Quite often neither of the parties involved are aware of being offensive; in fact, both may even feel that they have been offended. This difference of opinion most likely occurs because both parties are accountable for being simultaneously the offender as well as the offended. As the saying goes, “it takes two hands to clap”.
In order to re-establish peace and harmony, the offender must ask for forgiveness while the one who was offended must be willing to forgive. When everyone does what they are supposed to do to restore communication, the quarrel ceases and a stronger and more lasting peace is reinstated between the parties. They are now appeased even though initially they may have had to contradict and suppress their natural instincts and swallow their pride.
Easier said than done. In reality, this way of resolving arguments does not happen very often. On the contrary, too often the offender never asks for forgiveness and the one who was offended never pardons.
It is expected for Muhammad to go to the mountain
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23-24)
This Scripture passage asks the aggressors to recognize their fault and apologize. But if they fail to do so and in order to prevent a stalemate or a state where no one involved in the conflict makes a move, the Gospel exhorts the offended party to approach the guilty one. This situation is described in detail in the Gospel of Matthew (18:15-18).
In the Bible, one of the very first questions that God asks man is, “Where is your brother?” (Genesis 4:9), to which I cannot simply shrug and say that I do not know since I am not my brother’s keeper, as Cain did. If we seek to love our neighbour as ourselves we will then realize that we are indeed our brother’s keeper.
When we place ourselves before God, like the faithful in the passage of Matthew’s Gospel, He acts as a mirror and makes us see who we really are and how we relate to others. It is, therefore, impossible within this context not to recall the evil that we have done to our neighbour. If we ignore the voice of conscience prompting us to seek forgiveness from our brothers and sisters, then we are hypocrites; we can pray all we want and carry out all sorts of religious and pious practices but God will continue to turn His back on us for as long as we do not seek to reconcile with our neighbour.
The first commandment tells us to love God, the second to love our neighbour, but how can we love God whom we cannot see if we do not love our neighbour whom we can see (1 St. John 4:20)? It is therefore only when we love our neighbour that we manifest and prove that we love God. This is presented in chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me…
The final judgment, as described in this chapter by the evangelist, touches upon the commandment of love of neighbour and not on love of God. So it is in a way a civil judgment and not a religious one. With this in mind, we can conclude therefore that any religious practices that do not lead to personal growth, to become a better person and to improve our relations with others, act like opium and lead to alienation.
Many Muhammads do not go to the mountain
When I was young I used to love to play with my cat and was always amazed by its agility. To put this to the test, I used to lift my cat up by its four paws and let it fall on its back but regardless of the distance to the ground, it was always able to turn itself around just in time and land on its four paws.
Very much like my cat, many offenders always land on their feet as they never admit that they have done anything bad and look for subtle ways to excuse themselves from any wrongdoings. They deceive themselves by rationalizing their bad behaviour, telling themselves that they did it without meaning to and that it was not done with any evil intentions. However much it costs some to admit, where there is smoke there is fire, i.e. where there is an offended there is an offender, and there is never an offense that is done for a good reason or for the good of the offended, but rather all to the contrary.
Time heals everything except old age and madness – Then there are those who know well enough that they are responsible and accept the fault, but because of their pride they reason that to apologize is to humiliate themselves before others so they hope that time will heal the wound of the one whom they have hurt. Psychology, however, teaches us that this is not what happens. When we ask for forgiveness the offense is removed; when we do not ask for it, the offense remains in the heart and mind of the one offended and probably building upon all the previous hurts, magnifying it and poisoning any future relationships.
Not to seek forgiveness is similar to a deep wound that for all intents and purposes appears to have healed externally because it closed so fast; however, internally the layer right beneath the surface begins to fester, generating pus and changing colour. Then when one least expects it, the wound erupts, creating a much messier situation than was originally intended.
Oftentimes we are astounded and left speechless when witnessing an episode of disproportionate outburst in the face of what seemed to be a small offense. What we didn’t realize is that this seemingly small offense is only the last drop needed to break down the dam of animistic resistance and the resilience of that person.
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. (Ephesians 4:26-27) – As St. Paul suggests, it is better to always ask for forgiveness every time we sin and never let an occasion go by without doing it so that there is never a build-up of guilt and resentment.
What makes it difficult for some people to ask for forgiveness is the possibility of not receiving one in return, as well as the likelihood of having to face the anger and being humiliated by the person they have offended.
If Muhammad does not go to the mountain, then the mountain must come to Muhammad
If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church… (Matthew 18:15-17)
If Muhammad does not go to the mountain, then the mountain must come to Muhammad – This is the most popular formulation of the old saying. Historically, however, the saying was first formulated the other way around, If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain. This version first appeared in chapter 12 of Francis Bacon’s Essays published in 1625.
Perhaps making a reference to the Gospel of Mark (11:23) when Jesus told his followers that if they have faith they can move mountains, Muhammad made the people believe that he had the power to call a hill from the other side of the valley to himself and from the top of it offer his prayers for the observers of his law. Again and again, Muhammad called the hill to himself but the hill did not heed or obey so it remained standing still. Not feeling at all embarrassed or humiliated in front of his followers, Muhammad said unabashedly, “If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.”
In order to prevent a standstill, the calm before the storm, the Sargasso Sea of human relations, or the cold war, the Scripture above has something to say to the offenders as well as the offended. To the offenders, it urges them to seek forgiveness from whoever they have offended. In the event that they do not do so, and fail to fulfill their duty, then we, the offended, can and should forgive them in our hearts like Jesus did on top of the cross.
However, to forgive from our heart alone is not always enough and it is not instructional, neither for us the offended nor for them the offenders, because it is a passive behaviour. The ideal reaction, in this case, is a proactive assertive behaviour: to go to the offender with a white flag hoisted as suggested by the Gospel passage above. First by ourselves, then with one other person preferably a friend of ours, and go as many times as needed gradually including more people, to give more weight to our cause.
When Jesus forgave his offenders from the cross, he did so in his heart alone because suspended on the cross he could do nothing else. At any other time, however, he showed us how to be proactive as when the servant of the high priest struck him on the face and despite being bound and surrounded by soldiers, Jesus asked the servant, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But is I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?” (John 18:23).
We are not to approach the one who offended us with accusations, this would be an aggressive and counterproductive behaviour because faced with a verbal attack the natural tendency of everyone is to defend oneself. In the hope that our aggressor will take responsibility for his acts and therefore become remorseful on his own, all we can and should do in front of him who have offended us is to take on the responsibility for the consequence of his action; that is, to impart to our offender, not the harm that he did to us but the harm that we have suffered or are still suffering as a consequence.
As the Gospel suggests, when someone who has hurt us does not apologize, then to avoid a stalemate and a cold war of resentment we should go and confront him, not with his wrongdoings but with the pain and sorrow that he has caused. This denounces his offense more eloquently than our accusing voice would have and is infinitely more efficient in eliciting an apology from him.
Grammatically, the assertiveness although a proactive action uses the passive voice, in the hope that faced with our misery the one who has caused it would acknowledge his own fault, be merciful towards us, and ask us for forgiveness.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC