Seventy-seven times?
What forgiveness does and does not mean
Recently I was invited to consider a scripture passage I find very challenging.
Peter goes to Jesus and asks, Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?
And Jesus replies, Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times (Matt 18:21-22, NRSV).
Of course this is challenging—because forgiveness can be challenging. For me at least, there are times when it’s easy to forgive, and times when it’s really, really hard.
Sometimes the wrong feels small, and I can understand why the person did what they did. Maybe it wasn’t so much malicious as a misunderstanding. They feel bad, they apologize, and we move on.
Other times, the harm feels grievous. It feels preventable, perhaps intentional. Maybe the person doesn’t seem to feel bad. Maybe they don’t apologize. Moving on feels impossible.
This isn’t the only reason I find this passage challenging, though. Maybe not even the main one. I find it challenging because I think Christians often read this text in ways that can be really damaging.
When I read these verses, I think about how they are used to try to shame people into staying in abusive relationships. I don’t want people to just keep forgiving their abusers in the sense of letting it go, staying in the relationship, not setting and keeping healthy boundaries.
That’s the personal level, or at least one example of it. There’s also the societal level, where people are subject to systemic injustice on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, etc.—and then told to forgive. Seventy-seven times. Just let it go. Don’t struggle for justice, don’t try to make things better, don’t call out oppressive practices.
I hate all of that. So much.
How does this passage not contribute to these kinds of things? How could it not?
In (yet another) thoughtful recent contemplative prayer prompt, my friend
extended an invitation to look at this passage from some different angles. Some refreshing angles.Jenna suggested that we consider forgiveness as relates to our natural world. Forgiveness as relates to Earth and all we have done to her.
What might it mean that I am forgiven the ways I have harmed our natural environment, our planet, our one Earth and all her interconnected beings and systems?
Oof.
I wrestled with this. Not because I don’t think I’ve harmed our planet. But because sometimes I wonder if forgiveness lets people off the hook too easily.
So often in Christianity the idea of forgiveness seems to be used as a solution to guilt. We did something wrong, something damaging, and we feel bad about it. But it’s okay, because God forgives us and doesn’t hold our sin against us. All we have to do is ask.
I don’t know that I really believe in that. Or at least, I don’t really believe that asking and receiving forgiveness is the only thing needed to right many wrongs.
I think of Lisa Sharon Harper’s book Fortune, here—so much thoughtfulness about what has been broken and what is needed to make things right. (I’ve got a few more reflections on this powerful book over here.)
Like Lisa Sharon Harper, I believe in forgiveness, and I also believe in repair. In making amends. In restoration. In making things right with the person (or other being) we have harmed—whatever that looks like for them, and for us.
Maybe what I don’t believe in is cheap forgiveness, the kind that doesn’t call for change. The kind that makes the wrongdoer feel better about themselves but doesn’t actually heal what they broke in the relationship—whether with another human, or with Earth.
I don’t want forgiveness that’s only about guilt resolution. And yet. I do think about guilt. There’s something there.
When it comes to climate action, guilt can be such a debilitating force. It can keep us wallowing. It can keep us from moving forward. It can hold us hostage, stuck in our own heads and feelings, unable to do anything good that might actually help us save All We Can Save (which is the title of another powerful book) in our world.
Maybe it comes back to what Jesus told a woman once when she (and not the man involved, ugh) was brought before religious leaders on the charge of adultery: I do not condemn you; go and sin no more (John 8:11).
When it comes to climate change—or anything, really—I think we need both parts of this. The “no condemnation,” and the “go and sin no more.”
We are not condemned. We are not damned. We are forgiven. We are released from debilitating guilt. That is good news indeed.
And we are invited to do something good with this newfound feeling of release, or lightness, or joy, or freedom. We’re invited to go and sin no more. In the case of the climate crisis, we’re invited to do what we can to live in ways that honor Earth—and to protest and advocate for policies that honor Earth.
Simply trying to be aware of and understand what’s going on with the climate crisis can be completely overwhelming. We don’t need the added overwhelm of guilt. We need to be free to see what good we can do, and do it.
We are forgiven. But forgiveness isn’t just so we can feel better. It’s so that we can live better in our world, growing into kinship with one another and with our Earth as a whole.
Forgiveness has often been used as a tool of the oppressor, but, as activist and musician Andre Henry has said about many things in our world, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I hope I’m learning to see it differently. I hope we can learn to see it differently, together.
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What do you make of Jesus’ words about forgiving seventy-seven times? How have you seen these words abused, or how have you seen them working for good? How has the way you think about or experience forgiveness changed over time? I’d love to hear.
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If you need more…
There’s an adapted excerpt from Nice Churchy Patriarchy in a recent Mother Pelican Journal. One person who read the book said she felt like she could see my journey and growth over the course of the book, and she’s not wrong. This excerpt is from the last chapter, and it’s a slightly more recent part of the journey (compared to some earlier chapters in the book). Connecting feminism with learning to live in healthier ways within our natural world.
I was so psyched and honored that Red Letter Christians chose Nice Churchy Patriarchy for their March book club! (For reference, their February book was Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies!!) Here’s the video if you’re into that kind of thing. (Also, what a trip to meet Shane Claiborne - trying hard not to fan-girl, lol.)
Forgiveness. All you said. I'm like you, there are some things I can never forgive. And I remind myself even if I forgive, or have been forgiven, or should forgive there are still consequences of whatever action was taken that must to be dealt with in some way. It's not just a slick "I forgive" now it's done, la dee dah, on our way. The young man that just killed that woman and 3 children? I can understand he was young, immature, so very foolish, and without strict parents but 4 very innocent people are dead. I figure that there is pretty much nothing I do in my life in this privileged country that isn't destroying something or harming someone inadvertently. Eating veggies shipped in from somewhere else - adding to pollution; using my cell, or this computer, that contain some precious metal some child some place is digging out of dangerous mine.... You know. And then there's the whole forgiving myself for all the hurt/harm I have caused and still do out of ignorance. Aaccckk! It's too big!!