Dear questioner, you’ve found the hardest part of the Lord’s Prayer for me to pray. I call it my Big Lie. The truth is, I don’t WANT God to forgive me as I forgive others–I’m terrible at it–I want God to forgive me BETTER than I forgive others. What does it all mean? It’s time for another Ask the Pastor!

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First, let’s define what we mean when we talk about “forgiveness”. I like this comprehensive definition: forgiveness is the process of intentionally and voluntarily moving away from, or giving up, the negative feelings one has when they have been hurt or victimized, such as resentment, anger, and the need for vengeance–even when those feelings are justified.

Did you catch the beginning of that definition? Forgiveness is a process. Not a moment, or an action. A process.

Perhaps the church has gone too far when we treat forgiveness as a mere financial transaction (although the word is perfectly appropriate there, too, such as the forgiveness of the outstanding balance of a loan), or the moment of choice when one person says to another who has hurt them, “I choose to forgive you.” Because while it’s not untrue, reducing forgiveness down to something that happens with the snap of a finger doesn’t acknowledge the often lengthy and painful process it takes to get to that point.

But forgiveness as a process? I can get behind that. I’m not very good at forgiveness. When someone really hurts me, it takes me a LONG time to work through those emotions and feelings and get to a point where I can say, “I forgive you.”

Does that mean I’ve failed to forgive? I don’t think so. It means that I have more work to do before I get to a point where the hurt no longer bothers or binds me. But the whole process, getting to that point, is part of forgiveness too.

And notice how forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with what the other person does. Sure, it makes it a LOT easier for me to forgive someone who hurts me when they realize that they hurt me, apologize, and work to make things better. But forgiveness is a process that happens within one’s self. No one else but you can forgive someone for what they did to you. It’s a process that happens apart from them, and is entirely in your wheelhouse.

God’s forgiveness is the same. When human beings hurt and then forgive each other, it’s more than just someone breaking a “rule” and being told, “That’s okay,” like if someone hung up a Detroit Red Wings flag in my house (don’t you even dare) and I said, “It’s fine”. There’s no real hurt there. Annoyance, but there hasn’t been a fracturing of any relationship. I’m not going to kick you out of my house because you’re a Green Bay Packers fan (but don’t push it, ya hear?).

So it is with sin. Sin isn’t “breaking a rule” or commandment. It’s not “doing something wrong” in some abstract sense. Sin is whatever strains our relationship with God. It’s kicking God’s puppy because it barked too loudly, or constantly borrowing money from God and blowing it on junk and coming back for more money, or disowning God because God is queer, or saying you’re in love with God and then having an affair with not-God (this is a common theme in the Hebrew Scriptures, by the way!). Sin hurts, and the hurt is so bad that it threatens to tear God and us apart.

Forgiveness is the reversal of sin. It’s God reaching a point where God can put aside the hurt we’ve caused. It’s God overcoming the perfectly justified feelings of anger and pain and choosing not to act on them. It’s putting the love God has for us–God is so desperately in love with us–above the pain the relationship causes God, and rededicating to staying in the relationship.

It may even take a bit of time. In the book of the prophet Hosea, God famously tells the Israelites at the beginning “You are not my people and I am not your God,” spends thirteen chapters blasting them for their horribleness, but also works through that anger and tells them at the end, “I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.”

And the best part? It’s all God’s doing. Just as forgiving someone who hurts you is all your doing, God’s forgiveness is all God’s. We can certainly help mend the relationship, just like we do in our own human relationships. But in neither case do we “earn” forgiveness, either from another or from God. At the end of the day, forgiveness is the gift of the one who was hurt, offered freely, without condition or reservation, for the sake of bringing the relationship back together.

There’s another good word for this: salvation. Forgiveness IS salvation. Philip Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession calls forgiveness “the true voice of the gospel.” It is GOOD news. God forgives freely, abundantly, stupidly generously by human standards.

If the petition of the Lord’s Prayer on forgiveness, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” gives us anxiety, it’s because we’ve been taught that forgiveness has to be earned. But it isn’t. It can’t be. This is exactly what Martin Luther and the other reformers were pushing back against. People thought and believed that forgiveness was something they had to work hard for, and if they didn’t work hard enough, God would condemn them. They were terrified of confession and forgiveness, because to them it was about God’s anger, not about God’s love.

In the Book of Concord, the reformers stress and emphasize repeatedly that any teaching on forgiveness that is not a comfort to sinners, a refuge from condemnation, is not freely available to all, is not help, and does not give consolation is a false teaching. That includes teaching that God only forgives you if you forgive others, as if God will only forgive you if you first meet this requirement or condition.

So maybe you’re not quite ready to reach that forgiveness “tipping point”. Maybe you have some work to do. Maybe you have a LOT of work to do (we can be study partners). Maybe you won’t ever reach a point in your forgiveness journey where you CAN tell the one who hurts you, “I forgive you.” You’re not God–there are some things you may never be able to forgive.

But not for one second does that change how God loves and forgives you. You don’t earn it. You can’t deserve it. You’ll never be able to fix the broken relationship no matter how hard you try (not that you shouldn’t try, as it’s very much appreciated, but you’ll never be able to do it all the way). You can’t meet enough requirements or commitments to “allow” God to forgive you.

And yet, without fail, God forgives. God forgives you.

God forgives YOU.

Freely. Abundantly. Stupidly generously.

Thanks be to God.

— Pastor Ken Ranos

Previous Columns:

Ask the Pastor, Nov. 2020 (Heaven and the Resurrection)

Ask the Pastor, Dec. 2020 (Faith and Belief)

Ask the Pastor, May 2021 (The Gnostics)

Ask the Pastor, July 2021 (The Nicene Creed)