Notes for Talk
Pima Ward, 2/15/98

"Forgiveness"

That’s it? Forgiveness can be split into two separate challenges: The first is for us to learn to forgive others, and the second is to believe in the possibility of complete forgiveness for ourselves. It sounds simple, but we often spend our entire lifetime learning these concepts, however, and I believe that many of the day-to-day challenges that enter our lives are designed to teach us the necessity of fully learning and understanding these two lessons, and the associated joy that can be derived from this knowledge.

An inevitable predicament. Each of us has a very unique power. This is the power to force any other person with whom we come into contact into a predicament with two choices: to forgive or to fall. I can walk up to any one of you, slap you in the face or harm or insult you in any other way, and face the consequences for myself. What I do with that action and how I get over it is my deal. As for you, I have now put you in the predicament that you must forgive me if you wish to be forgiven for your own transgressions. No way around it—you must forgive or fall. I could make it easier for you by appearing penitent; or I could make it very difficult for you by appearing blatantly unremorseful. That won’t change the choices, however—again, either way, you must forgive or you will fall. A few examples might help bring this predicament to life.

Paul: an ancient example. In the scriptures, one of the classic examples of the difficulty of forgiving involves the case of Paul’s conversion. Here was a man who had personally taken part in the execution of Christians—a very intense man who had placed all of his efforts into what he believed was defending the law of Moses. Accusing the new Christians of blasphemy, he sought to end Christianity altogether by whatever means necessary. After his conversion, the Lord called him as a missionary and as a leader in His church. How were the members of the church supposed to forgive this man and humbly accept his leadership? It must have been very difficult. But in my opinion, as hard as it may have been for them to forgive Paul, that was the easy part. There were plenty of other people persecuting them who were not penitent, who had no conversion experience—but whom the Christians were equally expected to forgive. The difference was that they did not have to show their forgiveness to the other persecutors as they did with Paul. It is often very simple to claim to forgive someone you don’t have to deal with every day. But God will often put these people in charge of us or otherwise in direct contact with us to force us to prove our ability to forgive. Paul personified the ancient Saints’ predicament—they were expected to forgive him or they would fall. Now this predicament was also by design reciprocated. The Lord held the same expectation of Paul—who thereafter was persecuted himself. As he received his death sentence from Emperor Nero, I’m sure he thought of his own terrible past, and how the saints he had persecuted had eventually forgiven him. Now there he stood and was expected to forgive his own persecutors.

Paul had once begged the Ephesians not to let "the sun go down in your wrath." Basically, he was telling the members to forgive one another each day—every single day, before the sun went down. The setting sun can be a reminder to us of what will come. If the sunset of the judgment day cuts short our efforts to forgive, or if the subsequent darkness finds us with grudges, it will be too late. In some cases, God in His mercy will lengthen our days specifically so that we can repent, as he did with the Nephites many years ago. But the predicament is much like the choice we are given when it comes to pride. As Gordon B. Hinckley put it, we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble—it is our choice. It is, of course, in our best interest to choose to be humble. If we do not, however, we will be compelled to be humble. For God will have a humble people. The same holds for forgiveness. If we wish to be saved, we can choose to have a forgiving spirit without facing our enemies—or we can be compelled to forgive by being placed in situations where we must deal personally with those who have transgressed against us. Either way, we must forgive if we wish to see our father again.

Joseph Smith: a modern-day example. In this past general conference, Elder Faust gave an excellent talk focusing on the weightier matters of the law—calling love and true inner forgiveness weightier than the technical aspects of obedience. He mentioned how the saints had suffered as a result of the apostates. When one of these apostates, W. W. Phelps, repented and rejoined the congregation, he knew he was putting everyone in the church into the inevitable predicament to forgive him or to fall. He knew it would be difficult for them, but he knew what he had to do. Upon returning, he said, "I will repent and live, and ask my old brethren to forgive me, and though they chasten me to death, yet I will die with them, for . . . the least place with them is enough for me. . . I want your fellowship." What great humility this must have taken. Countless others in similar situations no doubt were kept away by pride. Joseph Smith’s response echoed the feelings of every other members who genuinely forgave Brother Phelps. He said, "we have suffered much in consequence of your behavior—had it been an enemy, we could have borne it. . . however, the cup has been drunk. . . take your stand among the Saints of the Most High, and by diligence, humility, and love unfeigned, commend yourself to God." As Elder Faust mentioned, W. W. Phelps was, interestingly enough, the author of the text to the hymn "Praise to the Man."

Today. So if the apostles in ancient times as well as in the early LDS Church had conflicts and were expected to forgive one another, we can safely assume that it is the same for the church leaders today. This is so not merely in the quorum of the twelve, but in every congregation of the church. People with conflicting pasts and perspectives are placed on committees together; people who have offended each other are expected to work together, even home teach each other; and members stand in a prayer circle and are expected to hold no ill feeling toward those around them. Each time this happens, it should remind us of the consequence of any grudge we hold against another soul: forgive them or fall. I knew an excommunicated bishop once who had swindled a very poor congregation out of badly needed funds. He was on his way back and still attended the same congregation. How were the members to react and interact with him? To me even as an outsider in this ward, it was very obvious who had sincerely forgiven him and who only professed to do so, but could not progress beyond a superficial tolerance of his attendance.

Politically Incorrect. With all this talk about forgiving everyone, we cannot forget that we do need to judge as far as differentiating between right and wrong. That notion is becoming ever more unpopular—sometimes masked in terms of political correctness. The differentiation between right and wrong becomes discrimination. If this trend continues, we may end up with special rights for those who are "morally challenged." We must judge to some degree, for "every man is given the light of Christ, that he may know to distinguish between good and evil." But as Brigham Young warned, "do not chasten beyond the capacity of your healing balm." In other words, be sure you are in a position to stand as a continued friend and help in the healing process before you attempt to correct someone’s actions. This sacred role is generally reserved for parents and church leaders—those in righteous authority who truly love those for whom they are accountable.

New directions from the same old map. Some would say that since God is omnipotent and still allows everything to happen, that everything that happens is God’s will. I do not share this belief. I believe that we have the power to contradict God’s will. And we know from the scriptures that his will is that we be happy. Of course we can contradict that one fairly easily by simply choosing to be miserable and ungrateful. But that is not God’s will. I believe that God has a path prepared for everyone. Call it foreordination or whatever you choose. How many of the early apostles fell and were welcomed back? Their initial falling away was not what God had originally intended. But he found a new path for them, although it was a more difficult path than they otherwise would have had. No matter what we have done or how far we have strayed from God’s original plan to get us where we were going, He is constantly revising His directions to give us a new way back to him. No doubt, each time we stray further, the return will be harder. Here’s an analogy—a friend calls up and asks how to get to your house. You give them directions. If they call again, and you find that they are nowhere near where you asked them to go, you will give them a new set of directions. The map has not changed, but the directions have. If you are lost or realize that you’ve gone the wrong way, you can try to retrace your steps, try to get back to where you were the last time you called for directions, or you can simply call again. There is no sense in driving around mulling over the fact that you went the wrong way. Get out of the car and call again! And if the new directions take you nowhere near your original path, it’s OK—they will still lead you to your final destination. At this point there is also no sense in fretting about those who may have passed us along the way—about who is further along the road or closer to the goal. You and I will never stray so far as to be off the map. There is always a way back, even if it is a very long and difficult journey. But we must call for directions if we want to find the way, and we do need to warn those we see driving the wrong way.

The compass. God sends us the spirit as a compass to guide us along the way. Being raised in the church, I never experienced the degree of change involved in receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost. As a youth I wondered sometimes if I had this gift or if I had lost it. It was difficult to know, because I thought that life-time members of the Church had less capacity to experience the difference. But if you talk to anyone who has tasted the spirit and then fallen, I am positive that they will tell you that the difference becomes much more clear coming from a Church member’s standpoint. I do not recommend anyone to seek to experience this for themselves. But listen to those who have been there and you will see that you do have the spirit. For if you are wondering about it, you are unsure—if the Spirit had actually left you, you would know he was gone.

Relative motion. We may take no comfort in the fact that the moral standards of the world are declining. That would make stagnation falsely appear as forward motion. Have you ever had this experience: As you sit at an intersection and the car next to you backs up, you slam on the brakes, thinking that you were moving forward. We will all come to the realization that we were just stagnating or moving forward much more slowly than we thought if we compare ourselves to the outside world. And you cannot be neutral. Picture yourself at the controls of the space shuttle in orbit. Ground control sends you a message to "stop." You can put on your thrusters and move in a different direction—any direction you choose, but think about it—you cannot stop. You could stop in relation to the earth. But you are still moving. You could accelerate yourself to be moving right along with the sun, but you are still moving. In the same way, you cannot stop your own progress. You will either be moving toward God or away from Him. And each small decision we make in a day is a thruster fired in either direction. As C. S. Lewis put it, "you cannot go on just being an ordinary egg—we must go bad or be hatched." Or, as it is so nicely put in the New Testament, the lukewarm will be "spewed out" because they were "neither hot nor cold."

The weightier matters. Here is a further advantage of forgiving: The spirit of forgiveness can bring us closer to those who have transgressed against us. I recently read about the adventures that Colonel John Wesley Powell had while exploring the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Several of his fellow adventurers on the trek were killed by Indians toward the end of their journey. Now here he had several choices: He could have summoned the military and avenged his traveling partners’ deaths. Instead, he chose to talk with them and sought to understand their actions. He eventually (I think it was years later) discovered that it had been the result of a grave misunderstanding. He could have gone the way of the proud and turned bitter. But he turned into an ambassador for Indian rights, recording the history, culture, and language of many tribes. I believe that his act of forgiveness contributed a great deal toward his ability to draw close to and relate to the Native American Indians.

[Here’s a somewhat unrelated matter, but speaking of judging others and observing the weightier matters of the law, let’s turn to a predicament for Jacob Hamblin, one of my heroes and a traveling partner of Colonel Powell. Jacob Hamblin was a very strong LDS man who had been called by Brigham Young as an apostle to the Indians. Jacob Hamblin smoked. Do you think less of him now? What if I told you the only times he smoked was when it was a peace pipe, symbolizing the treaties he had negotiated between the LDS Church or the U. S. government and the Indian tribes. Was this a sin for him to do so? He was called as an apostle to the Indians, and he chose to settle the treaties on their terms as a symbol of the peace he had made with them. I highly doubt this was something he had to repent for. For he lived according to the weightier matters of the law. We can focus on the sins faults of others. However, as Elder Faust put it, "true religion is not looking primarily for weaknesses, faults and errors. It is the spirit of strengthening and overlooking faults even as we would wish our own faults to be overlooked.]

Though my focus here has been on forgiving others, I conclude with the second aspect of forgiveness—and this is believing that it is possible for us to be purely and completely forgiven. If we do not learn this concept and genuinely believe in it, we are denying the atonement and condemning ourselves to remain unforgiven. Essentially we are throwing the greatest gift ever offered back in His face. We must believe in complete forgiveness for ourselves. Without it, every soul who has wandered this earth would stand condemned. Repentance and forgiveness are our keys to the blessings of the atonement, and I know that God would have us partake of this gift. It is humbling to ponder that God’s expectation of us to forgive is actually a symbol and preparatory lesson for us to become Christ-like and, ultimately, God-like. God forgives us because he loves us unconditionally. Learning to love unconditionally is one of the greatest challenges in this life, and the greatest accomplishment any human can achieve.