Lent 3 March 7, 2010

Lent 3
March 7, 2010
“Dismantling the Robot”

For the past two weeks in this Lenten series on forgiveness, we’ve been looking at different facets of forgiveness. But so far we haven’t taken out a mental magnifying glass and asked ourselves, “Just what does it mean to forgive someone?”
Forgiveness is a process of healing. And it’s a process of healing not so much for the person we’re forgiving, but for our own selves.
When we can’t or don’t or won’t forgive, we become like the fig tree in today’s gospel—dry and stunted and less and less able to bear fruit. When we forgive someone, we become more whole, more human, more truly ourselves.

I don’t know much about fig trees, so I’m going to switch images here.
When we are in a state of un-forgiving, we are a lot like robots. And forgiveness consists in dismantling the robot.
You know what a robot is like. No matter how “intelligent,” the nature of a robot is to respond in the same way to the same conditions. Its job is literally to “stick to the program.” The program may be wildly complex as in the newest models, but still a good robot acts consistently to produce a certain result.
When we are hurt by someone, in response we tend to set up robotic reactions.
Here’s what I mean: When we’re hurt, at first, we feel angry, wounded, diminished. But it’s often not only our feelings that our hurt. If someone has spread gossip about us, for example, we may find that other people who have heard the whispers don’t have the same respect for us.
We may need to set up wise protections: in this case, try to make sure the truth gets heard. But very often we go farther than that. We add a dash of vengeance to our response, a touch of malice.
In this case, for example, when his name comes up, you might retaliate in kind.—perhaps a sardonic “Oh, Pete. . . . you know how reliable he is!” or some juicy bit of gossip about him, maybe true, maybe not.
It’s easy, over time, for that nasty, vindictive response to become habitual, automatic. And—whoops!—you’ve stopped being fully human, you’ve become a robot as far as Pete is concerned. Data in—Pete’s name. Reaction out—badmouthing him.
The extreme of this, of course, is the horrific pattern of offense and vengeance among nations, religions, and ethnic groups. When I’m hurt, I hurt back in a robotic pattern of evil returned for evil.

Forgiving means dismantling our habits of acting maliciously.
It’s not that easy. We need to first become aware of our habitual reactions. We have to figure out what the “program” is and when it is triggered. When Pete’s name is mentioned, we need to become aware of the leap in our pulse and blood pressure, and then hear the sharp words that come out of our mouths.
Then we need to name the truth about these patterns of speech and behavior: the truth that no matter how refined and subtle they may be, they are a form of revenge.
And finally we need to change the program, break the habit. How? By biting our tongue and being silent when Pete’s name comes up, or even deliberately practicing saying something positive about him.

But even when we succeeded in changing the “programs,” we’re still not done dismantling the robot of unforgiveness.
Maybe you’ve watched science programs on robots where someone puts a camera behind a robot’s “eyes” and you can see things the way it “sees” them.
The robot-eye view of things is always limited—maybe there’s no color vision or it just perceives heat and not forms. Robots just can’t see the rich, infinitely complex world our human vision gives us.
When we’re in a robotic state of unforgiving, we don’t see clearly either. Consider that pest Pete: All we see in Pete is his offense, how thoroughly annoying he is.
We can’t see him as a rich and infinitely complex person.
In order to forgive we need to dismantle our limited robotic vision. We need to strip it away so we can see with eyes illumined by grace and see our enemy, the one who has hurt us, as a child of God, our sister or brother in Christ.

Are any of you Star Trek fans? Do you remember the character “Seven of Nine”?
She was a human woman who had been captured as a child by a robot nation and changed into a human slash robot, a “cyborg.” Week after week we watched her slowly break out of her robotic behavior and become the human person she truly was.
She hated it the healing process, she rebelled, she clung fiercely to her comfortable robotic patterns. But finally she emerged, healed.
The process of forgiveness is just that hard. When we forgive another person, when we let go of our robotic patterns of malice and see the person who has hurt us with eyes touched by grace, we are healed. We are healed to be the fully human person God intended us to be.
Our best tool for dismantling the robot of unforgiveness? It is prayer. Prayer for grace, for the strength to forgive.
Sometimes even that may feel too difficult. The first step may sometimes be to ask God to help you to want to forgive.
Yet it is worth it: because the reward of dismantling the robot will be your own healing. In forgiving someone else, you will receive back a great gift----------------your own true self, free from obsession and malice.