Skip to main content

Group Forgiveness

             Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. (II Corinthians 2:7-8)

 

            We don’t do forgiveness well, but today’s verses highlight an area of particular weakness. Paul was told about a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife, and the church was proud of it. Paul corrected them and told them how to deal with him and his stepmother. Apparently, the church had responded – possibly a little too vigorously. He had repented, but they were maintaining their distance from him. Even more than individual forgiveness, group (family, church, society) discipline and forgiveness are a challenge.

            Part of the problem is that discipline and forgiveness are similar to the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief. With a situation needing discipline, there is denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, and not all members of the group are in the same place at the same time. The fifth stage of the Kubler-Ross paradigm is acceptance, which is a nice parallel to forgiveness.

             The person to be disciplined faces his/her own struggle. This is further complicated by larger groups that also think themselves involved in the discipline, even if they aren’t. No, group discipline and forgiveness isn’t easy. It’s messy, and often poorly handled.

            But once the person has repented and done what was necessary, it doesn’t seem unusual for the church to have no process in place to reintegrate the person into their midst. If there is forgiveness, there is little in terms of comfort. The person who has somehow failed (whether through sin or misunderstanding) is disciplined and then gently told, effectively, to go sit off to the side somewhere  where no one will notice them. Reintegration, forgiveness, and acceptance are slow and often much quieter than the discipline was.

                There may be cases when reintegration isn’t possible, and adjustments must be made, but making that the rule rather than the exception seems to fall short of what Paul described.

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...
1 comment
Read more

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...
2 comments
Read more

Pure...

            The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (I Timothy 1:5)   I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16) I’m probably cheating - or mishandling the Bible, but earlier I was thinking about love being pure and purifying. And hatred being pure and purifying. And anger…joy…patience… fear… jealousy… courage…lust… and other strongly felt feelings, attitudes, and beliefs. Today’s verse brings purity and love together, so it’s the verse of the day, but it’s not really the focus. That means my motive for sharing it with you probably isn’t pure. As you read through my list, you   probably thought, “Yeah” about some, and “What’s she on?” about others. But consider how much hatred, a...
Post a Comment
Read more