Father, Forgive Them: They Know Not What They Do
A post by Kristin Vieira Coleman
“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. “ - Luke 23:34
There is a scene in the 1999 film Magnolia in which a woman named Rose confronts her husband Jimmy, who is dying of cancer, about a terrible crime he has been accused of—one of the worst things you could imagine. Rose wants to know if it’s true. “I really don’t know,” he tells her. Jimmy is an alcoholic, you see, and he doesn’t remember everything he has done. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to.
“You deserve to die alone for what you’ve done,” she tells him. “But I don’t know what I’ve done,” he pleads. “You should know better,” she tells him as she walks out the door.
The first of these last seven words of Christ is an intercession, a prayer on behalf of those who know not what they do: the Roman soldiers casting lots over Jesus’s clothing, the religious authorities who have demanded his crucifixion, the jeering crowd that mocked him and spit on him as he suffered, and his own friends, who fell asleep in his hour of need, who denied him, who betrayed him, who abandoned him. It’s an intercession for people like Jimmy, who don’t know what they have done.
And this kind of forgiveness is offensive. Because they should have known better.
But what makes it even more offensive is that this word of forgiveness happens from the cross, in the midst of Jesus’s suffering. It doesn’t happen after a few years of processing in therapy. It doesn’t happen after they realize what they did wrong and perform an act of penance or even just say they’re sorry--they do not even know they are doing something wrong. In fact, in that moment, it looks like what they are doing is justice.
Jesus did not say, “Father, forgive them, because they promised they wouldn’t do it again.” “Father forgive them, for they seem really sorry for what they have done,” or “Father, forgive them because I’m sure they are going to make it up to me someday.” This prayer of intercession, is a prayer between Jesus and his father, and it leaves human activity right out of the equation.
And so it’s offensive, because we want justice. To say they didn’t know any better sounds like an excuse— it sounds like we are letting people off the hook. For example, when we speak about a sin like slavery upheld by the founding fathers of this country, can we really say, “well, it was a different time, they didn’t know any better?” Maybe that’s true. But what’s also true is that they should have known better.
I say “they” should have known better, because I don’t like to include myself in this group of people who don’t know what they’re doing. I like to consider myself pretty self-aware. When I confess my sins on Sunday, things done and things left undone, I believe I have a good idea of exactly what those things are. And I’m working on it, I’m working on it. I feel confident in my judgment of what justice should look like. I am sure I am on the right side of the political debates and the right side of history.
I feel certain, in my bones, that if I saw someone being attacked in broad daylight in the middle of the sidewalk, I would jump in and do something. I just know myself and that is what I would do. I would bring justice to that situation. I would be a hero, not like those other people.
And then I think of Peter. Peter who was so certain, only hours ago, of the kind of person he was. He was certain that he would go to the cross with Jesus and die with him, that he would never in a million years deny him.
He denies him once, and then Luke’s Gospel says the second denial comes “a little later.” And “after an interval of about an hour” the third denial comes. Why does Luke point that out? That hour long interval? I think because he wanted to show that this didn’t happen in a whirl of activity. Peter had a chance to think about what he was doing. Yet in all that time, he did not see it. It wasn’t until the cock crowed that he remembered what Jesus foretold—the denial he was so certain he would not be guilty of had happened not once, not twice, but three times.
What would justice look like to me in this situation, if I were in Jesus’s place and my best friends had denied and abandoned me? You denied me? You say you do not know me? Then I do not know you.
But that’s not what happens next. The text says “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.”
What did it feel like for Peter to be seen in that moment? What did it feel like to realize how little you knew yourself, and how well God knows you? It could have been terrifying. But instead of reacting the way that I might in this situation, Jesus—in an act of unfathomable mercy and love—speaks his first words from the cross: Father, forgive them. Forgive them.
So maybe we don’t know ourselves as well as we think we do. And maybe we should know better. And maybe we ought to be careful when we demand our brand of justice because we may very well be the one on the wrong side of that equation.
What the Cross shows us and what Good Friday offers us is the Good News—the incredible news—that in our all of our unknowing, we are known, fully seen, and loved by God. So loved that we are forgiven before we even know we’ve done something wrong. And it doesn’t make much sense. And it sounds pretty offensive. That is, until you happen to be the one who should have known better.
This piece was originally written for a performance of The Seven Last Words of Christ at the Parish of Calvary-St. George’s in 2021.
Kristin Vieira Coleman is a co-founder and Program Director at the Center for Spiritual Imagination, assisting in developing the Community of the Incarnation's formation program and envisioning our public programs. Kris has been an active lay minister for over a decade, leading small groups and teaching classes on contemplation, 12-step spirituality, and Scripture. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Jeremy and their rescue pup Lilac.
This is really powerful, Kris. Thanks for sharing it. Forgiveness can be so hard, but it's so necessary to forge the depths of it.