Sept. 13, 2020 24th Sunday A
Sept. 13, 2020 24th Sunday A
A young woman, newly married, faced a situation which reminded her of her grandma’s counsel, “You can forgive, but you can’t forget.” While she was making her wedding arrangement, her fiance suggested that his 20 year old sister be one of the bridesmaids. The bride thought this could bring trouble; her sister-in-law didn’t like her because she felt her brother was being taken away from her. The wedding day came and went. When the newlywed received her wedding pictures, she noticed something odd. While everyone is smiling in the photos, her sister-in-law had a weird expression on her face; in some she appeared bored, in some she seemed angry, and in some she looked disgusted. The bride began to cry because she felt all her wedding photos were ruined. Her husband simply said to let it go. How could she just let it go when her sister-in-law glared back at you in all the photos? Several months after the wedding, her sister-in-law came to her house. It was awkward, but her sister-in-law began by apologizing and asking for forgiveness for ruining her wedding photos. She looked at her sister-in-law, gave her a big hug, and told her that she had forgiven her a long time ago.
The desire to forgive her sister-in-law didn’t happen overnight. I’m sure every time she glanced at the wedding photos or whenever her sister-in-law’s name was mentioned, her blood pressure probably went up. In our own lives, we wish we could live by a simple rule of life--three strikes and you’re out of my life. In fact, even in the time of Jesus, there was a Rabbinical tradition which taught that one must forgive another three times. Peter thought that he was being abundantly generous when he answered his own question, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Instead of being commended for suggesting a number beyond the traditional three, Jesus answered that his followers must forgive seventy times seven, that is, no limit to the number of times to forgive.
In order to illustrate why a disciple must always forgive, Jesus told the Parable of an Unmerciful Servant. In that parable, a servant with a great debt was treated mercifully by his master and was forgiven of his full debt. However, the servant dealt mercilessly with a fellow servant who owed infinitesimal fraction of what he himself had owed. When the master found out what had happened, the servant was severely punished. One biblical scholar used a vivid image to illustrate the contrast between the first servant’s great debt and the second servant’s negligible debt. If the wage of these two servants were paid in small coins, the 100-denarii debt of the second servant could be carried in one pocket. However, the 10,000-talent debt of the first servant would require an army of about 8,600 persons to carry it. Each person would be carrying about a 60 lb sack of coin, and if each person was spaced a yard apart, the 8,600 persons would form a line five miles long. The inequality between the two debts are staggering. The main point is that if God has forgiven us the staggering and unimaginable debt we owe him, we must forgive our neighbors the debt they owe us. Our Lord said earlier to the disciples, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt 6:14-15).
For many of us, it takes time to recognize what forgiving someone can do for our souls. Often we hold onto grievances and hurts of the past for fear that we would look weak if we forgave and moved on. Our anger and resentment are the wall we put up between ourselves and the offender so that we can ensure that we would not not be hurt again. Unfortunately, when we build walls to protect ourselves from one person, it will also obstruct other relationships.
To become a forgiving person is to become aware of our own sinfulness and need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. Whether the offense is great or small, we should be willing to overlook it rather than seek revenge or distance ourselves from the offender. This is so hard to do. We have to be the first one to say ‘I’m sorry,’ even if the injuring party persists in their ill will. We need to pray for God’s love to forgive and the humility to forget. We need not worry about how our forgiveness is received. We leave the result to God. When we forgive, we release the anger and the hurt which have become a heavy burden for us. A counselor said it best, “When you forgive, you in no way change the past — but you sure do change the future.”
