Forgiveness and Neighborliness

I will be leading a FREE virtual Advent retreat online beginning Nov. 22 entitled, “Nativity Stories.” All are welcome!

I recite the Lord’s Prayer daily, and often the most challenging phrase for me is the second part of “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Though I’ve received everything I have from a generous and gracious God, it’s hard to let go of grudges and wrongs and the feeling that others owe me something or that somehow I have unfairly missed out.

Or if I pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I think about how often I impinge on God’s territory by profaning the sacred, by judging or pre-judging others, by invading the space of one of God’s creatures, by polluting God’s property: earth, water, and air; or by playing God—a role which, in all modesty, I play rather well. 

To the poor who followed Jesus, “forgive us our debts,” must’ve sounded pretty good. It sounds pretty good to us today, weighed down as we are with loans, credit cards, church pledges, expectations from elderly parents or children of any age or our beloved pets, not to mention Comcast bills.

To the sinners who followed Jesus, “forgive us our trespasses” or “sins” must’ve sounded pretty good. It also sounds pretty good to us today, burdened by moral failings, hurt we’ve inflicted on those we love most, toes we’ve stepped on or boundaries we’ve crossed, injustice we’ve ignored.

Thank God, there’s a lot of forgiveness in the Bible, and, according to Old Testament professor Walter Brueggemann, longtime oracle of Columbia Theological Seminary, forgiveness may involve money, land, power, politics, morality, and religious pretensions.

Religious scruples are what the late-converted apostle Paul often addressed. Paul when he was Saul was a Torah fundamentalist who followed every jot and tittle of the Law of Moses, not simply the Ten Commandments on which it’s based, but all the interpretations, applications, court rulings, and explications of Mosaic Law.

As we know from our own Christian tradition, no one can claim the moral high ground better than a self-righteous legalist, traditionalist, or fundamentalist. As an aside, Brueggemann also points out that no one can claim the moral high ground better than a self-righteous liberal, progressive, non-literalist such as myself. All of us tend to equate God’s views with our own, what Brueggemann calls “the cunning little secret of certitude.”

And that’s the tension in the early church—legalists wanting other Christians to follow the Laws of Moses, including dietary restrictions and Sabbath observance, and others who experience freedom in Christ as to such spiritual beliefs and practices. Paul comes down on the side of freedom in Christ, but urges all Christians to respect and regard one another’s positions. Paul is truly a recovered fundamentalist, but doesn’t twist others’ arms to come to 12-step meetings of Legalists Anonymous.

“Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another?” Paul rhetorically questions the Romans, and then observes, “It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.”

Christians have entered into a covenant with Jesus and with one another that requires the interweaving of our lives, beliefs, and practices. Every strand is needed to create the fabric of our spiritual community, one that hopefully reflects Jesus’ meaning for our neighborhood and for the world.

Discussing the Ten Commandments in his book of essays, The Covenanted Self, Brueggemann affirms that the first three commandments about Yahweh give rise to the other seven, which all have to do with living in community, being good neighbors, and loving the neighbor as oneself.

In awe of God, we are called to, in a sense, privilege the neighbor to be truly neighborly and faithful to God. We are to consider their needs, their beliefs, their practices above our own needs, beliefs, and practices. It’s like what is said about marriage, each partner must give 150%. 50% doesn’t cut it, not even 100%. But if we strive to give 150% we are more likely to make a marriage or a spiritual community work.

That requires forgiveness—forgiving that the other is not all we expected, forgiving mistakes and ignorance and insensitivity, forgiving wrongs and inabilities and limitations. And forgiving ourselves these things as well. We are not perfect people. We are forgiven people.

Our model is Jesus, of whom our Christian tradition says that he emptied himself to be a servant. Jesus emptied himself into the neighbor, Brueggemann asserts, and urges us to “imagine that neighborliness is more important than good economics or good politics or good morality or good orthodoxy.” While accepting that challenge, I would add that truly good economics, politics, morality, or orthodoxy must be based in neighborliness.

In Living Buddha, Living Christ, the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story of a woman who invoked the name of the Buddha hundreds of times a day for ten years, but “was still filled with anger and irritation.” Noticing this over the years, a neighbor knocked on her door and called to her. Annoyed, she struck her meditation bell hard to make it clear she was chanting. The neighbor called again and again, and finally the woman shouted, “Can’t you see I’m invoking the name of the Buddha? Why are you bothering me now?”

The neighbor responded, “I only called your name twelve times, and look at how angry you have become. Imagine how angry the Buddha must be after you have been calling his name for ten years!”

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Copyright © 2014 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Our Own Fiscal Cliffs

Many who follow this blog have been involved in non-profits and congregations professionally or as volunteers, so we know about things like “fiscal cliffs,” when expenses exceed donations. And many of us have coped with minimal incomes as clergy, teachers, writers, artists, and service providers, and have braved fiscal cliffs of our own when bills exceed income.

Some years ago I was grateful to have income from leading a weekend retreat, glad to be slightly ahead of the game financially. Then I broke a tooth, requiring unexpected dental costs that emptied my checking account. There were two ways I could interpret that situation: feel despair that my earnings had been depleted by this incident; or feel blessed that I had the resources to cover the unanticipated event. I chose the latter, though I teetered precariously on the brink of a less grateful response!

Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan has suggested that Jesus’ appeal to the poor came because of his attention to the body and its needs, thus the healings, thus the references in the Lord’s Prayer to “forgive us our debts” and “give us this day our daily bread.” Crossan says that bread and debts “are the two ancient ghosts that haunt the peasant imagination.” Often ours as well.  

Those of us in helping or creative vocations often struggle to make ends meet. In the early ’90s I took a job that required me parking my car in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood. Walking past one fine home after another, I thought how Hollywood occasionally makes movies about rich people who have an epiphany and give it all up to serve the less fortunate. I joked with my coworkers that I thought there should also be films about people who have spent their lives helping the less fortunate who have an epiphany and give it all up to become wealthy! (I can guess that you might now be thinking of prosperity gospel and mega-church pastors!)

Preliminary studies indicate that the area of the brain stimulated by winning the lottery is similarly stimulated by giving to charity, a kind of neurological “reward” for doing good. That may be why the best book on serving others that I have read, How Can I Help? (Ram Dass and Paul Gorman) offers examples that the least patronizing and most satisfying help is experienced as mutually beneficial.

When his cheery nephew comes to wish him “Merry Christmas” and invite him to Christmas dinner, Scrooge resists and, regarding his poor nephew’s observance of the holiday, retorts, “Much good it has ever done you!”

To which the nephew replies, “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say.”

Many of us have derived and even promoted good without much profit. Thus we are more likely to take seriously all those end-of-the-year requests for donations from charities and ministries.

Let’s all feel good this Christmas by making it a little easier for our favorite do-gooders to avoid fiscal cliffs.

Copyright © 2012 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Suggested uses: personal reflection, contemporary readings in worship, conversation starters in classes.  This ministry is entirely funded by your donations. Please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you!

For a partisan political take on the government’s fiscal cliff, read my latest Huffington Post post: Pushing Tiny Tim Over Fiscal Cliff.