Forgiveness and Reconciliation Are Not the Same Thing.
But one can be a path to freedom and joy.
“Forgiveness is not some airy-fairy thing. It has to do with the real world. Healing and reconciliation are not magic spells. They do not erase the reality of an injury. To forgive is not to pretend that what happened did not happen. Healing does not draw a veil over the hurt. Rather, healing and reconciliation demand an honest reckoning.”1
There is almost no one whose wisdom I trust more when it comes to forgiveness and and reconciliation than the author of these words, the late Desmond Tutu.
Archbishop Tutu was raised in a poor Xhosa family under the apartheid system of racial segregation in South Africa, and in his many decades of ministry within the Anglican Church of South Africa, he opposed the injustice of apartheid. His work gained major international attention in the 1990s as he worked alongside Nelson Mandela to lead negotiations and dismantle the system of apartheid, and after Mandela’s election as President in 1994, he named Tutu as chair of the newly formed Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Writing about his work with the commission, Tutu names the fact that reconciliation “demand(s) an honest reckoning”, demands that the truth of what has taken place be shown the light of day. Only after this has happened is the possibility of reconciliation, of repairing the relationship, available. This is not easy or quick work.
This is true for Archbishop Tutu’s work on a societal level in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and it’s true when injury and hurt have harmed our relationships. It will take time and effort to make change possible. It will take an honest accounting of wrongs done, and space for naming the impact of the harm before it’s possible to move forward, before the restoration of relationships can begin. The fractures in our relationships, the hurts of every kind, the damage we do to one another, cannot even begin to heal until it’s brought into the light of day, shown and acknowledged as there.
Tutu muses in his 2014 work The Book of Forgiving, that this is the reason that the resurrected Jesus still bears the wounds of the crucifixion, that he could easily have erased them the way he healed and restored many others in his time on earth, but he kept them, so that the truth of what had taken place could be shown and named.
Less than this, and real healing, real reconciliation would not be possible.
We know, however, that there are times in this world when this kind of acknowledgement of harm and truth-telling will never happen, when the wrongdoer has died, or is unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their actions. There are times, like these, that the healing of that relationship may not be possible. Maybe because the people involved are not be able or willing to do the work required. Maybe because it’s unsafe to remain in that relationship because its destructive nature will continue to inflict harm and pain.2
Reconciliation may not be possible. But forgiveness…forgiveness is always possible. Because forgiveness is something else entirely.
Tutu writes, “the invitation to forgive is not an invitation to forget. Nor is it an invitation to claim that an injury is less hurtful than it really is. Nor is it a request to paper over the fissure in a relationship, to say it’s okay when it’s not. It’s not okay to be injured. It’s not okay to be abused. It’s not okay to be violated. It’s not okay to be betrayed. The invitation to forgive is an invitation to find healing and peace.”
Forgiveness is refusing to let the weight of what has happened trap us and hold us down. Forgiveness is letting go of the rope that tethers us to the wrong that has been done, because regardless of whatever happens with the person who has wronged us, whether reconciliation has or will ever happen, holding onto resentment and grudges and anger and judgment will only cause us harm in the long run, will only wound us emotionally and spiritually, will continue to wreak havoc in other relationships.
One of the best quips on the necessity of forgiveness comes from Anne Lamott, who writes that withholding forgiveness is like “drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”3
You are the only one hurt by refusing to forgive. And there are so many other things you could be doing with your time and energy.
“To choose forgiveness”, writer Debie Thomas explains, “is to release myself from the tyranny of bitterness. To give up my frenzied longing to be understood and vindicated by anyone other than God. To refuse the seductive lie that revenge will make me feel better.”4
One of my favorite stories about forgiveness, one that demonstrates the kind of forgiveness Jesus is talking about is from the book of Genesis, the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers. If it’s been awhile since you’ve read Joseph’s story (or seen Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamboat), Joseph’s brothers were jealous of the favoritism their father showed Joseph, and schemed to get rid of him. Their initial plan was to kill him, but Benjamin intervened on Joseph’s behalf and the brothers *only* sold him to traders passing through the region.
The traders bring Joseph to Egypt, where his gifts for dream interpretation land him a position as an advisor to the Pharaoh. In a time of drought, Joseph’s family comes to Egypt in search of food, and Joseph recognizes them, though they do not recognize him. They never imagine that the man in Pharaoh’s court helping them was the brother they sold and left for dead.
Joseph is unrelentingly human and messes with them for awhile, but eventually reveals his identity to his brothers. The translation that’s often used for how his brother’s feel in this moment is sometimes translated as ‘dismayed’, but the Hebrew word is more accurately translated as ‘terrified’. They were terrified to be in Joseph’s presence after what they had done, and I don’t entirely blame them. He had every right to seek revenge against them, and was in a position of significant power to accomplish it.
But that’s not what happens. Joseph obtains land from the Pharaoh in which his family can live, and with their father Jacob they settle there. Joseph ensures they have food.
Joseph sees his brothers, sees their fragile humanity, their need more than he sees the harm they have done them, and out of his own work of forgiveness he is able to care for their needs and provide for them. He’s been freed from any hatred or bitterness toward them, and can act with freedom and love.
It’s a story of forgiveness, but it is not, however, a story of reconciliation. I think it’s important to note that, especially as we remember the hard work and truth telling that Desmond Tutu insists that reconciliation requires.
Reconciliation doesn’t take place in Joseph’s story. The brothers don’t account for the harm they caused him, and while they hug and talk and Joseph cares for them, I find it incredibly important to note that when Joseph establishes a life for his family in Egypt, he doesn’t go with them.
It’s clear that he loves them. It’s clear that he wants them to thrive and flourish, and he’ll help with that to whatever extent he can, but it’s not just going to be the same as it was before.
Real harm has been done. But it’s never acknowledged, and no restoration takes place. The work of true reconciliation requires something of the one who has harmed the other. Honesty, accountability, repentance, change.
And yet, even in cases like this, even when the kind of reconciliation Desmond Tutu writes about does not or cannot happen, forgiveness…forgiveness is always possible.
Forgiveness frees us from being held captive by the actions of others. Forgiveness is not weak, it is not passive, allowing ourselves to be walked all over, it does not preclude justice or consequences.
Because forgiveness, as Tutu writes, “is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit.”
Whether or not reconciliation takes place, it is forgiveness that sets us free from the harm that has been done. It is forgiveness that sets us free from the poison, from the power that the harm might have over our lives. Forgiveness is what makes it possible for our lives to be about more than the worst things that have happened to us.
It’s not easy work—for some, it’s the work of a lifetime—but it’s work worth doing. Forgiveness gives us access to joy on the other side of pain. And it’d be a shame to miss out on that.
Desmond M. Tutu and Mpho A. Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, New York: Harper Collins, 2014, page 23.
I’ll say more about forgiveness, abuse, and trauma in my next post, but it is essential to name here too that forgiveness does not require remaining in an abusive relationship.
Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, New York: Anchor Books, 2000, page 134.
Debie Thomas, “Unpacking Forgiveness”, Journey with Jesus, September 6, 2020, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2748-unpacking-forgiveness
Thank you for sharing this!