Forgiveness as a Bridge: An Anabaptist Perspective

When the forgiveness we understand is a private process of inner healing, not an interpersonal bridge that can stretch across the empty void between two injured persons to reconcile differences and restore relationships, it feeds and fosters acts of resentment, revenge, retaliation, or demanding repayment. Since these are not possible or practical, the solution is to cut off the connection with the offender, with the community that permitted or ignores the offense, and with all those who appear to be complicit in the offense. Rejecting all relationships that have failed us is the most common "solution" in our contemporary Western culture, among Christians and non-Christians alike. Cut off the old connections, withdraw from all interaction, live at a distance, avoid intimacy or involvement. About all, do not risk working at forgiveness.

As common as this option is, it is destructive of human relationships, fragments personality, and it is inconsistent with the basic values of any faith commitment.

Only if you have no need of forgiveness yourself do you dare consider hesitating to forgive another. The two go hand in hand. Jesus linked these two aspects of the one and same reality. "If you forgive other people their failures, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you will not forgive … neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your failures. (Matthew 6:14-15).

"I never forgive," General James Oglethorpe, the governor of Georgia, said to the young John Wesley.

"Then I hope, sir," replied Wesley, "that you never sin!"

George Herbert, the English poet, hymnist, and pastor once wrote, "One who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which all must pass if they would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven." Forgiving and being forgiven are all of one piece; in giving we receive, accepting those who have injured us we open ourselves to God's acceptance. There is no sequence of time or priority. The two are one. Anyone who loves God shows it in neighbor-love. The rush of God's strength, which brings forgiveness, gives in turn not two but one. Contradictory as this sounds in propositions, it is clear when seen in story. A story Jesus told is the perfect paradigm (see Matthew 18:21-35).

A certain poor man owed his king $2 million. He couldn't pay, so the king ordered the man, his wife, his children, and his property sold to pay the debt. The man, face in the dust, pleaded with the king, "Oh, sir, be patient! I'll pay it all."

"Two million dollars? Impossible!" said the king. But then, in pity, he forgave him all his debt.

The man, overjoyed, left the king. Outside he met a neighbor who owed him twenty dollars.

"Pay up," he demanded.

"Just be patient, and I'll have it for you next week."

"Nothing doing," said the man, and had him thrown into the debtors' prison.

The king got wind of it all and summoned the man. "You evil wretch," he said, "here I canceled that tremendous debt for you, and you have the colossal gall to be unforgiving of a few dollars. You have sentenced yourself! Jail until you pay $2 million."

Then said Jesus to His listeners, "God can do no other unless each of you forgives your brother from the heart."

David Augsburger
Excerpted from The New Freedom of Forgiveness by David Augsburger © 2000 Moody Press. All rights reserved. Used by permission. To order your own copy of this book, call 800-999-3534 or email .