A couple of months ago I posted about breaking family and generational patterns of sin and brokenness. I suggest that the invitation of Christ is to participate with him in absorbing that sin rather than passing it along to the next generation.
In thinking more about this over the past week or so, I think that absorption language is good but not enough. It's not enough to talk about absorbing sin. That would seem to leave us with little recourse for actively addressing someone who has sinned against us.
Looking at Jesus, he not only absorbs sin but he also gathers it up in himself and returns blessing. This, I think, is the message of the Christian faith.
In our own lives, when we are sinned against or violated in any way, our natural inclination is to fight back (vengeance) or take it out on someone else (dis-placement).
But Jesus absorbs sin and brokenness in himself. And rather than repay it or pay it forward, he returns it with forgiveness and the invitation to be blessed in submission to himself. This is the heart of the invitation to not return evil for evil but return evil with good.
Of course, we are not up for this in and of ourselves. But Christ in us, the Holy Spirit given to us--these are the power we need to receive evil, absorb it, and then re-engage that same offender with favor and blessing, forgiveness and love.
This, of course, means gentleness. But it also means boundaries. It also means conflict and confrontation and rebuke--sometimes very strong rebuke. But we do all of this in love, in the same Spirit who speaks God's "no" to us in order to enter into his "yes."
So participating in Christ-the-sponge is helpful. But it's also critical that we understand the power of healthy, disproportionate and reckless engagement that can mean anything from gentle rebuke to significant distancing and boundaries.
3 comments:
Yes! I like to think of it as moving beyond zero! There’s no engagement at zero. You’ve got a beautiful call articulated here for us to love the way Jesus loves. It is not doormat dead…it is generative and creative. It is transformative. Thanks for this. I’ll take your “reckless engagement” with me this week.
Blessings,
Mike C.
I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about loving people who have sinned against you, and to have that love sometimes manifested in confrontation and rebuke. There's a book called "Bold Love" by Dan Allender that talks about this idea, that focusses specifically on situations of abuse. I haven't gotten through it yet, but it's definitely interesting. Still trying to mull it over a little in my head. But a question I keep coming to is this - what should you do when you know that you aren't ready to offer that kind of love? I understand this whole concept, and there's something about it that seems very truthful and life-giving to me. But I also know my own heart, and I know that any rebuke or confrontation that I engaged in right now wouldn't be out of love, but a desire to hurt and to create the kind of pain in the offender that I've felt because of them. Forgiveness is easier said than done, and the process can be long and hard for many of us. So what do we do in the meantime, while we're trying to get to that place of love? How should we interact (or not interact, as the case may be) with those who have hurt us when we know we are still in the process of forgiving them and preparing our hearts to love again?
hey ya'll, thanks for posting.
amanda, great question. i think that the process has to be authentic, you can't fake it or it's not real forgiveness. on the other hand, if you wait until your 100% sure you'll never be angry at them again about what happened, you'll never actually get around to extending that forgiveness.
so i think that the process here requires real-time listening, praying, waiting on the spirit. no formula, right? formulas are for recipes and science experiments; forgiveness is neither of those.
at some point it will become a sin for you to not have the conversation with the person who has hurt you. but that does not sound like it is the case right now.
in the mean time, your work is clear: forgiveness. it's not going to happen once, it's going to have to happen hundreds of times, maybe thousands. and eventually you'll find yourself less entangled in all of it, less stuck. you'll discover you can think about the person and the feelings of anger or resentment don't rush in like a flood. then, perhaps, it's time to re-establish relationship. then, perhaps, it's time to talk.
and in the interim, it may be time for distance, for space, for functional interaction but not very deep (especially in the case of family or a co-worker), or some variation on all of the above.
just some thoughts...
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