Romans 12:14-15, 17-21
Do you recall the fictional lawyer Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird? On one occasion Finch gives his six-year-old daughter “Scout” some advice. He tells her, "If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."
Many who have studied the Christian call to forgive our wounders have suggested we must “climb inside the skin” of our wounder. To put it another way, we must develop compassion, fellow-feeling, or empathy with those we’d rather write down as a detriment to the human race.
So we resist the feelings of empathy. It’s important we don’t misunderstand what empathy means.
Having empathy is not excusing bad behavior. We’ve heard that all too often. Johnny didn’t get a new bike for Christmas when all his friends did, so he grew up to be an embezzler. That kind of “empathy” doesn’t help anyone and it seldom leads to a positive change in the life of the wounder.
So, too, having empathy is not endorsing bad behavior. When we suggest that certain behavior is only to be expected from a person, some believe we are saying that the behavior is okay, given their situation.
Having empathy is a step toward explaining bad behavior. It especially helps us understand why a particular person behaves in a particular way. And that can be a real starting point toward changed behavior.
Everett Worthington, a professor psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, has made an exhaustive study of forgiveness. He believes that empathy is absolutely essential if we are going to learn how to forgive our wounders. We may never fully understand the wounder but we may be able to better appreciate why they may have acted as they did if we can develop empathy for them. The effort of climbing inside their skin and seeing the world as they do will give us greater insight into their actions.
Worthington’s research is more than theoretical. You see, in 1995, he received a call from his brother that a burglar had brutally murdered his mother. He was faced with the choice of forgiving or living with the bitterness that made him want to make his mother’s murderer pay. So, he began to try to better understand how the youth who killed his mother must have felt when she appeared in the house he had assumed was empty. Worthington imagined the young man thinking, “This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to be a perfect robbery. Where did this old woman come from? This is terrible. She can even recognize me. I’m going to jail. This old woman is ruining my life.”
Worthington then imagined the young man lashing out with the crowbar in his hand, angry at the woman whom he saw as a threat. And so his mother died.
You need to understand that this experiment in climbing into the young man’s skin had a powerful effect on a man who was, at once, a son deprived of his mother and a psychologist trained to observe human emotion. Listen to what he says,
As I look back on the experience now and analyze it, I can see that I was experiencing new emotions. Instead of the rage and fear that experienced before empathizing, I felt compassion. My body was being reprogrammed. The scene, vivid in my mind, was being with paired with different events occurring in my body. I was experiencing different gut feelings. My face softened, my jaw no longer clenched in anger and hatred. Instead of associating the event with a fantasy of revenge, I was associating the event with sadness and compassion for a needy person—a person who needed serious help and who needed to be prevented from hurting others.
At no time in my empathic fantasy did I ever construe his act as being anything but wrong and evil. I was not justifiable. It was not excusable. But after my empathic fantasy, it was more understandable. I thought about what might have been the murderer’s experience. I did not merely judge him from outside.[1]
By God’s grace, most of us will never have anything so terrible to try to forgive. Still, I hope you can see how we need the gift of compassionate empathy to keep us on the path of forgiving our wounder.
As I looked about for a Biblical foundation for this action I returned to a passage that is rich with insight into the new way we Christians are to think and act. I turned to Romans 12.
I’ll begin with a very vivid passage from that chapter. Paul is talking about how Christians are to treat their enemies. Look at Romans 12:17-21.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’
“To the contrary,
‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;
for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’”
At first reading, that sounds like something you’d enjoy: Heaping hot, burning coals on your wounder’s head. If only Paul hadn’t said, “When it comes to pay-back, don’t.”
No matter how unjustly we have been treated, revenge should not find a place on our agenda. Notice how Paul addresses his readers in affectionate terms, “Beloved.” Maybe he does so because he is sympathetic with their pain and understands their desire to see some kind of justice here and now. Yet, he calls for them to have patience. They are to leave the matter in God’s hands.
What about just leaving our wounders to God? After all, we do believe there will be a final accounting, that everyone will face the Judge of the universe to have his or her fate pronounced. There may be delays and continuances but the Day is coming. Hurting Christians who long for justice can take some comfort in that. Yet, there’s a kind of fly in the ointment, all those commands about a bothersome thing called “forgiveness.” In fact, the Christian is only able to look forward to that Day of Judgment because we believe our sins have already been judged, judged on the Cross of Christ. We believe he received the punishment which should have been ours.
What if your wounder, the one who has been so cruel to you, should come to faith in Christ? Our faith says such a person would go to heaven; maybe have the mansion next to yours.
That’s hard for some of us to imagine. Yet, if loving your wounder means anything, if wanting God’s best for your wounder really means wanting God’s best, we will want that for our wounder.
I suspect that’s why Paul won’t allow his readers to simply sit back and wait for God’s judgment to fall on their enemies. They are not just to avoid taking revenge; they are actually to act with positive kindness toward their enemies. Remember what he says, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”
Think about this, if you know your wounder is hungry, if you know your wounder is thirsty, you have to know your wounder.
The word translated as feed is literally “to feed with morsels.” It’s the word used to describe how you might feed a young child, breaking off small pieces and placing them in the child’s mouth. It certainly suggests giving personal attention; but there’s something more. The image also reminds us of a custom which was widespread in Paul’s day among some of the desert peoples, a custom which would have probably been known in a cosmopolitan place like Rome. If a host was to invite a wounder to his home or tent for a feast, that wounder could know that the laws of hospitality would keep him safe. And, if during the meal, the host should take a morsel of food and offer it to his wounder, it would signal a desire to end hostilities, a desire to become friends.
This is what was behind Jesus offering Judas the morsel or “sop” during the Passover meal on the night before the crucifixion. It was a final offer of friendship which Judas refused.
So, Paul is saying we should try to make friends of our enemies.
Okay, but maybe there is something more implied here. Sometimes those who lash out at others, who become wounders, do so because they have unmet needs. Something went wrong somewhere in their lives. As you strive to become more empathetic, you may need to ask yourself: “Is there some unmet need in my wounder’s life that prompts him to behave like that? If that need hadn’t been met in my own life, how would I relate to others?”
But, if that’s so, what is all this “coals of fire…on his head” business?
The most likely suggestion is that our kindness in the face of our wounders’ hostility will change their minds and may even result in their becoming friendly toward us. It is an outworking of the observation that “The safe and sure way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend.” Perhaps, it suggests that meeting those unmet needs might make such a difference that the wounder will become a changed person. In any case, it is an outgrowth of compassion and empathy.
The Forgiveness Continuum
I admit all of this is pretty tough. I’ve read and reread Everett Worthington’s story and still have a hard time believing it. A repeated theme in everything I’ve read on this matter of forgiving our wounders suggests that it is rare when such forgiveness comes all at once. For most of us, it takes time, sometimes a lot of time.
In thinking about it, I’ve put together what I am calling The Forgiveness Continuum. Think of it as stages on the way to full and complete forgiveness. You may stay at one spot for awhile but as long as you eventually move on, you can take heart.
Stage One: Reject retaliation as a response to your wounder’s actions.
Do you remember Clara Harris? On July 24, 2002, Clara, a dentist living in a Houston suburb, ran over husband David, an orthodontist, in a hotel parking lot. Clara told the police she had accidentally run over him. But the police felt it unlikely she had accidentally run over him three times. She was angry about the affair he was having with his receptionist. She is now serving a twenty year sentence in a Texas prison.
Some may shake their heads at Harris’ actions. Some may quietly admire her. But most of us know that we’ve sometimes been so angry and a wounder that we’ve at least fantasized about what we might do if given the chance.
Paul’s words are simple and direct, “Repay no one evil for evil.” On the road to forgiving your wounder the first thing you may need to do is nothing.
Stage Two: Recognize your kinship with the wounder.
In the past, Christians sometimes looked at a man or woman whose lives had been ruined by their behavior and said, “There but for the grace of God go I.” These people knew that they were subject to temptations and that God’s grace was sometimes all that kept them from ruin.
This is the time to ask yourself some serious questions. If I had had the upbringing my wounder had, would I relate to people any better? If I didn’t have the support system I have and were alone like my wounder, how would I behave? Like my wounder, haven’t I wounded others thoughtlessly and haven’t I, like my wounder, sometimes stood in need of forgiveness?
You may frame the questions to fit the circumstances but you goal is to get inside the skin of your wounder.
Stage Three: Release your bitterness toward the wounder.
The thing about bitterness is that it does nothing to harm the one who harmed you. If you hold onto that bitterness you only hurt yourself.
As we’ve seen, you do yourself a favor by giving up the all-consuming bitterness you feel toward your wounder.
Stage Four: Resolve to move beyond the wound.
You are not necessarily moving into a perfect world. In fact, some of the scars from the old wound may stay with you, but you are acknowledging there are new possibilities, new opportunities for joy and satisfaction. As David Augsburger wisely wrote, “Forgiveness is letting what was, be gone; what will be, come; what is, be.”
Stage Five: Rejoice to see the wounder blessed.
Earlier in Romans 12, Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” To bless someone is to call down God’s best on them. The final stage in this continuum of forgiveness is to be as happy that God is blessing your wounder as you are that God is blessing you.
I haven’t mentioned reconciliation. Sometimes the blessing your wounder receives and you receive, is reconciliation. If that blessing comes, it must come with wisdom, honesty, and hope.
Conclusion
As I end this focus on the tough job of forgiving our wounders, I want to make just a couple more practical observations.
1. Some writers say you must publically commit to forgive your wounder. I’m not sure I agree. Perhaps the wisest course would be to share your commitment to forgive only with those who know you’ve been wounded. Sometimes that may involve many people, sometimes only a few.
2. I think you should avoid unrealistic expectations regarding the issue of forgiveness. Your wounder may not care that you have forgiven. You may have occasional relapses in which you have to remind yourself that you’ve forgiven.
3. I’ve said nothing about the matter of receiving forgiveness. We may have to talk more about that. For now I think it too is a process. It involves recognition you’ve done wrong, sincere confession, and a humble request for forgiveness.
Climbing into our wounder’s skin isn’t easy. It’s scary. In part, because, once inside, we might find someone like ourselves. Yet, it may help us do a proper job of forgiving. Help us be like Christ.
[1] Everett Worthington, Five Steps to Forgiveness: The Art and Science of Forgiving, New York: Crown Publishers, 2001, p. 59-60.
