Can We Forgive and Forget?
On July 29 I received a shocking notice on my cell phone about a mass shooting in Manhattan, of all places. Apparently the gunman had driven 2,500 miles from his home in Las Vegas to a 44-story office building in midtown Manhattan to go on a shooting spree. His destination was the NFL office where he wanted to take revenge and kill employees because he blamed the NFL for his perceived brain disease. He killed four people in that building who had nothing to do with the NFL.
It’s obvious that he was holding a grudge that was eating away at him, to the point where he acted on it by committing these insane murders.
Many of us hold grudges, albeit on a different level. I remember swimming in a pool with my younger brother Michael in our neighborhood in Fremont, CA, where we grew up. I was talking to Michael about growing up together, when he mentioned to me that he thought I never had time for him. He told me that I was always too busy with other people and other things to make time for him. He went on to list a whole litany of things that bothered him about me. I was really taken aback and almost began to cry. At first I couldn’t accept what he said, but it was what he felt and, with more thought, it was probably true. I wasn’t the brother I thought I was to him. It was a wake-up call. Because he shared his grudge with me, he gave me the opportunity to change and show him I cared. Over time, we ended up becoming very close.
When I first started here at St. John’s, there were a few people who truly offended me. They deeply hurt me; however, I continued to serve them but, at the same time, I held a grudge against them. Later on, as I grew to know them better, I also grew to understand them, and my grudge seemed to dissipate. It is said that time heals all wounds (and grudges maybe), but it really takes more than that. It takes getting beyond the fact that you have been wronged or slighted.
There is a story about Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, who was said never to hold a grudge. One day she encountered a friend who had done her wrong in years past. This friend asked her if she remembered it. Clara purportedly replied: “No, I distinctly remember forgetting that.”
Many of us cannot say the same thing about us because we often harbor anger and resentment even about the smallest of slights. It’s been said that there is so much anger in the world that it could smash the world to pieces. It doesn’t take much to see that, whether we are reading a newspaper or just talking to people, there is a lot of simmering anger inside most of us that sometimes surfaces in harmful and painful ways. The question is, how can we deal with this? How do we address our upset and discomfort at what others have done to us?
In the gospel of Matthew Peter comes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but seventy seven times.”
Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door to letting go of the grudges and anger we harbor, but forgiveness is not easy or simple. There is no recipe for it. It can require emotional work that may take time or even professional help. Forgiveness is a process. Even small hurts may need to be revisited and forgiven again and again.
Jesus lifts the bar high when he says from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” While that seems like an almost impossible ask, in the end we need to forgive because otherwise we can never be free.
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)
MEH