The Hunger

The past month we have been discussing forgiveness. We discussed how humanity is so valuable to God he has chosen to forgive us for our rebellion and if God’s nature is love and forgiveness, we should reflect that in our lives as well. We also reflected on the fact that forgiveness is offered. We simply have to confess our sin and choose to live in the Spirit-filled way and the Spirit will empower us to do so.

We then talked about forgiveness at home and how the practice of forgiveness at home connects us with Abraham and his family of promise and how forgiveness breaks the cycle of division at home. This then included the importance forgiveness in marriage which serves as the glue of the family.

And this week we talk about perhaps the most difficult kind of forgiveness: forgiveness of others. And to do so we will begin by reflecting on South Africa.

South Africa was inhabited and controlled by the Zulu tribe until the late 18th and early 19th century. It was at this time that Dutch settlers known as the Vortrekkers arrived in the southern part of the African continent. They viewed the Zulus as heathens and believed God had given them this new land. They viewed their journey to the African continent as an Exodus from British imperialism. Those beliefs and the power they found in the barrel of their rifles led them to overtake the Zulus. Sounds not unlike the American colonists and the Native Americans.

One moment in history stands among all others in assuring the white settlers they had arrived. A group moving north from the coast came across a tribe of what they called the heathen natives. They were greatly outnumbered and circled their wagons. They prayed and made a covenant with God that if they were victorious in battle they would forever commemorate that day. They won that day and for more than a century going forward that day in South Africca became known as Dinggan’s Day after the Zulu tribal king who was defeated.

This set in motion white dominance in South Africa that led in 1948 to the inauguration of Apartheid in 1948. As part of these policies the races were mostly segregated with the blacks stripped of their farmland and forced to live in much less fertile areas. They also had no presence in law enforcement or a voice in the political sphere. The white experience in South Africa had been institutionalized as normal and God-given both in the government and the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. In addition to this injustice was the ongoing persecution and genocide of indigenous Africans.

Obviously tensions built and finally reached a point where militant groups formed and began to enact violent policies of trying to defeat the whites as whose hands they suffered. The violence became unbearable and was on the verge stripping South Africa of any meaningful future.

In the midst of all the chaos arose a growing number of blacks who chose nonviolence. They, informed by faith and led by people such as Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, decided they would not be defined by their enemies. Nor would give their enemies power by becoming what their enemies had become. They would not return hate for hate. They, like the others in the resistance, would suffer. They, too, would be called terrorists and Communists. Many in their ranks went to prison, most notably Mandela for 27 years, but they would not participate in the bloodletting in South Africa.

And finally, it seemed the Spirit moved in the hearts of South Africa. It’s not clear if President F. W. De Klerk’s motivation was a crisis of conscience after meeting with the peacemaking Mandela in prison or increased global political pressure but on February 2, 1990, he announced unexpected reforms including power sharing among the races. Nine days later Mandela was released from prison and the seemingly endless cycle spinning towards an all out Civil War was stopped.

By 1994, a fuller, fairer democracy took hold in the country and Mandela was elected president. It was a joyous day both for black South Africans and the world. But it brought great unease to the country’s former oppressors.

The fear came from expecting the worst. After decades and decades of oppression and genocide, the whites in South Africa were scared to discover what their fate may be. It was a choice Mandela and the new power holders would have to make.

Now their choice was the same as any individual or group has to make when someone sins against them. You stand at the fork in the road and have to choose one of three paths.

The first path is revenge. Revenge is more than payback. Revenge says I’m not just going to get you back. I’m going to do you in. Revenge takes measures to an extreme to make sure the previous perpetrators are so intimidated they will be too scared to try anything like they did before. Nor will they stand up to the newly empowered. It is a complete and unhindered releasing of pent up rage. This would have seemed like the likely scenario in South Africa.

The second path is retribution. Retribution makes sure offenders get their just desserts. Whatever offense you perpetrated, should be answered by a proportional response. It is how our system of legal justice in the United States generally works. The problem was many of the crimes and human rights violations did not have proportionate responses that could be pursued without being viewed, and perhaps being, revenge.

The third path is forgiveness. This seeks to restore the relationship and bring some form of harmony to the situation.

So the black South Africans had a choice to make. They had been beaten, imprisoned, raped, kidnapped, murdered, disappeared. Families had been harassed and torn asunder. The decades prior had seen white power, oppression, and genocide all in the name of God and capitalism.

And yet they chose forgiveness. The country would form the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which hearings would be held. Victims would be allowed to tell their stories. Perpetrators would be brought to these hearings as well. Yet, the result would not be a statement in which they pledged forgiveness to their oppressors followed by the usual brand of justice, meaning punishment.

No. Rather than punishment they offered amnesty. All a person had to do to be granted amnesty was tell the truth. They were to testify about every crime, every atrocity, every human rights violation in which they took part.

Perpetrators were liberated by the forgiveness they received as a burden was lifted off their shoulders both of the guilt for what they had done and of the pressure of a system of Apartheid they felt they had to enforce.

The victims were liberated in the disclosing of their pain and forgiveness that lifted the burden of bitterness and hate off their heavy hearts.

Restitution has been made in small, manageable ways including reparations for victims and the return of some lands to the families who had previously owned them.

And a country was liberated and enabled through reconciliation to move into a period of relative peace. I say relative because there are still those on both sides looking to mete out vengeance. But they are not government sanctioned or politically or religiously backed.

Now, other truth and reconciliation commissions have been held in other countries where atrocities took place on a large scale with government sanction. But none accepted the radical move that was amnesty. None embraced forgiveness the way South Africa did.

But what made this possible. Desmond Tutu said it was an African attitude they call ubuntu. Ubuntu recognizes that all our lives are intertwined. It says a person is only a person through other persons. Its foundational statement is “I am human because I belong.” It believes that social harmony is the greatest good.

If harmony is such a great good, and revenge and retribution further alienate people from one another, ubuntu says these must be rejected. So South Africa chose forgiveness.

And that presents us with a challenge: if the people of South Africa could forgive such horrible violations of their personhood and their lives, why are we often so unable to forgive what are usually much more minor offenses? If a coworker of friend takes advantage of our generosity, talks behind our backs, or flat out steals from us why do we often not forgive? After all, when we put things in perspective, our suffering is not near on the level of what those people in South Africa forgave.

And, while we may not live in Africa and be familiar with ubuntu, we know the idea. After all, it is what the Jewish word shalom which we encounter in the Old Testament means. It is what the biblical English term peace means. These ideas go far beyond the mere absence of war. They speak of communal wholeness where we are united with God and with one another.

Ubuntu, peace, shalom all declare the reality that we are created by God and thus we all have the same value. We are all rebels against a loving God, yet precious. God forgives us and we are to forgive one another.

It is illustrated by none better than Jesus, who tells us to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times. Jesus also tells us the parable of the prodigal son which Rebecca discussed last week in which God, like the waiting father in the parable has already forgiven. We just have to accept.

Even in a seemingly more difficult teaching in Matthew 18, he says confront someone who sinned against you. If they do not repent, take two or three witnesses. If they still do not repent, take them before the church. If they still do not repent, treat them as you would a tax collector or a sinner.

But here’s the kicker: how did Jesus treat those the Jewish leaders called sinners and tax collectors? He welcomed them. Wow!

And if that isn’t enough of a wow moment for us, consider his words as he hung on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” I mean, Wow!

So why won’t we forgive? Well, part of it is it’s hard. We fear justice won’t be done so no one will have incentive not to hurt us again. And we’ll appear weak and vulnerable to constant harm.

But that fails to make a distinction between modern legal justice resulting in punishment and the biblical justice of the kingdom of God which is about ubuntu, shalom, peace. And that fails to understand what forgiveness is.

After all, forgiveness is not about pretending the thing never happened. No. There are three parts of forgiveness as Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who knows the suffering many experienced during the genocide and war in Serbia and Herzegovia during the 1990’s, explains in his book Free of Charge.

The first part of forgiveness is surprising: condemnation. Condemnation is a step that refuses to passively respond to injury by acting as though nothing happened. No. forgiveness begins by proclaiming to the offender they have sinned against you. Yet, this must be done humbly and through great discernment to be sure we are not telling someone else about their sins while ignoring our sins in the relationship. Self-righteous condemnation, after all, will only advance the divisive cycle which forgiveness longs to halt.

The next part of forgiveness is the one we think of the most: release of debt. This is the one we think makes us weak. However, the condemnation we just spoke of exposes the offender but letting them know their sin was noticed and they are called out on it. But here, in the next step, we make the radical offer of the open door. I forgive you. I love you. I do not seek to punish you. The door back into this relationship is open for you. You just have to walk in.

And finally, we release the offender from guilt. In this, we tell the offender, you are loved. We remain equal. There is no need to hang your head in shame.

These three parts of forgiveness recognize both our equal preciousness in God’s eyes and our sinfulness as humans. They also acknowledge that being created in God’s image, it is in our nature to forgive.

The tragedy is we deny our nature. We deny it because we are asleep. We are like those in the new hit movie Inception who go day after day into the basement of the chemist’s shop to be sedated so they can dream. They have become so engrossed by their dreams they accept their dreams as reality.

When the chemist’s assistant is asked the question, “So they come here to sleep?” He responds, “No they come here to wake up for their dreams are their reality.

Humanity is fast asleep. Christianity is fast asleep. We’ve sedate ourselves day after day so we can live the lie that has become our dream. It’s wrapped up in delusions of grandeur and power and wealth and myself while neglecting ubuntu, turning our backs on social harmony. We have projected a Jesus much different from the Jesus of the gospels into this dream to make it even more believable. This lie which has become our dream has many names: Kingdom of the world, spirit of this age, evil. Whatever we call it, it is a lie. And it brings chaos and division when we were meant to be together. But we sleep on in our fragmented lives convincing ourselves this is peacefulness.

But we need to wake up. We need to experience the kick of the Spirit in the depths of our souls and remember what our reality is. Created to love. Created to forgive. Made to be one with God and each other. So let’s go out from this place today and offer forgiveness to those from whom it has been withheld and confess our sins to those we have failed to repent to and seek the biblical justice of reconciliation. Ubuntu. Amen.