That's Not Fair - They Did Me Dirty
THAT'S NOT FAIR
Forgiveness is what people expect from me, but they did me dirty and they did it on purpose.
They lied.
They embarrassed me.
They broke trust.
That's not fair.
Last week, the unfair part was that somebody got something they did not earn.
Grace.
This time, somebody really did hurt you.
They really do owe you.
And Jesus still talks about forgiveness.
How many times do I have to do this?
Peter comes to Jesus in Matthew 18 and asks:
I think Peter is really asking:
How many chances?
How many apologies?
How many times before I finally get to say, "Nope. That's it."
Seven probably sounded generous.
Then Jesus says:
Then He tells him a story.
The debt was real.
A servant owes a king more money than he could ever repay.
He begs for patience.
Instead, the king does something unbelievable.
Gone.
Then the servant finds somebody who owes him a much smaller amount and demands payment.
That man begs for patience too.
The servant refuses.
When the king hears about it, he is furious.
He did.
The debt was real.
That matters because forgiveness is not pretending nothing happened.
Sometimes they really did you dirty.
Sometimes they knew exactly what they were doing.
Forgiveness is not the same thing as trust.
This is where forgiveness gets hard for me.
I am not usually sitting around wanting revenge.
I am wondering if they are going to do it again.
I am fiercely loyal, so when trust breaks, I immediately start wondering if the bridge can be rebuilt.
I can forgive from my side.
I cannot rebuild trust from both sides.
That is why forgiveness and restoration are not the same thing.
Forgiveness is the default.
You can forgive somebody and still set a boundary.
You can forgive somebody and still admit the relationship may never look exactly like it did before.
Forgiveness does not mean handing somebody the keys to hurt you again.
I learned that the wrong way.
When my parents got divorced, I was angry.
Really angry.
And teenage me came up with what I thought was a pretty good plan.
I was going to make their lives miserable.
Honestly, I thought maybe if I made life after the divorce bad enough, they would realize how much better things were before.
Maybe they would fix it.
I thought I was punishing them.
What I was really doing was taking something that hurt me and using that hurt to hurt them.
Somebody eventually has to decide:
It does not erase what happened.
It means I am not going to let what you did to me decide what I do next.
Sometimes forgiveness keeps the future open.
Years ago, I was working through the ordination process.
It was a hard season.
I was finishing coursework and trying to figure out how honest I was supposed to be with the committee about the things I was struggling with.
I was honest.
Probably too honest.
One of the things I talked about was how much time I was spending gaming.
I was also streaming online at the time, so this was not exactly a secret.
Then I got an email telling me I was not going to receive my minister's license that year.
I was heartbroken.
I was angry.
I felt judged.
It felt incredibly unfair.
But eventually I had to recognize something.
The people making that decision were people too.
They could misunderstand me.
They could make a decision I disagreed with.
They could hurt me.
And if I believed God had really called me, I had a choice.
I could walk away angry.
Or I could forgive them and keep going.
Years later, I sat across the table from the man who had sent me that email.
By then, he had been part of ordaining me.
He told me how important that moment was to him because it was one of the last things he got to do in his role as assistant superintendent.
That conversation has stuck with me.
None of those moments happen if I refuse to forgive the people who hurt me.
Since then, I have had the privilege of baptizing nearly 100 students.
I cannot imagine what my life would look like, or what the Kingdom would look like through the small part God has allowed me to play, if I had decided that one painful moment was the end of the story.
Sometimes it keeps the future open.
If you walk away when it hurts the most, you may never get to see what God might have done on the other side of forgiveness.
We turn people into what they did.
Somebody lies and suddenly they are not a person who lied.
They are a liar.
Somebody hurts me and suddenly that is the only version of them I can see.
But I have a worst side too.
I have said things I wish I could unsay.
I have hurt people I love.
I am really grateful the people who love me have not decided my worst moment is the only version of me I am allowed to become.
This is why we tell our students:
and there's nothing you can do about it.
That does not mean there are no consequences.
It does not mean trust cannot be broken.
It means your worst moment does not get the final word on whether you are loved.
That kind of love leaves room for repentance.
It leaves room for change.
It leaves room for somebody to become more than the version of themselves that hurt you.
I canceled the debt and kept the receipt.
There have been times when I told somebody I forgave them.
We talked.
I said I was over it.
Except I was not.
Months later, I could pull the whole thing back out.
Replay it.
Remember every detail.
Something new would happen and suddenly I was reaching backward.
See?
This is just like what you did before.
We do that.
"I forgive you."
But we keep the evidence just in case we need it later.
Here is why Jesus expects this from us.
The servant wanted mercy for himself and justice for everybody else.
I do that too.
God, forgive me.
Be patient with me.
Do not define me by my worst moment.
Then somebody hurts me and suddenly I am keeping receipts.
So Jesus asks me what I am going to do with theirs.
What do you do when they really did you dirty?
Maybe they really did hurt you.
Maybe the debt is real.
Maybe they never apologized.
Maybe the bridge is broken and you are the only one standing there trying to rebuild it.
Jesus is not asking you to pretend none of that happened.
Forgiveness breaks the cycle.
Forgiveness keeps the future open.
And forgiveness leaves your side of the bridge ready, even when you cannot build the other side for them.
Forgiveness is the default.
Maybe your first step is not talking to that person.
Maybe your first step is talking to Jesus.
Maybe that is because grace has never really been fair.
And thankfully, neither is the mercy God has given me.