On Forgiveness 
Sermon preached by Reverend Carolyn Patierno
October 5, 2008

This from the novel, The Secret Lives of Bees: “People in general would rather die than forgive.  It’s that hard.  If God said, ‘I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die’ a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.” 

The question of forgiveness is always with us.  We know that it is hard to both ask for and offer forgiveness.  We know that there might well be a run on coffins if given the choice of forgiveness or death.

We are, of course, in the midst of the Jewish High Holy Days that began with Rosh Hashanah and later this week will bend toward Yom Kippur.  These 10 days are named as the Days of Awe.   What I find awesome is the intentional engagement in communal reflection and atonement.  It is a profound practice that seeks to lighten the burden of sin which in Jewish tradition, is understood as a break in relationship with God or with others.   At Yom Kippur, Jews seek to atone that break in relationship.  Together they ask forgiveness for a range of transgressions.  We have much to learn from this willingness to take on the sins of the entire community while also offering and receiving forgiveness. 

Yom Kippur services begin with the Kol Nidre – the opening prayer of the holiday.   Mark Belletini is a UU minister who was inspired to interpret the Kol Nidre.  This poem will serve as a springboard to our own reflection on these Days of Awe.  He wrote:

Let’s set it all down, you and me.
The disappointments.
Little and large.
The frustrations.
Let’s open our fists and drop them.
The useless waiting.
The obsession with what we cannot have.
The focus on foolish things.
The pin-wheeling worry which wears us out.
The fretting.
Let’s throw them down.
The comparisons of ourselves with others.
The competition, as if Domination
was the best name we could give to God.
The cynical assumptions.
The unspoken, shelved anger.
Let’s toss them.
The inarticulate suspicions.
The self-doubt.
The pre-emptive self-dumping.
The numbing bouts of self-pity.
Let’s sink them all like stones.
Like stones in the pool of this gift of silence.
Let’s drop them like hot rocks
into the cool silence.
And when they’re gone,
let’s lay back gently, and float,
float on the calm surface of the silence.
Let’s be supported in this still cradle
of the world, new-born, ready for anything.

Can you imagine letting go of all that stuff?   Letting go as in forgiving it all?  Can you imagine what your heart, mind, body, would feel like?  Can you imagine?

This sermon was inspired by the documentary The Power of Forgiveness.  Two dozen Souls gathered on Friday night to watch and then discuss this powerful documentary.  I would venture to say that it has stayed with us since.  The stories featured in the documentary, stories of societal conflict in Northern Ireland; the Middle East; and here in the United States and stories of personal conflict, all affirmed that forgiveness is better considered as a practice, a discipline and one that demands consistent engagement.  No matter the faith tradition or cultural context, witness after witness offered the same message over and over again.  We forgive others more for our own benefit than for theirs (I am reminded of Ann LaMott’s quote:  “Not forgiving is like eating rat poisoning and waiting for the rat to die.”) and the process of forgiveness is next to impossible unless we find a place in our hearts to forgive the one to whom we are closest.  The Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Forgiveness will not be possible until compassion is born in your heart.”  Indeed, the person we find most difficult to forgive is the person we see in the mirror, staring back at us - the one that can hold our gaze for only so long until we are compelled to look away.  About that person in the mirror, the one who at times we only vaguely recognize, we know too much and yet we know not nearly enough. 

If we understood enough about our inner workings, we would know that what we need is to be nourished by compassion, none more powerful than the compassion we offer to ourselves.  Self-forgiveness.  As Thich Nhat Hanh points out, when we are unable to forgive or feel compassion for ourselves for either real or imagined transgressions, it is difficult, if not impossible to forgive others.  It’s no wonder that forgiveness is so hard. 

We are so mean to ourselves.  I witness this compassion deficit in many of my conversations with you.  It’s heartbreaking.  So magnanimous with others, we mete out precious little compassion for self.  Which is not to say that the process of forgiveness – whether forgiving ourselves or others – is void of accountability.    Forgiveness runs on a parallel track with accountability.  They’re not mutually exclusive nor should they be.

Viewers of The Power of Forgiveness are finally asked to imagine a world in which people are taught forgiveness at an early age and so that it is woven in the very fabric of their make-up.  So together, let’s imagine a world in which the majority of its citizens recognize an alternative to revenge and payback.  

I learned that in the past few years there has been a steady stream of studies focusing on forgiveness.  One measured brain activity and found that the part of our brain that measures pleasure lights up when considering revenge.  The idea of pay back brings us pleasure! But the practice of forgiveness seems to have real health benefits.  Blood pressure is lower and more consistent, for example.   Imagine if at your next medical appointment, your doctor talked with you about the health benefits of forgiving yourself and others. 

I learned about two men tragically connected by one murder:  one man’s grandson murdered the other man’s son.  This tragedy brought them together and now they are best friends.  Together they talk to youth to suggest that it is possible to respond to violence with mercy.  As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”  Imagine that all children and youth in all schools everywhere, learned this very different response to personal loss. 

I learned about the Amish practice of forgiveness- a practice profoundly put to test two years ago, when a deranged man shot and killed five school girls and injured five others.  Contrary to popular belief, Amish communities do not come by forgiveness easily.  Like everyone else, it is a discipline that must be cultivated and practiced.  But through their grief and horror, and as a community, and over time, they forgave the man who brought this calamity upon them and extended that forgiveness to his family.  Imagine what it would be like to be part of a religious community that modeled this type of radical forgiveness.  Is it possible that we may be inspired to live in a similarly merciful manner?

The documentary reminded viewers that forgiveness does not mean that we don’t hold others accountable for their trespasses but that we find it in our hearts to separate the deed from the person.  This translates as being “Tough minded but tender hearted,” as one teacher said.  Imagine a time when children learn how to defend and protect themselves but remain merciful to those who would do and have done them wrong. 

I learned that it may be better to hold a grudge than to forgive only because one believes that is what others expect or hope of us.  Imagine how it would feel to come by forgiveness in our own time without being pushed by others.

All of these imaginings offer grist for ongoing reflection.   But let’s start with this:  the need to forgive ourselves first so that forgiveness of others is at all possible.  Much of our heartbreak stems from our vigilant determination to hold on to our own trespasses, both real and imagined. 

Said Alexandra Asseily, founder of the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut (of all places) “Forgiveness allows us to actually let go of the pain in the memory and if we let go of the pain in the memory, we can have the memory, but it doesn’t control us.  When the memory controls us, we are then puppets of the past.” 

What if we were to let go of the pain in our memory?  What if after we diligently worked on letting go and forgiving, the things that so deeply haunted us actually did not matter so much any more?  So says the poet, “And when they’re gone, / let’s lay back gently, and float, / float on the calm surface of the silence. / Let’s be supported in this still cradle / of the world, new-born, ready for anything.” 

It would sure be compelling to imagine our lives, the world, if more of us made a commitment, beginning with ourselves, to forgive. 

Shalom.  Amen.