Forgiveness too.

One of the things that the Bible is critical of is our love of gossip. Everybody gossips, listening to and passing on rumours, information and so on. Sometimes gossip is harmless, but more often than not  gossip is motivated by some very unpleasant attitudes. We like to condemn those we don't like or those who we believe have sleighted us in some way. Sometimes it's a way of hitting back, sometimes it is born out of smug selfrighteousness and often there is a lot of scapegoating present. We like to get other people on our "side". Gossip can be thoroughly unpleasant and dangerous. It is particularly dangerous to our spiritual health which is why the Bible warns against it.
In the last post on forgiveness, the act of forgiving was seen to open up the possibility of healing the person who had committed the offence as well as benefitting the forgiver. Not so with gossip.
Gossip heals and benefits neither party. When we gossip and build up our malicious image of an individual, we are refusing to forgive. More than that we are blocking the flow of grace and implying that the person is beyond change. Gossip is profoundly un-Christian. It does not flow from our God-given ability to love and forgive. It fails to see another person as made in the image and likeness of God.  It refuses to allow God's grace to heal and it binds the gossiper into sin. We might feel "righteous" but that is self-righteousness which is the direct opposite of the rigtheousness that comes from God.
Instead of gossiping, then, the Christian response is to avoid this "occasion of sin" and pray for all parties involved in the gossip. That way we can begin to follow the demand of Jesus that we love and pray for our enemies and those who use us badly.  Sometimes we need to go to God first for him to heal us of this sin; afterwards it is much easier. We should not let the same lips that praise God do the work of the devil.

Forgiveness

Yesterday's Gospel, Matthew 6: 7-15, has Jesus teaching the disciples to pray what we now call, the Lord's Prayer. The passage concludes : "Yes, if you forgive others their failings, you're heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either."
It is the word "failings" that is of particular interest in this translation, the Jerusalem Bible. We are more familiar with trespasses or debts. The word is interesting because it can be interpreted more widely than meaning the things done to a person; or not done as the case may be. It is possible to see the word extended to the aspects of the person's character or personality that causes them to sin in the first place : the less savoury bits of our human nature. In this interpretation we go beyond forgiving the words or actions that offend us and we begin to understand the source and by forgiving  the underlying  human weakness, not just the outcome of that weakness, we open up the possibility for God's grace not only to forgive but also to heal.
If we adopt this approach, it raise big issues about how we relate to others, particularly those we don't care for.