The Heart of the Matter

by John Fischer

I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter,

But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter—

But I think it's about forgiveness, forgiveness—

Even if—even if—you don't love me anymore.

- Don Henley

Yes, Don Henley was right: it’s all about forgiveness. It’s all about forgiveness, because we are all in such a mess—we are all in such need of it. Applying large doses of forgiveness is a necessary requirement for any relationship to flourish.

Authentic fellowship requires forgiveness or it is a phony, surface fellowship. It skips over the sins, disappointments and letdowns of our lives because these are too painful or too hard to face.

The only way it wouldn’t be about forgiveness would be if everyone were perfect, and I checked myself in the mirror recently and concluded that my perfection doesn’t look like a possibility at least in my immediate future. I desperately need those around me to be forgiving if I am going to get anywhere near them, because I have so much in me that will stand in the way of a real relationship if it’s not brought out into the open. And when something like that is brought out into the open, something has to be done about it. It has to be the featured obstacle—the reason why we can’t get close—or it has to be forgiven.

I really don’t see this going any other way. Because we are all going to fail each other’s expectations so assuredly, I see only three possibilities here. Hate or fear each other and completely avoid any relationship. Carry on a superficial relationship where we hide most of our real feelings behind a mask of pretension. Or come out into the open and love each other applying forgiveness liberally to others and ourselves. Forgiveness is the only way to avoid resentment and anger. Fellowship is impossible without it.

“Above all, love each other deeply,” wrote Peter, “because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Whose sins are being covered over here, I wonder. I bet it is everyone’s. Love enables me to look past your sins and be in relationship with you. And love enables you to look past my sins and be in relationship with me. Not only that, but it also allows us to have our own sins forgiven so we can have a sense of being worth something to someone else as a friend.

Fellowship is a great thing, but don’t even try it without a commitment to forgiving each other. Otherwise, your fellow “ship” will never even get out of the harbor.