Unforgivable

“So I tell you, people can be forgiven for every sinful thing they do and for every bad thing they say against God. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” Matthew 12:31 ETR

Michael is insistent. He will not be denied. His phone call comes in usually at the most inopportune time and I ignore it. I become as stubborn as he becomes determined. 

“I am not answering,” I say out loud, resenting the ringing that finally is silenced as it goes to voicemail. “This is a free call from an inmate at Augusta State Medical Prison. This call will be recorded…” drones on as the mechanical voice clogs my mailbox. I delete the voice messages, but before the day is done, it will fill up again.

These phone calls are only three minutes, but they require my complete attention, so I chose the timing of when I accept them. Oddly, I talk to Michael more frequently than I do family or close friends.

Often, he is obsessed with getting me to order him a food package. Especially coffee. Or a digital watch. I have given up on trying to convince him to learn how to tell time with a clock that has something as complicated as hands. But just as often he is calling because there is something traumatic going on that needs to be told.

He has been bitten by a brown recluse spider. He has had a convulsion, fallen down the stairs, broken his jaw and is on a liquid diet. A fellow inmate hid under his bed during the night and everyone was on lock-down until they discovered him. He needs money for his in-debt friend because the loan sharks are going to kill both of them if they aren’t paid back double by Thursday. You never know what the newest emergency will be. And you never know if they are real or not.

Michael is schizophrenic and has brain damage from smoke inhalation and a long history of dramatic life experiences that apparently started in early childhood.

I occasionally ask God one more time why He has me involved with this incarcerated child-man whose constant attempts at suicide often have had the potential to harm others in the process. God reminds me Michael has no one else. He is the abandoned orphan, the unloved one. The human being, made in the image of God, who fell through the cracks and into the abyss of nothingness. It is hard to love the Michaels of this world.

This week when I finally answered his call it was the story of his friend killing himself. He was a good friend. One who would share coffee with him. He was addicted to meth and cut himself and they sewed him back up, strip-searched him and put him back in his cell and he cut himself again last night and he bled out and Michael had to insist they go into his cell and check on him, but he was already dead. And now his friend was going to hell because he had killed himself.

Me: “Whoa. Michael, that’s just not true.”

I slow him down to explain there is nowhere in scripture where suicide is unforgivable. Suicide is a result of mental brokenness – an illness – when someone believes there is no hope. When a person is overwhelmed with too much unbearable pain. The unforgivable sin talked about in the scriptures has nothing to do with suicide.

I choose my words carefully to explain this idea that many struggle with. Especially since Michael wrestles with demons who tell him to ‘hurt’ himself.

He has the pink scars on his wrists. He has the indention on his throat from the tracheotomy that opened his breathing passages when he tried to kill himself by setting his apartment on fire. He lives behind bars because he went into an elementary school with a borrowed high-powered gun and a backpack of bullets and told the woman in the front office they were all going to die that day. They did not. God intervened. The woman told him to lay his gun down and she loved him as helicopters circled above, the law officers returned Michael's fire, and the media reported and the children escaped.

Michael’s voices in his head tell him to harm himself in the most insidious ways. That attempt was suicide-by-cop. So, Michael is safely tucked away behind locked doors and metal bars and razor wire. But the suicide attempts continue whenever his medicine is slightly off. He attempts to hang himself, he hoards pills, he finds enough metal to cut his wrists. We need to get this idea of suicide sending you forever to hell put to rest.

Jesus warned the religious leaders of his day they were heading in the direction of sin that couldn’t be forgiven. And it was not because they were contemplating suicide. 

It was because the Pharisees - the people who should have recognized the works of God’s Spirit - clearly saw Jesus healing physically and mentally sick people (specifically a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute) – and adamantly denied this power came from their own God. The people asked each other, “Can this be the promised son of David? The Messiah sent by God?” The religious leaders saw their authority slipping away and declared that Jesus was obviously healing by the power and might of Satan.

Think of the insult to God! Instead of praising God for the miracle, they accused Jesus of using the power of God’s adversary, the devil, to do good. They gave the glory meant for God to the accuser, the deceiver, the lying serpent.

This story is told by three of the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. There are confusing words, like Beelzebul (Hebrew slang meant to insult the pagan worshippers of Baal and means ‘lord of the dung’ or ‘lord of the dwelling’*) and blasphemy (the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or claiming His attributes**) so I am reaching for the simpler translation of Jesus’ response to what they were thinking. It can be found in the Easy-to-Read Translation.

“I want you to know that people can be forgiven for all the sinful things they do. They can even be forgiven for the bad things they say against God. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. They will always be guilty of that sin.” Jesus said this because the teachers of the law had accused him of having an evil spirit inside him. Mark 3:28-30

A miracle is a sign, pointing us to God. Attributing that power to Satan instead is unforgivable. To look in the face of God, to experience His Spirit urging repentance, and to continue to deny Him over and over again, is the problem. Our hearts become hard, our attitude, defiant. Arrogantly refusing Him places us on the outside of His forgiveness. Please think about that. If we deny Him, if we reject God’s Spirit who calls to us, how can we accept the forgiveness He offers? We are the ones who shut that door and lock it.

Suicide. I don’t believe our loving God who offers compassion to those weakened, tormented, and destroyed by physical or mental anguish condemns the sufferer.

I think of a sweet friend of mine who carries that burden of self-harm in her head. I found a Psalm that I pray often for her – and I have penned her name above it. The words of the Psalm writer first thank the Lord for hearing his voice and his pleas for mercy. And he remembers the anguish of the snares of death surrounding him. “Return, my soul, to your rest,” he reassures himself.

“Lord, you saved my soul from death.

    You stopped my tears.

    You kept me from falling.

I will continue to serve the Lord

    in the land of the living.

 I continued believing even when I said,

    “I am completely ruined!”

 Yes, even when I was upset and said,

    “There is no one I can trust!”

 What can I give the Lord

    for all that he has done for me?”  Psalm 116:8-12 ETR

And how do I end this story? Perhaps it doesn’t end. There may not be a nice, neat bow here. I just want to lift the burden of condemnation off this desperate heartbreaking act of suicide. 

Jesus tells us the love and power of forgiveness is deeper and wider and more powerful than we can grasp. “…people can be forgiven for all the sinful things they do.” Hold onto that, my friends. Don’t let go. And hold onto the ones you love. Give them the truth of God’s Spirit – in it is love and forgiveness.

 This story of forgiveness and unforgiveness can be found in Matthew 12:22-37, Mark 3:22-30, and Luke 11:14-26.

Plumb             God, I Need You Now

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