image: http://wise-grasshopper.blogspot.com/2011/02/monkey-and-coocnut-art-of-wanting-less.html
Shalom
Mennonite Church
Sunday,
April 28, 2013
Don't
Forgive Too Soon—Part 3: Bargaining
Texts:
Psalm 130:1-6, Genesis 32:1-18, 33:1-9
Eric
Massanari
“if
only”
If
only you knew how much you hurt me...
If
only you could feel that hurt...
If
only you could suffer the pain that I have known...
If
only you would pay back all you have taken from me...
If
only you understood how angry I am
and
how much I want to see you pay
for
what you have done...
…then,
maybe then, I might be able to forgive you.
One
can imagine Esau thinking and saying
such
things after being betrayed by
his
brother Jacob, and being robbed
of
his birthright and blessing from their father.
If
only...
If
only I could somehow take it back...
If
only I could go back and have a “do over”
of
that terrible moment...
If
only there was some way to reverse things...
If
only I could assume the suffering I have caused you...
If
only you knew how sorry I am...
...then,
maybe then, you could forgive me.
One
can imagine Jacob thinking and saying
such
things after betraying his brother,
after
learning some difficult life lessons,
and
after being wounded in his wrestling match with God.
But
first the brothers have to move through,
twenty
years of separation and struggle,
saying
to themselves:
If
only....
This
is the language of bargaining
on
the journey of forgiveness.
Bargaining,
you might say, is an act of
placing
certain conditions on the outflow
of
our love toward our sister or brother.
Bargaining
is also the act of placing constraints
on
our capacity to receive the flow of love
coming
from our sister or brother.
That
may make it sound negative,
however,
the process of bargaining
is
very natural and understandable
when
there has been hurt inflicted
in
our human relationships.
Such
constraints and conditions
may
be necessary when deep wounding has happened.
Bargaining
can have a healthy aspect to it.
- It is a way we can articulate what has hurt us...You shared something with someone that I told you in confidence. I can forgive you if I can hear you acknowledge how this violated my trust in you.
- Bargaining is way we express our needs...You were careless when you were caring for my cat while I was on vacation. You made a poor choice to feed it Snickers bars instead of cat food. I need you to take responsibility for what happened and to help make it right before I can trust you to care for my cat again. I need you to come help me clean up my house!
- Bargaining is a way we name our boundaries...You have abused me and I do not feel safe with you. I need distance from you and I need the abuse to stop immediately.
Bargaining
can be a vital, healthy step.
However,
because bargaining means
placing
conditions and constraints
on
our relationships and our
capacity
to relate to others
it
can sometimes become a barrier
to
the unfolding journey of forgiveness.
Sometimes
our “if only's” become ultimatums,
and sometimes
we set conditions on forgiveness
that
simply are not reasonable or possible.
Most
of us live with a myriad of “if only's”
in
our engagement with life and one another:
If
only I had more money...
If
only I had a better job...
If
only you could see things my way...
If only this moment could be different than it is right now...
Our
bargaining can eventually
hamstring
us, trap us, and prevent us
from
growing to a new place.
I
once heard about a clever monkey trap
used
in parts of East Asia.
A
coconut is hollowed out, and a small
hole
is cut in one end, just large enough
for
a monkey's hand to reach in.
Inside
the coconut they place a piece of candy.
The
monkey reaches into the trap,
his
empty hand easily fitting through the hole,
but
once he grabs the candy
and
makes a fist, he cannot remove his hand.
In the end, the thing that traps the monkey
is
his own refusal to let go.
Our
bargaining has something to teach us,
its
own gift to offer, but in time,
and
when we are ready, our conditions
and
constraints must eventually be released.
In
order for forgiveness to come to its fullness,
we must release the hold that the past
has
on our lives; we must eventually let go.
Consider
how Jacob and Esau
stand
before one another at the end of their story:
They
stand on the soil of their homeland,
with
their possessions and the people
they
treasure gathered around them,
but
in the end they must stand
empty
handed before one another,
wounded,
weeping, yielded, open.
Jacob,
the one who has wounded his brother,
is
now limping and wounded from his
late
night wrestling match with God.
He
bows on the ground, seven times,
as
a sign of his contrition.
He
had first considered sending
all
of his family and possessions
on
ahead of him with a message of how sorry he was.
That would have been the choice of self-preservation,
not the choice that leads into the freedom of forgiveness.
That
was the cowardly option.
Instead,
Jacob's encounter with God
has
changed him, freeing him to stand
before the brother he had
betrayed,
willing to accept the
consequences of his actions.
We
don't know about what happened
to
Esau during those twenty years of separation.
It
is clear he has prospered.
It
is also clear that over time his suffering and
his
own bargaining has dissipated and fallen away.
Because
he, too, stands before his
brother
open, yielded and
able
to forgive without condition or constraint.
In
order to come to its fruition,
forgiveness
requires us to release they other person
with
whom we have become bound by hurt.
Otherwise
we remain tied to them
and
unable to be fully free.
Twenty
years, and many challenges of life
were
needed for Jacob and Esau to reach this point.
It
is important for us to recognize that.
They
were not ready for this meeting before then.
And,
even then, in this moment
of
forgiveness and freedom
shared
by the two brothers,
it
is important to recognize what happens next:
they
go their separate ways.
The
freedom that comes with forgiveness
can
lead many different directions
and
into other unfolding journeys:
reconciliation,
separation,
reunion,
dissolution...
When
we receive the gift of forgiveness
we
soon realize that it becomes yet another
new
beginning.
Amen
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