Sweet Poison

The scripture lesson at St Magnus was about the wicked servant who was forgiven an enormous sum by his master, but refused to forgive a trifling sum for a fellow servant. The sermon was a very simple one about forgiveness, not much more than saying Remember, it is important that we do this.  There was the reminder that this is simply good for us, and good for the other person.

I find these sermons among the most powerful. With a reminder, I preach it to myself rather than being told.

Forgiveness always has an element of puzzle for me, because I find some forgiving quite easy and some inexplicably hard. Trespasses against that others hang on to I let go with a shrug, while small things that seem more shrug-worthy stay for  me forever. I have spent far too much time analysing the difference, hoping to find the key. But I have also learned that insight is seldom much of an aid to doing the right thing. It keeps promising to provide the answer and the escape, but when the time comes, we still cannot forgive. 

I have read that we sometimes will not forgive because we don't want to let go of the person. Our resentment, however bitter, is our last tie with them, especially if they are dead or distant. Better to keep the large chunk in the bottom of the cup, a sweet poison that flavors everything that gets poured into it.  Is it in fact, sweet? Wouldn't it be bitter, an acquired taste like a strong liquor, that we learn to make sweet via our addiction? 

If we were to forgive and swallow it all, trusting God for the digestion, we would no longer be able to sip on it. 

I don't think it is the person so much as the chance for vindication that we will not fully swallow and just have done with.  When we resist giving up our resentment, we get to hang on to the fantasy that the offender will see the error of his ways, have the scales fall from his eyes, and apologise. What we resent is that they have likely forgotten about us and never think of us at all. There will be no similar situation in their own lives that causes them to understand how it feels; there will be no letter discovered by a relative that your parents were actually proud of you; there will be no chance meeting where it is revealed that you were right all along. Such things do happen! We give up much of our lives hoping for them.

The irony is that whether we forgive has no effect on whether the vindicating event happens. The letter could still come to light, the book that they read could still convict them. We want to keep it alive, even at the cost of bitterness, rather than let it fall into the abyss where no one remembers. It seems we cannot throw some things away, we can only swallow them and trust.