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EMBRACING THE SHADOW | Matthew 18.21-35 | September 15, 2002 |
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on thee,
and I’ll forgive thy great big joke on me.
As he suggests, weaving the thread of forgiveness into the fabric of understanding, is difficult. It is a tough and course thread that doesn’t weave easily through the fine silk threads that we try to incorporate into our sophisticated neat philosophies.
The story of the unforgiving servant lurks in the shadows of faith. It is difficult to know how to incorporate it meaningfully into our psyche, particularly in light of the anniversary of the national tragedy. And at the outset, I must confess that I have never been the object of an atrocious act of inhumanity. I am not a holocaust survivor, I did not know personally anyone killed in the attacks of the World Trade Center, I am not a survivor of child abuse, nor am I a victim of unscrupulous money management by CEOs who live high on the hog with my retirement money. These seriously complicate the forgiveness quotient, and I don’t mean in any way to suggest a cheap forgiveness of perpetrators of such evils. I will admit that I don’t know if one can get to the point of forgiveness in such situations. Nonetheless, avoiding the issue because we don’t understand all aspects of it is not helpful either. So I plod forward, perhaps as a fool where angels fear to tread, but I’ve played the part of the fool before.
Regardless of the seriousness of the situation, our refusal to forgive is a way of protecting ourselves against being hurt, reminds Barbara Brown Taylor. Although effective, the technique has a nasty side: bitterness. Unlike anger, from which we can learn and grow, the bitterness that comes with unforgiving can be deforming. Forgiveness is difficult because having an enemy lets us look good by comparison, at least to ourselves, and our attitude of superiority casts a dark shadow around us. (Barbara Brown Taylor, Arthritis of the Spirit, as reviewed in Lectionary Homiletics, Sept 2002)
“By comparison” being the operative word here, Carl Jung reminds us that people are unique, not in their own right, but in terms of the larger entities to which they belong. All of us are products of our relationships. Our very attempt to be independent is itself a statement of our mutual interdependence. Forgiveness must always be seen in the context of the larger community.
It is a quantum leap for most of us when we hear that we should forgive endlessly as the story might suggest. But perhaps that’s just what might be helpful...a quantum leap. For quantum physics offers us a new pattern in the fabric of the cosmos.
Most of us have been taught by Newtonian physics that the whole is made up of the sum of its parts, that each individual part operates independently to make up the whole, and that the whole can be taken apart to examine each part separately. So we try to separate the spirit from the body, the mind from the soul in order to understand a person. Quantum physics, however, is based on the premise that each part contains the whole, that the mind cannot be separated from the body or the soul, that all things contain the basics of all things, that the cells of our bodies contain the essence of the stars on the farthest edge of the universe, that we are all connected not by some external philosophy but by the very genetic core of our being.
The implications are helpful. When we are unwilling to forgive, we thwart the continuing re-creation of the world. We stifle the opportunities for this wonderful confluence of energy that comes from our relationships with a world that innately defines us, not only with people but with stars and rocks and trees, as well.
Can we realize that a quantum leap of forgiveness requires a quantum understanding of relationships and our own vulnerability of acting inhumanely toward others? We all have potential to dust the stars, and we all have potential to sling it out in the gutter. Even though we may not be able to jump quickly into the fray of forgiving another, or perhaps can never quite get there at all, it does seem important that we are at least willing to strive toward it, to always keep it in front of us as a goal for the common good. Forgiving seventy times seven intimates a process that is ongoing, that never ends, that engages shadows of life each day. Forgiveness is a valued commodity for the well-being of the whole cosmos as it bumps and bangs around trying to continually re-create itself.
John O’Donohue, Celtic writer, says that if you cannot forgive, you are still in jail. Forgiveness is one of the really difficult things in life. When someone has done us wrong, we become embittered, we become incarcerated inside those feelings of hurt and anger. Forgiveness is a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Forgiveness is a way of seeing the human condition that imprisons us all, understanding the circumstances and weakness that made the other person do as she did. (Eternal Echoes) When we refuse to let an enemy be an enemy, all the rules change and people must find new ways of being, because forgiveness is an act of transformation. (Barbara Brown Taylor)
In those daily events, when someone offends us, or someone ignores us, or someone perpetrates mischief against us, it is too easy to play the victim, to want to be declared in the right, to want revenge for being wronged, to want an enemy. It is often comfortable to be in jail, to have an excuse for not taking responsibility for ourselves, to live in the shadow of our own acts of unkindness.
One wonders if the official in this story really received the king’s forgiveness. It was offered, to be sure, but in the end the unforgiving man was handed over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So was he forgiven or not? It appears that while pardon had been offered by the king, it had not been truly received because it had not found its way into his own actions of forgiveness, and therefore the debt remains. He was free, but because he was unforgiving, he is put back in prison. (Robert W. Stackel, ‘Forgiven & Forgiving’ as reviewed in Lectionary Homiletics, 9/2002)
Traditional way of looking at evil, a la Newtonian physics, is to see it as a separate entity that can be eradicated and destroyed. That is quite impossible, I think. Had it been possible, it would have been done long ago. Part of the myth of the genesis story is that evil is systemic and part of life from now until eternity, in us, as much as around us.
Quantum theology suggests that the shadow becomes a potential source for creativity precisely when we engage it in a spirit of dialogue, as we strive to integrate it into the rhythm and flow of life. We cannot eradicate or eliminate the shadow, and the more we try, the more power we give it over us. The more we attempt to run away from it, the more it pursues us. Staring it in the face is the way to embrace its power. The parts contain the whole; we all live in the ebb and flow of light and dark, yin and yang, evil and good.
Forgiveness is a life-long process of embracing the shadow precisely because it is the shadow that reveals the light. There is no shadow if there is no source of light to create the shadow; the shadow reveals the light and the light creates the shadow. Embracing the shadow takes a quantum leap of faith, but it is in this quantum living that we find abundant life.
What is it to truly open our hearts in forgiveness? It is to see all the blows of fate we have experienced, all the rejections of the past, present, and future, all our weaknesses, as part of a darkness that has helped to bring us more light.” (The Zen teachings of Maurine Stuart, Subtle Sound) As we weave the threads that have been given us into the tapestry of daily living, we embrace the shadow of evil’s darkness, striving in some way to weave the thread of forgiveness into the mural of daily living. Amen.
–Gary L. McCann
(Thanks to Diamuid O’Murchu for
his insights in Quantum Theology)
Bhagavad Gita
(Translated by Stephen Mitchell)
...The best of all
is surrender, which soon brings peace.
He who has let go of hatred,
who treats all beings with kindness
and compassion, who is always serene,
unmoved by pain or pleasure,
free of the “I” and “mine,”
self-controlled, firm and patient,
his whole mind focused on me...
that man is the one I love best.
PASTORAL PRAYER
I read a prayer of Rashied Omar, former Imam of the Capetown, South Africa mosque, currently at Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.
A Prayer for Our Country from the Muslim Tradition
In the Name of God, The Most Compassionate, The Dispense of Grace:
We invoke God and call to mind the victims and families of September 11. O Compassionate One, O Companion to every lonesome person, we implore you to comfort their hearts with your magnificence. Lord of all Humankind, from what we have endured during the past year, grant us the grace to have a greater understanding and empathy for the suffering of innocent victims all over the world, no matter their nationality or religion.
All-wise and All-mighty God, grant our leaders wisdom and guide them to use their power to serve the good of all and to fashion a more just and caring world. O God, you are Peace and Peace emanates from you. Allow us to live and to subsist in Peace. We ask this in your name, O Most Merciful of those who show Mercy, Amen.
| Copyright © 2002 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |