

 

The article recounts the episode from Les Miserables in which Jean Valjean has stolen silverware from Bishop Bienvenu, but when he is brought before the Bishop, instead of being forced to return the stolen property and receiving retributive punishment, he is magnanimously forgiven: “Ah, my brother,” the Bishop tells him. “Here you are! How is it you forgot I gave you the silver candlesticks too!”  O’Malley points out how this treatment is not what we consider justice; it’s foolishness. It’s like rewarding the sinner. Kind of like the father throwing a party for his prodigal son.  

 

O’Malley reminds us that “Christianity’s two overriding laws are not strictures but limitless invitations, and its sole determinative assessment of one’s life at the end is not about conformity but about attentive kindness.”  Love God and love your neighbor. It’s about loving each other, and leaving it to the only One who truly has no sin to throw the first stone.  Whether those stones ever fly is something we may never know and maybe don’t ever need to know. For myself, I’m learning what a difficult journey it is to not buy into society’s expectations for blame, punishment and retribution. It is so easy to give in to my ego needs and prove how good and worthy I am by pointing out someone else’s failings, much more challenging to learn to follow Jesus’ example of loving sinners, a category that includes every one of us whether we like to admit it or not.