FORGIVENESS IS AN AFTERTHOUGHT NOT A SIGN OF INEVITABLE CONFLICT
Continuing a guided Abba account of his teaching days with the young Jesus. We move from seeing the world positively to the need for repentance.
The two words that best describe Jesus early learning were not featured in the bible but they were implicit in the knowing and awareness of Jesus. The first could simply be “positive”. Jesus saw the glass half full, the cup running over, heaven within the sight of all.
And he knew that was an invitation to being killed by a negative world.
If this was the first aspect of Jesus’ learning, the second assumed the negative reaction. What is true and beautiful gets whacked if it makes an appearance and meets disparaging eyes. So the reaction would set in and the conflict would be real in the world’s terms.
Since the only thing needed or wanted in the world is a loving response, the universal need, when this is ignored and there is aggression, is repentance.
There is active and passive aggression. Thus repentance needs to be practiced by all parties to any dispute. We talked back and forth and determined that our common work would involve words necessarily.
The word “forgive” to be clear. Repentance requires forgiveness and forgiveness is a feeling of the heart. When it is expressed as such it makes the matter right for the one who repents, but with a condition.
If someone repents of whatever they have done, it is an act that requires a quid pro quo. One is to ask forgiveness for what one has done and at the same time one is to forgive the wrongs done by others, in fact by all.
One needs to clear the sin ledger. This is not the negation of a positive perspective. It is the realization that the human condition is inevitably subject to conflict. This is because of fear that rises from uncertainty. Is what is coming at me harmful? If the answer seems to be yes, the response will be protective.
The challenge of existence is to recognize these bumps in the road but not to allow them to obscure the way forward, the vast positive panorama that rises from the capacity to choose among multiple good and loving options at every moment.
Yes, we started with this vision of goodness and made forgiveness a necessary exercise, not an excuse for regarding life as inevitably conflicted. Jesus was aware of the need to teach people how to overcome and bring about an environment of trust and security from harm and hurt.
