August 18

23 Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him ten thousand bags of gold. 25 Because the servant didn’t have enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold, along with his wife and children and everything he had, and that the proceeds should be used as payment. 26 But the servant fell down, kneeled before him, and said, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ 27 The master had compassion on that servant, released him, and forgave the loan. 28 “When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred coins. He grabbed him around the throat and said, ‘Pay me back what you owe me.’ 29 “Then his fellow servant fell down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ 30 But he refused. Instead, he threw him into prison until he paid back his debt. 31 “When his fellow servants saw what happened, they were deeply offended. They came and told their master all that happened. 32 His master called the first servant and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you appealed to me. 33 Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 His master was furious and handed him over to the guard responsible for punishing prisoners, until he had paid the whole debt. 35 “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Matthew 18:23-35, CEB

 

What happens if someone is asking for forgiveness in order to manipulate us?

 

Sometimes we just get that feeling, don’t we? We start getting the idea that someone is asking for forgiveness from the “wrong” motivation. Perhaps they seem a little too demanding about it. Perhaps they come across as a bit entitled. Perhaps they even tell us that we have to forgive them because God tell us to! When someone says this, watch out for the lightening! Or, perhaps someone has taught us that they’re requests for forgiveness are somewhat less than sincere. They’ve apologized and perhaps tried to make a full amends on a number of occasions but, try as they might, they keep making the same mistakes over and over again and they continue to ask for forgiveness. What do we make of this?

 

On the one hand, it’s not totally untrue that God tells us to forgive and, because of that, we should. That is true, it’s just not a very cool thing for a wrongdoer to say to someone he/she has harmed! In fact, it adds to the offense. It makes forgiveness even more difficult. Nobody wants to be told they’re supposed to do something. If we really took that type of thinking seriously then we could turn around and tell our offender, “Well you weren’t supposed to cause harm in the first place, but where did that get us???” But, that wouldn’t be very loving or forgiving of us would it?

 

People who treat us this way are not exactly safe people. People who continually harm and then beg (or demand) forgiveness teach us that they aren’t exactly trustworthy. They don’t need to know what our process is. Forgiveness is something we’re continually working towards, even with these people, but it’s not just because they ask or demand it. In fact, it’s in spite of their requests that we seek to forgive. They don’t need to know about our process and we don’t need to explain it to them. However, when we’re in the midst of those conversations we can speak honestly. We can tell them we’re trying to forgive, or perhaps that we will forgive, or that that it’s already happened, or that we’re struggling to do it. We can voice whatever feels honest to us in that moment without being peer-pressured into forgiveness.   We can even tell them we feel manipulated and that makes forgiveness difficult. There’s a number of ways of approaching this conversation honestly without being bullied, and believe me, that’s exactly what people try to do.

 

Some people ask for forgiveness from an earnest place of humility. That’s very meaningful, impactful, and beautiful. Sometimes people don’t do that. This doesn’t mean we take forgiveness off the table, but it does mean perhaps we have some different boundaries with these people. And it means they’re making forgiveness very hard for us to try to give! But, if we’re going to be consistent, we try to find ways to forgive even to people who are using “repentance” (which isn’t really repentance) as some kind of tool or weapon.