Video for October 16th, 2025
Hello everyone and welcome to this week’s video.
32 years of ministry and 65 years of life have demonstrated to me that people have a problem with forgiveness. It has always been thus. In a conversation with the disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter tries to impress Jesus with his spiritual credentials. In Ch. 18: 21 he asks Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?” then there is probably an unrecorded pause and he muses, “Up to seven times?” In the culture of the day where moral conformity was enforced by honour and shame, that would have been an impressive number. Peter was taken aback by Jesus’ response, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Essentially Jesus was saying, “don’t keep the score”.
In the normal run of life, this is good advice. We are all frail and broken people. We make mistakes, we hurt people: sometimes inadvertently; sometimes even deliberately. We find ourselves faced with choices where all the options seem bad ones. Whatever we do, someone is going to get hurt by it. Social media is full of faux outrage over some slight or other. I get letters from people regularly complaining about alleged terrible transgressions where the instinctive (and I stress non pastoral) response would be, you need to get out more and stop being so easily offended. But even in those situations the reality of people’s lives is that the past bleeds into the present. I have had the good fortune of loving parents and family, reasonable financial comfort and loving friends and above all a relationship with Jesus Christ who died for me whilst I was still a sinner. It predisposes me to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to understand where they are coming from before rushing to judgement. Had I been less fortunate, I can see how easy it would be to develop a protective shell to prevent any further hurt. Hurts, that for others would be water of a duck’s back would trigger all sorts of memories. Past pain can make present trust and accommodation extremely difficult. Dismissing people’s feelings of any sort is not a kind thing to do.
Christian forgiveness can bring the most wonderful reconciliation and healing, allowing people to live with horrendous past stories and still function in happy and well-adjusted way. The great heroes of faith are often those who supernaturally forgave in the face of provocation that would break most of us. Corrie Ten Boom could hold out a hand of friendship and forgiveness to a concentration camp guard in a system that killed her sister, even though he had escaped natural justice. Desmond Tutu can call people together in a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to have their stories heard rather than retaliate. Jesus from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
But even the call to forgiveness can be weaponised in a way that continues past abuse. It can be more about a system wanting absolution rather than looking to the healing of the person abused. Jesus said something intriguing to the disciples after he breathed the Spirit on them in the upper room. “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven”. At its best, the sacrament of confession is not a get out of jail free card. If sins are disclosed that have done horrendous harm, a confessor would withhold absolution until that person has confessed to the proper authorities, so justice can be done for the sake of the victim. There is a strong strand in our tradition that holds forgiveness alongside repentance. Not that one depends on the other. Forgiveness is a gift from God, won for us by Christ, but the consequences of wrongdoing need addressing (if they can) for the sake of those we have hurt or damaged, deliberately or inadvertently. Our liturgies lead us on a journey from confession to repentance to absolution and send us out in the power of the Spirit to live and work for His praise and glory. Jesus said if you come to the altar and remember you have something against your brother or sister go and sort it out before you bring your gift.
Forgiveness is the heart of our faith in so many ways, but it needs to operate alongside a pastoral sensitivity that doesn’t demand it of others before they are ready. We are called to walk non-judgementally alongside those who are hurting for whom forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us remains an aspiration rather than lived experience.
+Richard