Fruit

As I pondered the thought I woke up to on Monday morning (see last post), and talked it through with Jim on Tuesday afternoon, I came to the following understanding.

We often have people in our lives who hurt us...over and over and over again. They hurt us with their actions and deeds but mostly with their words. Whoever said "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me" was lying! And as I have been saying in previous posts about hardening hearts, we are faced with a choice when this happens. When I am hurt over and over and over again, I can respond in the way that Jesus teaches, or I can react in the way of the world. The world says I am fully justified in cutting the one who hurts me out of my life while Jesus calls me to forgive...over and over and over again.

First, let me be clear. My choice to forgive must be borne out of a desire to restore, both them and myself; not out of a fear to submit or fake peace. The kind of forgiving that I am talking about is not the "let em off the hook" and be a doormat to their abuse kind of "forgiveness". That is not forgiveness - that is denial.

According to Dr. John Steward in his teaching on forgiveness in "Choices: On the Way to Peace" (DVD, John Steward and David Fullerton, 2006) forgiveness involves two hands. One hand opens as if to say " I forgive you, I let it go" while the other hand holds up as if to say "but what you did was wrong, and what will you do to restore us?".

We do not always receive the restorative response we hope for but that is not the point of forgiveness. The point of forgiveness is to ensure a sycamine tree of bitterness, resentment, and hate does not take root in our hearts. And that is where the fruit tree analogy comes in.

In Luke 17: 1 - 6 Jesus tells the disciples that temptations will come. We are all tempted to sin, which is to miss the mark, with eachother and we all do it. There are no exceptions. Two things stand out in this passage; 1) the response when we miss the mark with children and 2) when we miss the mark as peers/adults.

When someone misuses their adult authority and sins against a child, thereby, causing the child to also sin, forgiveness is not even discussed. Jesus says "it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were to be cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin". This passage is significant for me. As a child I was sexually abused and beaten, repeatedly. There was an offending parent and a non offending parent. Both sinned against me and both led me into sin. I was never an "innocent child" and my responses to the abuse of my childhood have always been sin filled reactions. Moreover, while I have repented of the sin of the abuse and continue to live a life under grace and mercy, as far as I know, neither the offending parent (who is now dead) nor the non offending parent have confessed and sought forgiveness, and it is the latter who continues to say words that hurt. When this happens old memories of cruel things said and done are stirred up - flashbacks long forgotten return and I find myself yet again, having to re-enter the spiritual battle over my childhood. Perhaps this is the way of sanctification and some days it just seems easier to just give up.

I believe it is grievous to sin against children because it causes them to sin in turn when they are children and it contributes to their sin filled struggles with life as adults. And while there is forgiveness from God, it is significant to remember that every choice we make as a parent has impact and ramifications on our children, whether it be divorce, how we fight in front of them, or actual neglect and abuse. Jesus was quite direct in His caution here.

But, I am no longer a child and my non offending parent is still in my life, so what then? As a adult who has been forgiven, I am now called to forgive. In verse 3 Jesus says "Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother (or sister, or mother, or father, or wife, or husband, or neighbour, or boss etc) sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him and if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times saying I repent, you must forgive him".

So, here is a question worth pondering? When someone sins against you, how to do rebuke them? Do you let them know how you feel and what you need in a manner that is conducive to the call to "gently restore"? Or do you react in a way that comes across like a command, or a demand, or ultimatum that leaves them feeling defensive; like "how dare you!", or "don't you ever...." or "you always...." or "if you ever.....?

Somewhere along the line we got the idea that rebuke means to reprimand and show them their fault in a way that leaves them feeling puny and ourselves superior and this is where I get stuck. There are times when the hurt is such that I retalitate in kind. I sin in my anger and attack back. There are no excuses for this sin and I need to learn to rebuke better, in a more loving way that then enables the kind of shame that leads to repentence be put on them, rather then me react in shameful ways that leaves them feeling justified. This is the kind of rebuke that recognizes their humanity, takes compassion on them and remembers that, in all likelihood, they are acting out of their own pain and woundedness. For example, I forget that my non offending parent is likely compelled by feelings of ambiguity over what happened to me, as well as her own guilt and shame over not being able to protect me, even if she does not know it. Shame creates denial and denial blinds us to the shame; quite the effective trap because it prevents her from forgiving herself and from receiving the forgiveness of God and others, because denial tells her that she has done nothing wrong and does not need this forgiveness. Rather then get angry over this, I must remember that I was once in the same place, received forgiveness and now forgiveness is mine to give.

The kind of rebuke that leads to repentence must go hand in hand with affirmation of them as a person who is loved and whose fellowship we need. Gentleness, patience and kindness are all words that come to mind when we are to rebuke and certainly, our rebuke must be more like an invitation to change that leaves them with their dignity intact, as opposed to a demand that they "stop it or else!". I believe that when we are motivated by love and learn how to give proper rebuke in an honouring way, they will want to meet our need for relationship with them and want to respond to the invitation to repent.

Forgiveness is a hard thing. I have trouble forgiving, particularly when the hurt is repeated over and over by someone who appears wholly unrepentent. Moreover, when I attempt to open my heart and vulnerably share the hurt, the response is "that's your problem". There is no repentance, so does it follow, I don't have to forgive? This is where I was at last week when I considered how easy it would be to simply sever the relationship. And this is where I got the picture about cutting down the fruit tree.

I believe that I have free will and God's love for me would not be altered one iota if I decided to follow through with severing the relationship. But, I believe that what He is telling me is the fruit that I have asked for - the fruit of love, patience, perseverence, gentleness, kindness, self control etc - is only borne through difficult relationships, forgiveness and the softening of the heart that comes through forgiveness. I may "cut off" the relationship but to do so would inhibit the fruit.

So, I repeat, forgiveness is difficult - when Jesus told the disciples to just keep on forgiving, they said, "Increase our faith!", to which Jesus said "If you had faith like the grain of a mustard tree you could say to this sycamine tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you".

I did a little research and learned some interesting things about the sycamine tree. It grew like a weed, had roots that went very deep and were next to impossible to get rid of it, it's fruit is bitter and stains badly, and the wood was used to build coffins. Kind of sounds like unforgiveness....it grows like a weed, goes deep into our heart to harden it, is really hard to get rid of,tastes bitter, stains us and eventually, kills us.

Jesus deliberately used the sycamine tree to illustrate how just a little bit of faith will uproot unforgiveness in our lives and enable us to cast their sin and our unforgiveness into the sea. When we ask for the faith to forgive, just as God promises in Micah 7:19, "He will again have compassion on us, He will tread our inquities under foot, You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea".

Unforgiveness is like having a fruit tree; the fruit is yours to have but because the tree is giving your enemy shade, you cut it down. There goes the fruit. If we want fruit in our lives, we must learn to rebuke well and we must forgive.