Our first reading today from the Book of Sirach starts with, “Wrath and anger are hateful things.”
Isn’t forgiveness the hardest thing we have to do to be Intentional Disciples of Christ? Whether it is to ask to be forgiven for the harm or pain we may have caused or to give forgiveness to another person who has harmed or injured us, both are hard.
On Friday, we commemorated the anniversary of 9-11. Many of us vividly remember the horror of that day. On September 11, 2001, there were confusing reports on television, radio and the internet. But as the morning wore on, it became apparent that terrorists had turned four planes into missiles and killed over 3,000 people.
The images on our TV screens were filled with police, firefighters and other brave first responders running into the smoke-filled buildings. Ashes covered the survivors running the other way to safety. Families were on phones, frantically trying to speak to their loved ones. Our world seemed to stand still as people jumped from the Twin Towers and then the buildings collapsed, one after the other.
For many of the families, life changed in an instant. God’s healing hands were our hands that reached out and helped in any way possible, just as God’s healing voice, then and now, calls us to set aside hate with love, despair with hope and vengeance with forgiveness. Yes, to even forgive a terrorist.
We don’t have to forgive the action, but we need to work on forgiving the person.
Forgiveness is the heart of the message of Jesus. Forgiveness is essential to our personal relationship with Christ and each other.
The experience of forgiveness is basic to our spiritual health. Let me say that again: the experience of forgiveness is basic to our spiritual health. This is the way we are to live our faith.
Forgiveness is a decision. It is an act of the will, as illustrated by the story that Corrie Ten Boom tells in her biographical book titled The Hiding Place.
Corrie Ten Boom’s family had a hiding place for Jews in their home in Holland before and during WWII. The Germans discovered that they were protecting Jews, and the family was taken to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp fifty miles from Berlin. Corrie’s father and sister died there, but Corrie survived and was released. After the war, she traveled the world as an ambassador of the power of forgiveness.
Corrie was giving a speech one day when she recognized a former concentration camp guard approaching her. He put out his hands and asked, “Will you forgive me?” Corrie remembers standing there frozen, recalling the words Christ spoke, “If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will I forgive you.” She describes praying to God to give her the strength she could not find within herself. Then a wave of warmth rushed down her arm, and she was able to say, “Yes, I forgive you.”
When I struggle with forgiveness, I pray for the grace to change my hardened heart into a forgiving heart.
The secret to learning to forgive is to be open to change within ourselves, or as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: “Let go and let God.”
Someone once asked C.S. Lewis why he prays, and Lewis responded, “I don’t pray to change God’s mind; I pray that God may change me.”
Prayer doesn’t change God, but it can change us, and that is what is daunting about prayer. We can actually be afraid of doing God’s will. Maybe that is the reason 70% of our prayers are requests that God do something for us. We often pray for what we want and what we want right now. Rather than praying that God’s will be done.
Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to learn how to forgive. He was told that there was a holy monk who taught people how to forgive and that he could find the monk praying near the river.
The man went to the river and found the monk. The man gave the monk two large, priceless pearls and asked the monk to teach him to forgive. The monk picked up one of the pearls and carelessly let it slip out of his hands and into the river.
The horrified young man immediately plunged in after the pearl but could not find it. He kept diving and diving for the pearl. Exhausted, he finally asked the monk where he thought the pearl was. “Show me the spot, so I can find the pearl.” With that, the monk picked up the other pearl and threw it into the river, saying, “It is right there.”
With shock, the young man asked, “Why did you do that?”
“My son,” said the monk, “If you want to learn how to forgive, you must be willing to let go of whatever possesses you.”
What do you have to let go of to be more forgiving? My suggestion is to pray the Our Father every day. Pray to God that “Your will be done” and “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.”
It is hard to forgive, so keep a few things in mind:
Peter asks Jesus, “How often must I forgive?” Jesus’s answer is a stark contrast to what Peter expected. Peter thought of himself as being very generous when he answers “seven,” but Christ multiplies that seven by seventy.
Because Peter doesn’t grasp what Christ had been teaching everyone about forgiveness, Jesus tells this great story in today’s gospel, the story of the “unforgiving servant” or the “merciless official.”
In the time of Christ, creditors could lawfully impose cruel treatment against debtors. A creditor could demand slave labor of the debtor or of the members of the debtor’s family. Imprisonment was used to force the debtor to sell whatever property he owned or have the debtor’s relatives pay his debt.
Notice how the debtor didn’t ask for forgiveness of the debt, but simply time to pay it off. The king, moved with compassion, forgave the debt. The parable addresses the necessity of the attitude of compassion. I would assume that the king expected his servant to change his heart. Since he was forgiven, he would forgive others.
This forgiven servant was not the least bit affected by his own experience of forgiveness. He just couldn’t make the connection that since he was forgiven, he was to share forgiveness with others. Instead, he goes to a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller amount and starts to choke him rather than forgive the debt. Being forgiven didn’t change his heart. He remained arrogant, self-righteous and narcissistic.
What makes the parable difficult to stomach is the last sentence, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.” The failure to forgive another is tantamount to not accepting God’s forgiveness. In the parable, Jesus teaches that forgiveness is never measured.
The gospel insists that we always forgive. Why? Because we have been forgiven abundantly by God. Yet forgiveness does not come naturally like breathing. Returning evil for evil, getting even, or paybacks are what come naturally. Forgiveness goes against the grain.
Forgiveness is hard. But forgiveness is the heart of Jesus’ message. Forgiveness is essential for our personal relationship with Jesus and others.
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