Forgive us our sins… as we forgive those who sin against us?

I was once told about an elderly lady who had been a churchgoer all her life, but who hadn't spoken to her only sister for the last 40 years. I can't remember what had happened between the two of them only that this lady entirely blamed her sister for the trouble and forty years later, was still waiting for her sister to apologise. The two of them never met again, and both died with their differences unreconciled.

It seems such a sad loss of the love and companionship which family members can bring, yet it's a very common story. There are many families where one member of the family is not talking to another member, or where the entire family is at loggerheads. And that's just in families. In the wider world, neighbours or friends fall out (often over something trivial) and never make it up, because each blames the other and neither will make the first move.

And of course it's well known that in churches people who take offence very often simply walk out and never attend that church again. For some people that's a pattern in their lives. They attend a church, they're offended and they leave, so they attend a different church and in due course the same thing happens all over again - and again and again.

Forgiveness isn't easy either to give or to receive, even over the most trivial offence. It's much easier to deny all culpability and to walk away in high dudgeon than it is to face the problem. It requires considerable humility to be able to even begin to see that both parties might be partially responsible, let alone to apologise. And it requires considerable sensitivity to begin to understand what it might feel like from the other person's point of view.

"How many times should I forgive my brother?" asked Peter. "Seven times?" "No," said Jesus. "Not seven times, but seventy times seven."

That's a tall order. Real forgiveness is a gift from God and it doesn't come easy. Insults and injuries and offences damage pride, and only those who are able to face the pain of wounded pride are really able to forgive. And only those who dare to begin to approach those dark, hidden corners of their inner being, are able to face the pain of wounded pride.

It's a difficult business, forgiveness. It's much easier to totally blame somebody else for all problems than it is to accept that I myself might bear some responsibility. And taking that first step of approaching the other party, whether I'm the offender or offended against, is very difficult indeed.

Sometimes people are precipitated into forgiveness, but that usually takes a major, earth-shattering event, like a sudden death or a life-threatening illness. That sort of event changes priorities, and wounded pride is suddenly seen for what it really is.
Yet forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, and without it Christianity is just a hollow sham. "Forgive us our sins," we say to God, "as we forgive those who sin against us." Forgive us Lord, in the same measure that we forgive other people.

Forgiveness over trivial offences which haven't caused much hurt, is difficult enough. But is it even possible to forgive a really serious offence? And should we really go on and on forgiving those who commit serious sins against us?

Forgiveness may be possible and desirable when the injury is slight, but can it be either possible or desirable when the injury is unspeakably brutal, is evil and is, for instance, against a child?

Jesus placed no limits on forgiveness. He repeated again and again that forgiveness is always essential for those who wish to remain close to God.

The problem with lack of forgiveness is that it causes a hard, intractable knot inside the inner being of the person who is unable to forgive, a knot that even God cannot penetrate.

But that hard knot doesn't remain static. Like a malignancy, it slowly grows and spreads and poisons the soul, so that God is squeezed out and the coldness and the hardness and the evil take over. The effect of lack of forgiveness on a whole nation can be seen very clearly in Northern Ireland or in the former Yugoslavia.

The treatment for lack of forgiveness is simple, but never easy. Like lancing a deep-rooted boil without anaesthetic, it's very painful. It can mean suffering the depths of humiliation, because at the very least it means swallowing pride.

And it seems to me that forgiveness for serious offences lies solely in God's hands. Most mere mortals would probably be incapable of forgiving, for example, a child molester or a murderer. But inasmuch as we are unable to forgive, so to that extent we are cut off from God and are slowly poisoned by insidious evil within ourselves.

Perhaps the way forward is to ask God for the gift of forgiveness, then to try to open up all parts of our inner being to God. It will undoubtedly be a painful process and probably a long process, but the one who eventually is able to forgive will be the winner.

Forgiveness is tied up with understanding. Once I begin to understand the reasons for another's actions, I can begin to forgive them for those actions. God understands everything about all of us. He knows what's happened to us in the past. He knows why we act the way we do, and therefore he can and does fully and completely forgive us, whatever the sin.

If I fail to forgive, it has an effect on the other person, but nothing like the effect it has on me. If I really want inner, spiritual health and an increasing ability to love, then I must learn to forgive in all circumstances, seventy times seven.