The Forgiveness Challenge

The Globe and Mail this past Saturday published an opinion piece entitled Forgiveness is for Suckers.  A link to the article is https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-todays-forgiveness-culture-is-for-suckers/.  The article draws on the parable of the Prodigal Son to support the author’s position that forgiveness is a scam.  The closing sentence of the article states “Maybe the real message of the Prodigal Son story us that the pride of the show-off forgiver will always be served first.”  I am not sure in the authors mind whether the ‘forgiver’ is the Prodigal son who is forgiven or the father who does the forgiving.  It definitely isn’t the older brother.   

The article has many arguments and a conclusion that I disagree with whole heartedly.  First, the author RM Vaughan, does not appear to have read the actual parable or, if the author has, is deliberately blind to what it actually says.  He begins by stating the older brother stays home to look after this aging father.  There is nothing in the parable to suggest the father is old with the implication that perhaps he is going senile.  After all who would forgive the young foolish son except someone who is losing his mental faculties.  Indeed, the parable tells that, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”  Not the action of an elderly incapacitated man.  The author is very much on the side of the older son saying he, “never got so much as the occasional goat to slaughter.”  He could have added not even a goat much less ‘the fatted calf’ which the father did to celebrate the return of the son who was lost to him. 

The author leaves out the poignant reply by the father, “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”  I read into this that the older son could have had a goat for a celebration if he had wanted one.  But perhaps he was too proud and had a bit of a martyr complex. However, that may be reading too much into the story.  Vaughan’s position is that the prodigal son got away with it.  He got his inheritance early and spent it on wine, woman and song and when he ran out of money he sobered up, picked himself up and gaily returned home to reclaim his previous life.  The father was a fool and worse to just blindly forgive the wastrel son.  However, as Jesus (the author of the story) tells us, the younger son repented, “I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.”  He does just this when he is greeted by his father saying, “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’” 

There can be several ways of looking at this.  First, the father forgave the son regardless of his repentance.  The second way is that the father recognized that the son had repented by the very act of returning home.  Finally, the cynic could say that the prodigal son did this just as a ploy knowing his father would take him back and restore him to his old life if he showed repentance.  In any case, the father in the parable, who can represent our heavenly father, is forgiving when his son repents and turns around from his sinful ways.  This is very true for us as well. 

In my assessment of the essay, the author is, unfortunately viewing the issue of forgiveness through a lens that does not see the possibility of true forgiveness.  Vaughan see certain acts of coverup as forgiveness putting the sins of the Roman Catholic Church of moving pedophile priest to different parishes as acts of forgiveness rather than a way of protecting the institution which was more important that the protection of the members of the flock.  Vaughan makes the point that forgiveness is held up as a matter of simplistic shrug-it-off formulas and “by its very nature, forgiveness is an act of denial.”

I must agree with Vaughan that the church has made forgiveness seem to be an easy thing.  As Christians we are commanded to follow Christs example and forgive.  By implication all we have to do is the say the magic phrase, “I forgive”, and all is well; we forgive and forget.  As a result, this idea of easy forgiveness has entered our culture.  Forgiveness does not involve forgetting.  True forgiving does not come easily and will likely involve a lot of hard work which will move forward in fits and start.  However, the moving forward will free us from being held hostage by the events that we have experienced.

Vaughan makes the final point by quoting someone who sates that “There is nothing in the bible that says that forgiveness is good for the physical or mental health”.  That is probably true, but it is true that it is necessary for sour souls.  If we are unable to forgive we will have barriers to living fully in relationship with God.  We will be filled with anger and possibly hatred which is not a recipe for loving our neighbours much less our enemies.  If we do not forgive we will have a lens through which we will have a distorted view the world just as Vaughan perceived the Prodigal Son parable.

Blessings on you journey.