Intrigued and stewing over the statement of
one of today’s presidential Republican presumptive nominee, saying that he needs not to ask for forgiveness,
I thought I would get some kind of idea why so many others apparently think the
same way when I would ask, and they would just stare at me like a deer in the headlights. I took to the internet and ten
minutes later I was asking myself: Why
have I not read the Sunflower before?
Thinking back, I was more into my capital twenties and giving most of my
spiritual energy away to gaining success; professionally and pastorally. Therefore,
I had no idea that Simon Wiesenthal had
just penned his thought-provoking book in 1969. The Sunflower, which captures
the agony he personally experienced in one of history’s darkest moments.
Relating one encounter with the Holocaust, Wiesenthal described how he had been
taken from a Nazi death-camp to a makeshift army hospital. He was ushered by a
nurse to the side of a Nazi soldier who had asked to have a few private moments
with a Jew. Wiesenthal warily entered the room and was brought face to face
with a fatally wounded man, bandaged from head to toe. The man struggled to
face him and spoke in broken words. Wiesenthal nervously endured the anxious
monologue, finding himself numbed by the encounter. At the hands of Nazi
soldiers like the one now dying before him, Wiesenthal had lost 89 of his own
relatives. Here, the soldier confessed to the heinous act of setting ablaze an
entire village of Jews; at his whim, men, women, and children were burned to
death. With great anxiety, he described his inability to silence from his mind
the screams of those people. Now on a deathbed himself, the man was making a
last desperate attempt to seek the forgiveness of a Jew. The man begged him to
stay, repeating his cry for forgiveness, but Wiesenthal could only walk away.
Yet even years later he
wondered if he had done the right thing. Should he have accepted the man’s
repentance and offered the forgiveness so earnestly sought? Had he neglected a
weighted invitation to speak or was silence the only appropriate reply? Seeking
an answer, Wiesenthal wrote to thirty-two men and women of high
regard—scholars, noble laureates, psychologists, and others. Twenty-six of the
thirty-two affirmed his choice to not offer the forgiveness that was sought.
Six speculated on the costly, but superior, road of pardon and mercy.
I don’t know what it would
take to absolve anyone of so monumental a crime. I don’t know if it is possible
to offer forgiveness for something so far beyond our moral categories. But I
know that even in the most unfathomable places, the God of Scripture somehow
carries the burden of prodigal grace. Who can fathom the Son of God on the
cross pleading with the Father to forgive the guilty for killing him? Who can
conceive of a God who comes among his people, trusting himself to the hands of
a fallen world, even knowing the troubling outcome? Who can grasp the heart of
a God who chooses to love an undeserving people? To live as one marked by this
disruptive grace is not easy. It is easier to forget that the command to
forgive is thoroughly unsettling; in fact, sometimes haunting. I find it most difficult to persist in
love when I'm tired or overwhelmed, or even rightfully angered by injustice, as a massive and costly request.
I have often found it easier
to fit into shoes of the prodigal son than the shoes of the remaining older
brother. Yet in this well-known parable
of Jesus, both sons are invited to celebrate and rejoice. To the prodigal child
who has squandered and defamed, God’s grace is lavish. It is extravagant and
poured out on those who neither expect it nor deserve it. The celebration is
thrown in the honor of the run-away, in honor of the return of just one lost
sheep. When these shoes are mine, I find myself both humbled by the Father’s
attention and compelled by God’s mercy.
Yet to the child on the other
side of justice, the Father’s grace is jarring and disruptive. It is lavish,
but wastefully so. His invitation to the feast is both awkward and demanding, a
seeming call to overlook the potential of my reckless brother to strike again
at my expense. These shoes are much harder to walk in. The Father’s call to
forgive the one whose sincerity is questionable is often agonizing; his command
to love the habitual prodigals in our midst is both costly and exhausting.
But it is Christ’s request. Matthew records this episode: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he
sins against me? Up to seven times?” asked Peter. But Jesus answered, “I tell
you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.”
Father, God, once again Your grace
has disrupted my sense of righteousness and summons me to respond in similar
kind after considering Matthew’s account of Jesus’ brief but potent
conversation with Peter. Thank you for
leading me to read the Sunflower. I now understand that whether I find myself
in the shoes of the prodigal or treading the difficult road of the older
brother there is good reason to rejoice and celebrate Your unveiling love as my
Father. Your unfathomable grace and mercy shatters my sense of who is worthy to
enjoy the benefits of Your kingdom, inviting me to the celebration regardless
of where, and in whose shoes, I stand.
Amen
