Forgiveness Challenge

When I was in seminary we read Desmond Tutu's book, No Future Without Forgiveness, in one of my theology classes.  It was one of my favorite books from my time in seminary.  Sadly, reading it showed what a poor global citizen I am/was because I knew so little about what had happened during apartheid in South Africa.  It was quite a learning for me.  What caught my attention and changed me, though, was reading about the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  My professor told me not to idealize the situation there and explained that all was not sweetness and light in the aftermath of the TRC process.  No process is without flaws.  What astounded me was that it was even tried at all and that some amount of healing came out of it. 

On Saturday as I was preparing to preach about Doubting Thomas, I saw a post on a friend's timeline on FaceBook about a 30-Day Forgiveness Challenge sponsored by Archbishop Tutu and his daughter, Mpho.  Together they have written a book called, The Book of Forgiving: the Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World.  I can't wait to read it.  The Tutus know about forgiveness and they have  wisdom to share.  As I understand it, people who sign up for the challenge will receive an email each of the 30 days with stories, exercises, interviews, etc.  I signed up.

This time when I preached the story from John's gospel about Jesus' appearance to his disciples sans Thomas, I paid close attention to what Jesus said to them.  "As the Father has sent me, so I send you...  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.  If you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  Jesus sent them out to forgive.  That's what he did.  He forgave.  That's what he sent them to do.  That's what he calls his followers to do now. 

I struggle with forgiveness.  I love to talk about it, think about it, hear stories about it.  When I'm faced with actually engaging in it, though, I become uncomfortable, often preferring to nurse my wounds or resentments rather than do the hard work of letting them go.  I also struggle with forgiving too easily, before I've really done the hard work, saying that I've forgiven, but I haven't.  There's a decision to forgive and then there's the actual process of forgiving. 

I am hopeful that I will learn through this 30-day challenge.  I love that it's taking place during the Easter season.  Last year for Lent I chose to do a forgiveness practice in which I wrote down 40 names of people I needed to forgive on slips of paper.  Each morning I drew out a name and prayed for that person, examining my feelings of hurt or resentment and asking myself if I was ready to let them go.  This 30-day challenge seems to be the perfect follow up to the Lenten discipline, and an ideal practice for Easter when we remember that Jesus didn't rise from the dead to condemn the world but to forgive.  What would it be like to have a little less condemnation and judgment in the world and a whole lot more forgiveness?

I want to do my part.  Will you join me?