Consumed by Forgiveness

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

16. In confrontation and conflict I will seek justice and reconciliation rather than victory, and I will make any necessary sacrifice of my own person, pride or property to achieve reconciliation and justice.

[The following version of this story of is entitled “Consumed by Forgiveness” in the August 2011 edition of the Virginia Mennonite Conference and Missions joint newsletter, Connections. Quotations in this story come from articles in the Pueblo Chieftain and Valley Courier of CO and Mennonite Weekly Review]

Chieftain Photo/Matt Hildner

“All too often I see victim’s families consumed by hate.” Judge Martin Gonzalez understands compassion and hope are a powerful oddity and conveyed that fact to the young sixteen-year-old receiving his sentence. “The forgiveness of [this victim’s] family has reverberated throughout this case… You have had a shield around you of forgiveness and love by the victims that is phenomenal. They have been your guardian angels.”

Cindy and Herm Weaver and children Hope and Dillon lost their daughter and sister in October 2010 when she was hit and instantly killed by a pickup truck while out on her bicycle. Chloe Weaver was with Mennonite Voluntary Service in Alamosa, Colorado when she was struck from behind by young driver, Kyle Stotsky. Yet, in this wrenching tragedy an inspiring story of Christ’s transformative love has beamed through the responses of the Weaver family. The Weavers stressed their hope for restoration and reconciliation with Kyle rather than incarceration and retribution. Herm, the conference minister with Mountain States Conference of Mennonite Church USA, made it clear that Chloe would have had no desire to have two lives ended and would rather have Kyle continue Chloe’s legacy. 

“I want you to have the courage to take responsibility for your life and actions, honestly and humbly,” Herm told Kyle at the final sentencing. “I want you to carry on, in some small way, the work Chloe came here to do, to make it a better world.” This radical restorative love has rippled through many lives beyond just Kyle’s.

District Attorney Dave Mahonee noted the interaction between the Weavers and Stotsky as incredible. “The love they showed for Kyle almost brought me to tears,” he said. “It showed the strength of their faith.”

Julia Wilson, covering the story for the Valley Courier, admitted that in their shoes she probably would have wanted the perpetrator to suffer, to answer legally and emotionally in proportion to her pain. She marked the unusual witness of love, compassion, forgiveness and hope by the Weavers. “I have known a multitude of people who claim to be practicing Christians, people who claim to live their lives by ‘the Book’… when it’s obvious that only applies to Sundays during church time….[But the Weavers’]religion is not just a Sunday habit; it is as much a part of their daily lives as breathing.”

Such radical forgiveness is our calling as well. Herm claimed that this offender-love is not really something extraordinary for Christians, but what we should have deeply instilled in us. Through Christ’s strength may we regularly nurture in our churches such healing responses of forgiveness, of restoration over retribution.  Today’s vow seeks to nurture just such a response: “In confrontation and conflict I will seek justice and reconciliation rather than victory, and I will make any necessary sacrifice of my own person, pride or property to achieve reconciliation and justice.”

For Reflection and Action:

Consider the familiar Matthew 5:38-48 (focusing especially on verse 41-42).

1. If you’ve ever been taken to court or taken someone there yourself looking for amends to some wrongdoing (or sought or paid reparation for damages in some other context); how did it turn out?  
2. In what ways did you feel a sense of justice or victory? In what ways did you still remain unreconciled or unsettled with yourself or the other party?
3. Read again 5:38-42. In your next conflict large or small, whether you are the victim or the accuser, ask God to provide the strength to give more than what is being asked, to go the extra mile, to love the one at odds with you (your “enemy”) by making sacrifices for reconciled relationship rather than eye-for-an-eye retribution.

Prayer Focus

Avenging God, your apostle Paul has asked us never to avenge ourselves.

Your very Son Jesus said to offer the very coat off our back,

to let the opponent hit us again,

to give to whoever asks,

to go beyond what they demand of us.

We are to let you be the avenger and we are to feed our hungry enemies.

This is all too hard for us!

Too hard, too foolish, too unrealistic … too hard.

Forgiving God, thank you for the strength you will give us

to respond in company with the Weaver family! Amen.