Thought Provoking

Our church, All Saints by the Sea (sooo great that we live by the sea), has been doing a lenten series on Jerusalem. As part of the series, they are bringing in professors and rabbis and various people to speak to us the congregants on the religious significance and current state of Jerusalem. It has been so fascinating. Last night a Jewish professor spoke. It was thought provoking to think about Jesus being Jewish (and also left me heavy-hearted at wishing this professor believed Jesus to be the Son of God). He spoke of the Jewish perspective of forgiveness from one person to another. There are four stages:

1. Recognizing that what you did was wrong.

2. Feeling remorseful so much so that you do everything in your power to right your wrong.

3. Asking the person you offended for forgiveness.

4. Resolving to never commit such an offense again.

It left me thinking that when Jesus (a Jew) spoke of forgiveness to his disciples (many also Jews) in Matt. 18:21-22, they would have understood that these four steps were "givens" with forgiveness. However, when it is written in the English language to people (many of whom do not know Jewish tradition), these elements have been lost. What we are left with is a more vague concept of "forgiveness" which has, in modern times, been described as "forgive and forget". I wish that we could all go back to Jesus' understanding of forgiveness. Too often the "forget" part leaves many people feeling guilty if they still remember the wrong that they have forgiven (and forgetting something when it hurt/scarred you can be close to impossible). If anything, the phrase should be "forgive and don't dwell" - that seems much more in line with what Jesus would have understood forgiveness to be.

The other aspect that I love about this Jewish concept of forgiveness is that it is very communal. It takes accountability to be able to right a wrong and to work toward never committing that offense again. It takes communication to find out from the person you offended how you could right the wrong (and likely hearing part of their story). It also takes humility and selflessness to admit a wrong and ask for forgiveness.

I wish that our Bibles could include descriptions of what Jewish traditions like these were so that we could more fully understand what Jesus was describing/living. I suppose our Bible would be thousands of pages if that were the case. And that is what commentaries are for.