Forgiveness is...

Forgiveness is…

You will have to forgive me for using yet another Lord of the Rings situation to explain things, but I’m afraid this may be one of the two or three most important ideas in that book. And yet, I use it to throw it away. But please, dear reader, stick with me and we shall come out into the light, just as Bilbo did, as he escaped from the Misty Mountains.

First, we have to remember the discovery of the One Ring in the bowels of the mountain, as told in the novel, The Hobbit. Bilbo had just won the riddle game foisted upon him by Gollum, who was buying time while he considered that very nasty looking sword Bilbo wielded. If Bilbo won, Gollum promised to show him the way out of the mountain. And Bilbo did win, almost by accident, so Gollum prepared to show him out, it seems, when he actually went to retrieve his magic ring of invisibility. He let out a soul-piercing scream, when he discovered it missing. At this point, Bilbo felt a twinge of pity for this lost soul, with whom it seemed he had so much in common. This part of the story ends when Gollum dashes to the exit, followed by the now invisible Bilbo, who stops just as he sees Gollum, and behind him, the exit to the out of doors. At that moment “A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart; a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment…” Gollum sat between Bilbo and freedom, and yet Bilbo could not slay the miserable creature, and escaped through invisibility and a mighty leap.

Now, in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf explains this situation to Frodo, as Frodo is fretting over his predicament by possessing the One Ring:

‘But this is terrible!’ cried Frodo. Far worse than the worst I imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature when he had a chance!”

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy; not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the ring so. With Pity.

And there is a third act to this story, near the middle of the saga of the Ring. Frodo and Samwise meet Gollum on the wastelands to the east of the Anduin River. Both know Gollum is intent on stealing the One Ring, and Sam wants to kill him to prevent numerous foreseeable problems (which, of course, all came true). But Frodo remembered Gandalf’s warning about Bilbo and Pity, and he says “For now that I see him, I do pity him.”

See how pity persists in the memories across three different characters, and about 50 years of storytelling. What an amazing feat of memory. But what does all that have to do with forgiveness? My point, and the reason I drew it out to such lengths, is that in fact, it is just the opposite of forgiveness in many ways. Pity persists in memory. Forgiveness erases things from memory. Now, I know that the expression “forgive and forget” appears nowhere in the Protestant Bible, but Augustine’s theology of memory, in his Confessions, can connect forgiveness with forgetfulness. It is God and the Spirit on which memory is based, and God has a perfectly good will. Nothing of vengeance, ire, spite, ill will, malice, rancor, or feuding can be held in God’s memory. It’s like trying to make dry noodles stick to a magnet. They do not stick. They are corrosive to the mind, and our willfully holding onto them will do no good whatsoever.

But what about pity? Pity is not one of those nasty, wriggly words which feel like soggy noodles in the fingers, and which fall away and soil the floor, just at the right place to have your kid sister slip and fall. Spite is slimy. Malice is awash with ooze. Rancor drips phlegm. None of them are welcome in the mind of God. Forgiveness is. In fact, forgiveness is a gatekeeper given by God to weed out all the words which hang out with zombies. You remember to pity, because that which we pity may often be that which we find wretched.

But what about forgiveness. Are we not to remember what we forgave? No, because there is no accounting involved in forgiveness. Recall Matthew 18:21 “Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” I think it is fair to say Jesus was picking a big number just for effect. I trust he meant one is to forgive, for however many times the slight occurs.

You may even go so far as to save yourself a lot of moral bookkeeping, if you never bother to take the slight in the first place.

Forgive the slights of others before coming before the Lord for forgiveness. Our watchword for the week.

Written by Bruce Marold.