The Art of Forgiveness

A few weeks back, I was listening to a podcast with Jack Kornfield and he was talking about the great Vietnamese zen master, Thich Nhat Hahn. Hahn often talked about how, in the heart and mind, there are all kinds of seeds. “There are seeds of joy and love of connection, of creativity, peace, and wellbeing, of caring, of strength. But there’s also a whole set of seeds of fear and anxiety of anger or rage, greed or grasping and so forth.” He said, “How you live depends on which seeds you water. If you water and tend those healthy seeds, those are what will grow in you. And those become who you are… So if we want to change the world for the better, which we can, and I believe that many, many of us want to, it starts with these inner capacities…”

Kornfield went on to say, “Forgiveness is a part of this… As human beings, we need to learn the art of forgiveness.”

I like that he called it an art. Because it is certainly not easy, is it?

Over the years, I’ve heard people’s stories about being abused by a relative. A friend once told me about a business partner who stole tens of thousands of dollars from him. And I think about another friend whose wife left him after only a year of marriage for someone else.

So many of us carry so much around. And there’s no doubt about it, the pain is real. The anger and bitterness and feelings of wanting revenge are real. Maybe you know what that’s like – to carry that hurt and anger around. The need for revenge is a powerful emotion.

And yet the truth is, if we carry hatred and anger and bitterness around it around with us, who does it hurt?

One of the central tenants of our faith is the cross. And as Christians, we claim that Christ crucified reveals to us the heart and pathos of God: a God who knows what it is to suffer, who knows what it is to be betrayed, who knows what it is to be broken, to be cheated, to be alone. He quite literally bears our sins in his body, the violence, the injustice.

And yet on the cross, he prays, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“Forgive us our sins,” he taught us to pray, “as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Let us pray: On this Good Friday, O God, as we remember Jesus crucified, we thank you for your undying, unconditional love, not only for us but for this world. Grant us your grace, as we seek to follow him, that we might walk in his ways. Amen.