The Sledgehammer
After Matthew 18:21-35
Forgiveness is
the sledgehammer
on load-bearing walls
during renovation—
use it and duck!
See after, how the
lightness and openness
of a previously crowded
room exhales.
Forgiveness is
pouring out
the poison stored
in your pantry—
how'd it get
there in the
first place?
See now how much
more freely
you reach for
the spices?
O messy world,
O noisy mind,
O friend, spouse,
lover,
you are forgiven.
I am forgiven.—
Writing this poem took longer than I expected—probably because forgiveness is one of those words we hear so much that we no longer hear it.
Just forgive and forget, they say.
That’s easy advice when a wrongdoing was relatively minor.
But what about those major betrayals? What about the anger and resentment we sometimes feel we need to keep us watchful and safe?
Forgiveness might be the most costly act of all—when offered from the fluid center of our consent.
Could you be like Christ, handed over, rejected, impaled, and say, “Forgive them, God; they are out of their minds?”
I couldn’t.
But we live in such an imperfect and lovely world, don’t we? We hurt each other, and we are often hurt. The longer you keep your feet on this earth, the more you become part of its landscape, and that landscape can be quite vicious. Ever notice people screaming at each other in traffic?
Peter asks Jesus, “How much should I forgive? Seven times, perhaps?” That was a generous amount—the same amount God forgave Israel in Amos 2. Surely there must be quantifiable limits?
Jesus responds, “Seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven.”
Which I think means, “Stop keeping score.”
I’ve heard it said that God understands all the sciences but refuses to do math.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized forgiveness isn’t truly a gentle work. It is merciful, but it is by no means gentle. To forgive is an act of reordering your life. It is like giving up the junk food so that your heart can actually consume what it needs.
So, I thought a sledgehammer might be a more appropriate metaphor.
I’d like to give inspiration credit to Annie Dillard. In The Writing Life, Dillard talks about how a line of words is like a hammer you use to tap to discover what walls are load-bearing in a story or essay. She writes, “Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.” You can see a similar idea and language in the last sentence in the first stanza. Thank you to Jonathan R. Bailey and Erin O'Connor for pointing me Dillard’s writing.
Also, the “fluid center of consent” in the reflection is a nod to Howard Thurman, who said in his third lecture on The Dilemma of the Religious Professional, “Let me call your attention now particularly to the ministry of silence and of quiet. There is in every man an inward sea. And in that sea, there is an island. And on that island, there is an altar. And standing before that altar is the angel with the flaming sword. Nothing can get by that angel to be placed upon that altar unless it has the mark of inner authenticity and authority. Nothing passes the angel with the flaming sword to be placed upon your altar unless it be a part of the fluid area of your consent, the fluid, the dynamic, the pulsing area of your inner consent.”1 I am forever indebted to Walter Fluker for introducing me to Thurman’s luminous spiritual mind.
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