Monday, February 19, 2018

Part 1: Why is Forgiveness so Hard?

As we begin the season of Lent, I am going to begin a sermon series on forgiveness.  Most of us realize that forgiveness is one of the cornerstones of the Christian life–one that has been proclaimed and urged for nearly 2000 years.  But it is very interesting that in the last two decades or so, a wealth of psychological studies have also come out regarding forgiveness.  Some of the conclusions are quite staggering.

Consider what Dr. Thomas G. Plante said in his article for Psychology Today titled “Seven Rules for Forgiveness,” “It is really hard to forgive, whether it is forgiving yourself or others. We all could likely use some help learning to do it better. But what we may not be aware of is that learning to forgive is good for both our mental and physical health. Quality empirical research has shown that when we are better at forgiveness we experience lower stress, tension, levels of depression, anxiety, and perhaps most important, anger. Anger is toxic to our mental and physical health, increasing our stress reactivity and our risk for illness such as heart disease. In fact, the hostility and anger associated with Type A behavior is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease. When we have trouble being able to forgive, we hold in anger, resentment, and bitterness that can harm us in multiple ways and at multiple levels.”

In another article from Psychology Today titled “The Psychology of Forgiveness”, Rubin Khoddam, a PhD student writes this, “Psychologically, when people reported higher levels of forgiveness, they also tended to report better health habits and decreased depression, anxiety, and anger levels. Even in betrayed couples, greater levels of forgiveness were associated with more satisfied relationships, a stronger parenting alliance, and children's perceptions of parenting functioning. Physiologically, higher reported levels of forgiveness were associated with lower white blood cell count and hematocrit levels. White blood cells are an integral part of fighting off diseases and infections. Together, these results highlight the importance of forgiveness - not for the other person, but for you.”

And then there are the personal testimonies by doctors.  In Salon magazine in the article “The Science of Forgiveness”, the following personal story was shared.

In 1978, Dr. Dabney Ewin, a surgeon specializing in burns, was on duty in a New Orleans emergency room when a man was brought in on a gurney. A worker at the Kaiser Aluminum plant, the patient had slipped and fallen into a vat of 950-degree molten aluminum up to his knees. Ewin did something that most would consider strange at best or the work of a charlatan at worst: He hypnotized the burned man. Without a swinging pocket watch or any other theatrical antics, the surgeon did what’s now known in the field of medical hypnosis as an “induction,” instructing the man to relax, breathe deeply, and close his eyes. He told him to imagine that his legs—scorched to the knees and now packed in ice—did not feel hot or painful but “cool and comfortable.” Ewin had found that doing this—in addition to standard treatments—improved his patients’ outcomes. And that’s what happened with the Kaiser Aluminum worker. While such severe burns would normally require months to heal, multiple skin grafts, and maybe even lead to amputation if excessive swelling cut off the blood supply, the man healed in just eighteen days—without a single skin graft.
As Ewin continued using hypnosis to expedite his burn patients’ recoveries, he added another
unorthodox practice to his regimen: He talked to his patients about anger and forgiveness. He noticed that people coming into the ER with burns were often very angry, and not without reason. They were, as he put it, “all burned up,” both literally and figuratively. Hurt and in severe pain due to their own reckless mistake or someone else’s, as they described the accident that left them burned, their words were tinged with angry guilt or blame. He concluded that their anger may have been interfering with their ability to heal by preventing them from relaxing and focusing on getting better. “I was listening to my patients and feeling what they were feeling,” Ewin told me. “It became obvious that this had to be dealt with. Their attitude affected the healing of their burns, and this was particularly true of skin grafts. With someone who’s real angry, we’d put three or four skin grafts on, but his body would reject them.” Whenever a patient seemed angry, Ewin would help them forgive themselves or the person who hurt them, either through a simple conversation or through hypnosis.
Once Ewin began helping his patients forgive, he noticed even more improvement. “What you’re thinking and feeling affects your body,” he would explain to his patients, using the analogy of something embarrassing causing someone to blush. “What you’re feeling will affect the healing of your skin, and we want you to put all your energy into healing.”...“I’d say, ‘You can still pursue damages through an attorney. You’re entitled to be angry, but for now I’m asking you to abandon your entitlement and let it go, to direct your energy toward healing, and turn this over to God or nature or whoever you worship. It’s not up to you to get revenge on yourself or someone else. When you know at a feeling level that you’re letting it go, raise your hand.’ Then I’d shut up, they’d raise their hand, and I’d know that skin graft was gonna take.”

The science behind forgiveness is powerful.  Very powerful.  However, that does not mean that forgiveness is easy.  Every article I read acknowledged this.  Every. Single. One.  And I found it interesting that few of the articles delved into this aspect very deeply.  Why is it so hard to forgive?  We know that forgiveness is good for you.  As Christians, we know forgiveness is commanded by God–in fact when we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Now, usually, we think this means, “God, forgive us so that we can forgive others.”  However, a more proper reading of the Greek suggests that we are coming to God and saying, “God, forgive me just like I forgive others.”  In other words, in the overall picture, God’s forgiveness will be based in some form on how we forgive others.  All this is to say, is that we know that we are supposed to forgive, but we struggle mightily with actually forgiving.  Today, I’d like to wrestle with why that is the case, and we will begin that wrestling with defining forgiveness.

What exactly is forgiveness?

Okay, bear with me here because I’m going to give a clinical definition of forgiveness published in an article titled “Forgiveness: A Sampling of Research Results”:  Forgiveness is a process (or the result of a process) that involves a change in emotion and attitude regarding an offender. Most scholars view this an intentional and voluntary process, driven by a deliberate decision to forgive (6, 8, 26, 38). This process results in decreased motivation to retaliate or maintain estrangement from an offender despite their actions, and requires letting go of negative emotions toward the offender. Theorists differ in the extent to which they believe forgiveness also implies replacing the negative emotions with positive attitudes including compassion and benevolence (8, 17, 23, 25, 26). In any event, forgiveness occurs with the victim’s full recognition that he or she deserved better treatment, one reason why Mahatma Gandhi contended that “the weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”1

Okay, let’s try and break that down a little bit.  Forgiveness is:
1. A change in emotion and attitude toward someone who has hurt you.
2. It’s a process that a person undertakes voluntarily and deliberately.
3. It is a process that a person undertakes with the goal to forgive someone.
4. The process leads you to where you don’t want to hurt the person who has hurt you.
5. The process leads you to get rid of negative emotions.
6. You recognize that you deserved better treatment, but you still let go anyway.
7. This is extremely difficult for a “weak” person to do.

Okay.  That’s a scientific view.  Personally, I might be able to understand forgiveness a little better, but it still doesn’t help me understand why it is so difficult to forgive.  So, let’s turn now to a biblical understanding of forgiveness.  The Greek word used for forgiveness is Aphesis, “which often has the legal sense of “release” from office, marriage, obligation, etc. as also from debt or punishment.”  I would like us to particularly focus on that last piece of the definition–a release from debt or punishment, here is why I think it is particularly hard for us to forgive.

Please note that I am not disputing anything that scientists have said about forgiveness, I’m simply adding a piece to the puzzle. Forgiveness is all the things scientists have said, but they have failed to mention that when you forgive someone, you release them from their debt to you.  Now, what does that mean?

First, let’s think about it in terms of a financial transaction.  Let’s say that one day, you needed to buy a car.  You don’t have enough money to buy a car, so you go to the bank and take out a loan.  You are now in debt, right?  Well, you purchase the car, and then you have a series of set backs.  You are unable to pay your car payment.  You go to the bank and explain your situation.  It just so happens that the CEO of the bank overhears your plight and has compassion on you.  He comes up to you and says, “I am terribly sorry to hear about all that has happened to you.  I tell you what, we are going to write off your loan.”  What did you just receive?  Forgiveness.  You have been forgiven your debt.  But here is the question: who paid the debt?  Who absorbed the cost?  The bank did.  The bank paid for your car in forgiving your debt. 

Now, let’s think about it in terms of an emotional transaction.  Let’s say that a coworker of yours spreads malicious rumors about you.  Soon, everyone is looking at you suspiciously.  Where once you had numerous friends around the office, suddenly you find yourself eating lunch alone.  Finally, someone asks you if the rumors are true.  You are taken aback at what was said about you.  You discover the source of the rumors and are even further taken aback at the person who started them.  You are hurt.  You are wounded.  Your reputation has taken a nasty shot.  And you decide to forgive.  You decide that instead of seeking revenge and restitution, you will simply go about your life and your job.  You know that something is owed to you, but rather than demand it, you move on with your life.  Now, you were owed a debt.  This time, it wasn’t financial, was it?  It was emotional.  Who paid the debt?  Who absorbed the cost?  You did.  You paid the price for someone else’s wrong. 

Do you now see why forgiveness is so difficult?  Do you see now why, even though we know it is good for us; even though we know it is commanded by God; even thought it is a cornerstone of the Christian life; it is extremely hard to practice.  It is extremely hard to accomplish.  We pay for someone else’s wrong doing.  So, let’s put forth a working definition of forgiveness that will guide us for the next several weeks: Forgiveness is the change in our emotional state when we choose to absorb the cost of someone else’s actions that have hurt us. 

Given that definition, it is easy to see why the old adage is so true: to err is human, but to forgive is divine.  Indeed, forgiveness is divine, and I invite you to journey with me in the next few weeks as we see this: as we see divine forgiveness and then how it translates into human forgiveness.  In invite you to join me as we learn how to forgive.  Amen.

1. American Psychological Association, (2006). Forgiveness: A Sampling of Research Results. Washington, DC: Office of International Affairs. Reprinted, 2008.

No comments: