How Humility Makes Way for Forgiveness
One of the main tenets of Christianity is the belief that we are transformed by God and made new; that we have been and continue to be forgiven (and this does not require a belief in ‘substitutionary atonement’). Forgiveness, along with justice for the oppressed (ie Luke 4:18), is part of what we call the ‘good news.’ So shouldn’t Christians be especially forgiving? In theory, yes. But Christians fail at forgiveness as much as anyone. Do we truly believe in forgiveness? Because experience of forgiveness is transforming. It makes us more forgiving toward others.
In our upcoming lectionary reading (Matt 23:1-12), Jesus is harsh. He speaks against hypocrisy, about being full of ourselves and our positions instead of serving, instead of practicing humility. It’s easy to read words like this and think of people we believe deserve this harshness. It’s harder to recognize how the words apply to us. But really, we all have the tendency to flaunt our goodness like Jesus describes in the passage. This is human.
Here I want to explore one of the main benefits of not doing this, and of acknowledging our self-centered tendencies. It is this: humility helps us to forgive. And non-forgiveness has the ability to destroy us…. {Read remainder of article on Patheos HERE.}