I’m still very much in the initial stages of pulling my thoughts together on this.

It strikes me that in the rite of absolution the prayers and actions point to God, his love for us, his mercy, his compassion, and understanding, only once – and then only briefly is the “power to bind” mentioned – at the very end.

The theological and pastoral emphasis is NOT on the “power to bind” – quite the contrary it is on God’s overwhelming love & compassion. Again I am faced with the teaching that we must forgive as God forgives if we are to be confident in recieving forgiveness ourselves – the “power to bind” then, would seem to play a very different role than that presented by the theory proposed in another place.

In the context of recent discussions on the mechanics of forgiveness Fr. Chris Tessone & I were debating the concept of restitution (among other things); in that debate, changing tack, Chris asked: “what do you think the power to bind means, as given to the church and especially the apostolic priesthood in the Gospels?” At the time of reading his comments I was in a hotel in Paris, my “then” computer was not long for this world, and the next 20 days were going to be rather full, so I had to post-pone the conversation. Now, as promised I’m opening the door on this one to see what we find on the other side.

I’ll start by saying that these are only my initial thoughts – I’ve not yet had the chance to sit down and really have a good think on it.

I think that in order to best understand the idea of the “power to bind” as Chris puts it – one has to look at the role of the priest in the sacrament. I see a series of markers on the topology of the sacrament: the priest is the agent of the community, the priest bears witness to God’s act of forgiveness to the individual, finally the priest’s pastoral act of bringing closure to an episode/process for the individual. I’ll work with each of these in forthcoming posts, but scoping the landscape of the sacrament I think is useful because it highlights the simple fact that the “power to bind” can only be properly understood in the context of a “whole” experience. Take it out of that context and you are immediately faced with an abuse of “power”, and a mis-interpretation of the value and theology of the sacrament – thus my opposition to the theory being proposed in another place about the mechanics of forgiveness.

In another place there is a discussion developing on a theory of the mechanics of forgiveness that, has raised an interesting question for me – indeed it is a revisiting of a discussion that began some months ago. The theory being submitted is that forgiveness requires restitution; citing the story of Zaccheus who having encountered Christ, is moved to state before his community: “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it for times over”; to which Jesus replies: “today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendent of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and save what was lost.” According to the current argument, Zaccheus is a scriptural example of restitution being expected before the act of forgiveness is complete. The exegesis, here I think is . . .weak, and over simplified, what is more I also think it is very much out of context. But that’s not what interests me – what interests me is the idea that in this argument, there is an implicit assertion that God demands restitution before forgiveness is accomplished. My question is: does God hold back on extending his hand in forgiveness toward us until we have made restitution?

Under the Old Covenant people made sin offerings – strictly speaking in lieu of their own death. But do we, or did they, really think that a fat calf, or a goat makes restitution for turning away from our most intimate relationship? There is no indication that they did. Does this not also raise some questions about the nature of God and our relationship with God; what does the idea that we of the same value as a goat suggest about our theology of being human?

There is perhaps another approach to this, one whereby the “sin offering” was a gift given in addition to our apology. We need only look at our own social system even today to see this “sin offering” in action: we offend someone who is very important to us, and in addition to our apology we offer a gift. Either way, it is not restitution.

The Psalmist writes of God’s forgiveness, and relates how it is in our confession of sin that forgiveness is actualised. “As long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day for day and night your hand was heavy upon my; my strength withered as in dry summer heat. Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said ‘I confess my faults to the Lord.’ And you took away the guilt of my sin” (Ps. 32). Where is the restitution here?

Some might say that the principal work of Christ is as our sin offering to God – thus justifying the theory of restitution being necessary for forgiveness to be accomplished. The problem I find in this logic is that it makes God out to be a monster, and it misses the critical point raise by the fathers that Christ’s sacrifice was to offer his unblemished, perfect, humanity to Death – by way of deception – so that as the Logos our divine champion he could then defeat Death in battle, and liberate the whole of creation, because we were not strong enough to independently accomplish our liberation.

Jesus said that we best exemplify his teaching when we forgive others as God forgives us. In the examples here – there is no indication that God demands restitution in order to forgive us. The argument, as it has been presented, suggests that there is a debt owed to the one offended which until the debt is paid (preferably with interest) forgiveness is incomplete. Let us turn our attention for a moment to the most basic prayer in our tradition – “forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us” – where is the restitution here?

Working on the basis that we ought to forgive as God himself freely, and openly forgives us, a demand for restitution is entirely outside the realm of Christian experience.

There is something in this “mechanics of forgiveness” which my other half raised last night at dinner.

Christ’s summary of the Law (Lk. 10.27): You shall love the Lord, your god, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.

The phrase in the Lord’s prayer (Lk. 11.4): forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test.

There is something expressed in these two things that appears to be “missing” in Jack’s argument, and it is something that is of great importance to our “being” Christians – and that is personhood.

It is a mistake to present Christianity as merely the journey we undertake to ensure our own eternal life in paradise. Christianity is about the journey of achieving the fullness of our personhood – as is expressed in St. Athanasius “On the Incarnation” when he says that after the Fall man was losing his humanity.

In the late antique debates about the mechanics of the incarnation (not entirely unrelated to the mechanics of forgiveness) the overarching concern was to understand “Christ” the incarnate Logos as a “whole person” and not some schizophrenic phantom.

Christ’s act of forgiveness did not sublimate, or surrender any part of his person – he was fully the entire expression of human and divine personhood. Had he done so, forgiveness, salvation, would have been incomplete.

If we accept that it is our calling through baptism to forgive others as God forgives us – then I think we find here the best model of forgiveness.

Christ’s suffering had the effect of freeing us, and bringing about a change in our own hearts – metanoia. It was not suffering purely for the sake of suffering – it was actively part of the economy – the Divine Deception, so that our liberation from suffering and Death would be total.

The preservation of personhood seems to me to be resident in the two citations above – forgiveness brings about a . . . . restoration of our ability to see the other as “person” as an individual fully infused with the grace of the divine will and reason. It is this image that is impaired when our relationship is impaired through sin.

The need to forgive is about the requirement to “love our neighbour as our self” – that is to see the other once more as a reflection of the divine will and reason Incarnate. That aspect of “incarnation” by the way is essential to fully appreciating the fullness of our personhood – and I dare say is intimately linked with some of John’s earlier posts about the body.

If, in the process of forgiveness we sublimate or ignore our own personhood – then have we really forgiven? No, we have merely altered the problem, and become PART OF THE PROBLEM – clouding the possibility for metanoia in BOTH parties.

Jesus suffered so that we don’t have to. We are called by and empowered by Christ through his death and resurrection, and our own baptism into that death and resurrection to break the cycle of suffering not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of others.

If by our self giving, if by our suffering, we become the means by which others are set free from suffering, then that is “good suffering” and is fully in keeping with the spirit of the passion, the martyrs and confessors. Anything other than this, it seems to me, contravenes the law and example of Christ that in order to forgive others we must love ourselves – our full selves.

There is another aspect of the mechanics of forgiveness that I’ve not previously considered. It appears to me, that of the examples in the Gospels (and even in the OT) of forgiveness being carried out, that there is an assumption of both an ongoing relationship that is damaged, and that the intent is for that relationship to continue because it is valued.

Thus, forgiveness appears to be something that ought to be balanced within the context of a relationship. What happens when there is no longer a relationship? How does one forgive when the other party – the aggrieving party – is no longer a part of the picture? Again, I have no answer to this – but it is something that is very much a part of our daily life – it happens. Can there be forgiveness if there is no longer a relationship?

What if there was never a “relationship” in the first place but merely a glancing encounter?

Perhaps (and again I’ve not fully considered this) the only model available to us is Jesus’ instruction to the 72 when he sent them out – if they found that the inhabitants of a place chose not to have a relationship with them then they were to leave, and brush the dust from their feet – literally to walk away and to not allow the “other” to have any negative power over them.

I’m starting a new thread here that is in part based on a very interesting conversation that began on my friend John Plummer’s blog, and inspired by similar posts in other blogs I’ve visited lately.

Our topic: the mechanics of forgiveness. I’m jumping into it with a modified edition of one of my contributions to John’s blog.

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The thing that emerges for me here is .. .. surprising (to me) really. That is the idea that forgiveness must be open.

If we forgive defensively – we do not actually forgive, but are holding some resentment, anger or “X” in reserve – almost like a weapon to be used strategically at a later date when (if) a new and different issue arises between the parties. This cannot be true forgiveness.

If we forgive passively or perhaps more correctly – fatalistically we are in fact expanding the problem, to become a part of the problem (more on this point in the next post).

Jesus taught us how to break the cycle of suffering, in others, and in ourselves. Through his death and resurrection we ARE freed from the fatalism of “destroying ourselves” and others. Through our baptism we are empowered to do just that. Fatalism, and passiveness are simply not Christian – they are in fact a characteristic of classical paganism.

Our faith is an active faith of transformation. Theosis does not happen passively – it is not an “automatic” – if that were so there would be no free will, and predestination would in fact be a valid “doctrine”.

Thus, to forgive “passively” and to allow unchallenged – the other party to either continue or even escalate the offence – thereby taking advantage of our passivity – does not fulfill our baptismal mandate to be “Christ in the World” and to contribute to the breaking of the cycle of suffering.

In the earlier conversation someone raised the example of martyrdom as an example of surrending the self in relation to forgiveness. It seems to me that an essential element of martyrdom has been . . . .overlooked in this point . . . . . the martyrs ALWAYS challenged the offence of the oppressor. They did so by remaining steadfast in the faith, they did so by debating with their killers, they did so by evidencing radical compassion even up to the very moment of their death. There was nothing passive here, nothing fatalistic.

There is still much about the mechanics of forgiveness I do not understand. The one thing I am certain of though is that it cannot be defensive, it cannot be passive, and it must be open.

The openness of forgiveness – might lead one to incorrectly assert that it is an essentially passive act – i.e. welcoming people to walk all over you – this is not the case. The openness of which I speak is such a characteristic of our faith that it must be an essential element of forgiveness too. If we are, as Jesus taught us, to be so open as to be like children, to welcome the stranger, to have no duplicity and thus to let our yes mean yes – . . . we notice that these are all “active” not passive activities . . . . how does this openness carry over into the “act” of forgiveness?

Openness naturally leaves us vulnerable. There is no escaping this fact. But defensiveness shrinks, and diminishes us – he who seeks to save his life will lose it.