Seventy Times Seven

A blog, written about forgiveness, with mainly other Christians in mind.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells us that if someone wrongs us "seventy times seven" times, that we still forgive them each time.  Those of you accustomed to reading the Bible know that this isn't a word problem like you did in 6th grade math.  In fact, it is a little more abstract.  He's not saying that by the time someone has wronged us 490 times, that we can just hold a grudge from then on out.  I've heard the explanation before that the number seven was a symbol of the infinite, so to say "seventy times seven" meant to keep forgiving...and forgiving...and forgiving...

We often hear that we can "forgive but not forget."  That makes sense, I mean, it comes down to a matter of self-preservation.  There is a reason that hurting to you or lying to you will destroy your trust in me:  I have proven that trusting me leads to getting hurt.  And getting hurt doesn't feel good.

So if forgiving isn't forgetting that something happened, then what is it?  Maybe it's refusing to feel feelings about what happened.  That would be awesome.  Can you imagine if you had hurt someone you cared about, and hearing them say they would forgive you meant that, even if they recalled the incident, they would never feel hurt about it again?  Even better, can you imagine if forgiving someone meant that you wouldn't ever have to feel the hurt again?  That sounds wonderful, and it is not realistic.  How many times have I had something rupture a friendship, forgive what needed forgiven, then feel a burning sense of hurt when the incident was recalled in my memory?  I wish with all my heart I had that kind of ability, but that is not how things normally happen.  There is an answer to what we are supposed to do with this, which I will get to in a bit.

Forgiving, then, has to be about more than declining to have hurt feelings.  It has to be more of a conscious choice and less of an emotional state.  I am still learning about forgiveness, as I believe it is one of the more complicated spiritual duties. However, I have come to believe that it amounts to releasing the forgiven party from indebtedness to you.  (As an aside, I am talking about giving up your right to treat someone poorly or think of them poorly because they hurt you.  If, for instance, someone damages your property or steals your money, I believe you can both forgive and expect to be compensated for your material loss, depending on the situation.)  It is telling the forgiven party, "I am releasing you from having this held against you."

How difficult is that?  If we forgive someone, we can't continue to go around saying "wow, isn't Susie a jerk?  She told me I looked fat in my Halloween costume."  Forgiveness is incompatible with any sort of retaliation.  I'm not very good at it, and I can only conclude that we can't usually do it alone.  It requires for asking God's grace to convert our hearts.  It requires trusting in, leaning on God to help us.  And nobody likes to ask for help.

I was talking to my good friend Wendy about this recently.  Wendy, like me, identifies as Christian but also has a Jewish background.  She was telling me that Christians have this idea that we should forgive once and it should all be over.  She said that this concept of forgiveness is really divine forgiveness, and we are not divine.  I think this is why I have struggled with forgiveness, and have been less than graceful when attempting forgiveness.  As I mentioned above, if something comes up that reminds me of a hurt I forgave, I tend to begin to feel hurt again.  It ends up in a spiral and I end up feeling both angry at the person and profoundly ashamed for not adequately forgiving the first time.  However, the Jewish tradition sees forgiveness a little differently.  It leaves the divine type of forgiving to God who is capable of it, but what this means is that we may end up having to silently, to ourselves, repeatedly forgive someone for the same incident.  This sounds like a lot of work--and it is--but I submit that it is better than the anger and shame spiral.  Maybe this is also what Jesus was talking about with the "seventy times seven" stuff.  Maybe we are supposed to infinitely forgive people for the same wrong, even if they only committed it once.  And pray for a lot of grace to help us accomplish this.

What is really important to know is that God demands that we forgive others.  If you are Christian you ostensibly believe that all your wrongdoings have been and will continue to be forgiven, and it is expected that you, in return, also forgive wrongdoings against us.  It is even written into what is perhaps Christianity's most common prayer:  "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Although I must say that I hope God, in his infinite grace, forgives me BETTER than I forgive those who trespass against us, it is clearly still expected that we are going to give it our best effort.

I have a lot of close friendships, and let's face it, close friends hurt each other sometimes.  So I am self-consciously admitting that I can, on occasion, hold a grudge--or try, and fail, to fully forgive in one attempt.  I also want to say that this does not mean that I have never successfully done so.  There are hurts that I have definitely forgiven and emotionally moved on from, and if you and I have had a run-in but maintain some sort of closeness you can feel pretty well assured that I am over whatever happened.  (And I hope you are too, as I have rarely if ever had some sort of major conflict where I did not play a major role in the wrong-doing.)

One final thought on this, from a reading I heard at mass this morning, that basically tells us to put away our weapons and use our aggressive emotions for something productive:

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.
O house of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord!"