Finding Forgiveness Through Empathy and Humility

We’ve entered special time in America under the Trump regime. It’s a time of complete regression as those in power seek to set us back by decades in terms of social justice, environmental protections and civil rights. It’s a time of despair as we see all three branches of government acting together to erode democratic norms and support authoritarianism. It’s a time of division as our polarization and unrest hit heights most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes. It’s a time of inequality as the wealth gap increases and corporate interests are held above working families.

But lately I’ve been considering another option, a time of forgiveness. We are seeing the results of a dangerous cycle of fear, anger and violence. Jesus teaches us that forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle. First, let me be clear that forgiveness is not about condoning or excusing bad behavior by bad actors. We still have a lot of work to do educating our peers and protesting our would-be overlords. Forgiveness never means inviting danger back into your life. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean we must tolerate their behavior. We need to fill the congressional phone lines, the streets and the town halls with our voices. But forgiveness is the ultimate principle in our faith. Forgiving each other is the way we save the world one person at a time. This can be a time to practice this important part of our faith.

Forgiveness flips the script that says we must have equal justice to move forward. When we forgive, we refuse to let bad actors continue to affect us through our own anger and bitterness.

I’ve recently been contemplating the story of Joseph in Genesis. You know, the guy with the Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you need a brief refresher – and who doesn’t – here is the story in brief. Abraham is the patriarch of three great religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He was promised to be the father of a great nation by God. His son Isaac doesn’t do too much in the Bible, but he does have a son Jacob who uses some trickery to gain the birthright blessing intended for his older brother. Jacob then goes on to have 12 sons who go on to found the 12 tribes of Israel. One of Jacob’s sons is Joseph.

Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son and probably a pain in the neck to his other brothers. So, the other 11 brothers sell him into Egyptian slavery. But through a fun and twisty journey, Joseph becomes the right-hand man of the Egyptian Pharoah. A famine strikes and Joseph’s brothers come to him, not knowing he is their long-lost brother, to seek food. After having some fun at their expense, Joseph reveals his identity. Joseph’s brothers assume the worst. I mean, they treated Joseph terribly so what will he do for revenge? Joseph, in a passage that later Christians will understand to have echoes in Christ, forgives his brothers in a beautiful way. He essentially says, “you meant me harm, but God has used all of this for good purposes.” Because they sold Joseph to the Egyptians, he eventually became the top leader under Pharoah, saved the land and his family from famine and secured a place for the tribes of Israel in the best land Egypt had to offer.

It’s this recurring theme in our faith. Adam and Eve are in full communion with God in paradise and they are expelled. Joseph is expelled out of his family into Egypt. The tribes of Israel are enslaved out of the wonderful lands they were given through Joseph’s relationship with the old Pharoah. They escape Egypt and reconnect with God through tabernacle and temple worship only to be carted off into exile in Babylon. Jesus then brings full oneness with God to all of us, the ultimate atonement, but not before he is put to death. Jesus even warns people in John 2 that he is the temple they will seek to destroy. So, we have an expulsion from our sanctuaries and then atonement and reconnection. That is salvation. And the common theme bringing us out of it each time is forgiveness – God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of each other.

It’s no wonder early Christians saw Jesus as the fulfillment of this story. It’s a story of deception and violence that ends in enslavement and destruction, but through acts of love and forgiveness, help us rebuild the tabernacles and temples that connect us to God. Jesus’ resurrection breaks that cycle once and for all. The repetition of violence and blame and then forgiveness and reconciliation from Adam to Joseph to Moses to Babylon is concluded in Christ. We don’t have to choose violence any longer, we can choose forgiveness. We are through Christ completely reconciled forever with God, and that gives us freedom to offer forgiveness to others. Everything is all and all in God’s hands.

The Importance of Empathy

Forgiveness starts with empathy. Forgiveness is about us truly wanting the best for someone, wanting to see them improve. When someone cuts you off in traffic, imagine saying a prayer like, “God, please help this person become a better driver for their safety and the safety of others.” I try it sometimes and I feel angry praying it. I even feel physical pain in praying for someone who nearly killed me at 85 MPH. But it reminds you what is important. Will it change them? I don’t know, that’s on them. Will it improve your relationship? No, because with any luck you’ll never see that fool again. Instead, it bends your heart back toward God.

What if you prayed for Donald Trump to be the best president he can be, to see others as human equals, to give up on his hatred and fear and find inner happiness? It makes me want to throw up in my mouth thinking about praying that. But I should still pray it anyway, because I follow Christ not my anger and not my demand for retribution.

Donald Trump is an extreme example, but empathy means we’re trying to understand the motivations of the people who wronged us. Few people are evil for evil’s sake. Most of the evil done to us is because we’re all wired up quite badly in one way or another. We all live in a broken world and respond as broken people. Forgiveness means we’re just trying to break the cycle of brokenness on our side, where we have control. It doesn’t mean the offender will change.

The Importance of Humility

Where does that empathy come from? Where do you gain the ability to forgive the father who walked out on you and instead pray that they can overcome their inability to connect? Where do you gain the ability to forgive the thief who stole your TV and pray that they can overcome their poverty or addictions. Where do you gain the ability to forgive a bigot and pray, they can overcome their soul-rotting fear?

You gain this kind of empathy by looking at your own sins. No one is without fault. One of the most beautiful things about practicing mainline Christianity is that we get together once a week to confess our sins. Criticize Christians all you want – and we deserve it – but I don’t know any other community that is that committed to recognizing our own mistakes. Confessing sin and remembering God’s grace makes it easier to extend grace to others. We know we don’t sin in our own lives because we are evil people. We sin because life presents us with difficult and confusing situations. We sin because we’re afraid, anxious and full of panic. We sin because we think it will fix something that feels so broken that we’re willing to go against our own natures to fix it. So, recognizing the source of our sins – fear of loss, inability to control, fear of change, desire for esteem and affection – helps us see these weaknesses in others.

Colossians 3:12

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

We all share this broken humanity. Our own failings are shared by so many others. We’re all capable of wrongdoing in the right circumstances. Maybe just occasionally, we can let go of our judgement and turn it over to God. I’m often unable to do this myself, but in that case maybe I can pray to God to open my heart with humility and empathy.

It’s About You More Than It’s About Them

Forgiveness can help us overcome divisions and rivalries and foster reconciliation and unity. But it doesn’t always work in both directions. You can forgive and you are improved by living into Jesus’ example, but the one you are forgiving may never change in response. That is not your path to walk. Forgiveness doesn’t mean things are fixed or even reconciled. But forgiveness means we move forward from here.

Forgiveness is liberation. I’m already tired and carrying around all this anger makes me more tired. Being tired makes me less effective in protesting and less effective in helping hold others up when they are under attack. Forgiveness lets us take control of our emotional responses.

There seems to be very little humanity left inside of Donald Trump. But at one point he was just a small child, raised by a terrible father and told he wasn’t worth anything. He spent his life trying to prove his father wrong, prove he was worth more than his father could imagine. He became a slave to that cycle of seeking other’s approval through his outward view of worth, and in doing so became a puppet of Russia, greed, fear and oligarchs. None of this excuses his racism, his lust for authoritarian power, his determination to destroy the foundations of our democracy. Yet, in what sense am I helping myself by being constantly angry at him? He is a soulless, robotic final level-boss in a video game. He is most likely going to act against our best interests because that is what level-bosses are programmed to do. I can pray he breaks his programming but expecting him to act differently is insanity. We all need to value our peace of mind more than that. Forgiveness is liberation because Donald Trump is not worth your emotions. He’s not worth anything other than that last spark of God’s image buried somewhere deep below the orange crust of insecurity. He may never realize that his only real and life-sustaining source of worth and value comes from God and not from real estate. But it’s that spark of God in all of us that you still need to honor and forgive.

If that’s true of Donald Trump, it’s truer for the MAGA-hat loudmouth down the street. While on the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Well, I can promise you, apart from a few billionaires, most MAGA voters know not what they’re doing. They don’t understand the basic workings of our economy, tariffs or the constitution. Many have traded a Biblical witness for Fox News. So much misinformation could be corrected through simple Google searches if they could only trust scientists, doctors, professors and journalists again. It’s right to be angry at MAGA voters who have put lives at risk by mistrusting vaccines, Zelensky, trans rights and free speech. It’s also right to be empathetic to people who have fallen into dark holes because of social media manipulation, economic circumstances and fear. I feel you. I want to scream, too. But my faith tells me to change the world by following Jesus’ example.

What is Jesus’ example? Speak your truth in the temple. Then forgive. Point out hypocrisy. Then forgive. Flip over tables. Then forgive. Set clear and safe boundaries. Then forgive. Boycott Texas, Tesla, Target and Fox News. Then forgive. Repeat until they kill you and God raises you.