Sirach 27:30-28:7
Romans 14:7-9
Matthew 18:21-35
There are great many truths taught by Our Lord or by the Holy Apostles which are difficult for the world to accept. We can sometimes tell which truths these are because they're the ones that people like to avoid discussing whenever the topic of Christianity or Jesus Christ happens to come up. There are a lot of people in this world who will more or less say that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but either in their words or their actions they will deny that Christ is who he claims to be. The world will make that denial because they do not wish to live in the way that we are called to live, because so much of what the world today calls good, God calls evil. So much of what the Lord God calls evil, the world says it's good, even praiseworthy. (cf. Isaiah 5:20, 2 Timothy 3:1-13)
There is perhaps no greater commandment of Christ that is more difficult to live out, however, than the one we find illustrated in the Gospel today, the command that we are to forgive in the same way that we are asking God to forgive us. We want God to forgive us our sins, to pardon our sins, to overlook our sins. In many, if not most cases, the sins we are asking forgiveness for are the sins that will send us straight to Hell because of the choices we have made. Yet Jesus repeatedly tells us that these sins will be forgiven, that we will be received by the Lord if we repent of our sins. The only catch is that we have to forgive others in the same way that we have been forgiven. We get a glimpse of just how unconditional God's love is for us, and we come to understand how difficult it is to give truly unconditional love to others, especially those who would wish us harm or do us harm.
When we think about how difficult that truly is, we realize that living the Christian Life isn't so easy, because we have to be like Christ, and that means to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Jesus's illustration of the servant who asked forgiveness of his master while refusing to extend forgiveness to a fellow servant who owed a much smaller amount shows us the reality that God is willing to forgive us the debt of our sins if we confess our sins, and the weight of our sins is far greater than any debt to be understood in this world. Therefore, Jesus is explaining to us that we should be ready and willing to forgive others, because their offenses to us are far less than anything we may have done in this life to offend God.
In living the life of a Christian we are called to be like Christ. Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, He is God, and so his nature is the nature of God. What are we told is God's ultimate nature? When the Lord God made himself visible to Moses, telling him that he would pass by on Mount Sinai and allow Moses to see the back of Him and He would say His name. When the Lord did say his name to Moses, the name itself is not actually mentioned in most English translations (we say "the LORD"), but it is immediately followed by an important suffix. God makes Himself known to Moses in this way… "the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." (Exodus 34:5-6) Mercy and love and fidelity are so important to God's nature that He includes them in His very name. We hear these attributes of God in today's responsorial Psalm, which are verses from Psalm 103.
Our first reading from the book of Sirach invites us to do a very difficult thing for a lot of us (and any of us who have a real temper know how hard it is), and that is to let go of our anger, even forgiving the injustices our neighbor might commit upon us.
In the Gospel parable, the servant was not seen as wicked for asking his master to forgive his debt (something that we should be doing regularly when we ask for our sins to be forgiven in Reconciliation), but it was seen as most evil that he would not forgive a fellow servant a much smaller debt. The Master's reaction when he had heard what the servant had demanded of his fellow servant was to throw the wicked servant in prison until the debt was paid off.
Jesus tells his disciples that God the Father will treat all of us the same way if we do not learn to forgive our enemies from our heart. The big difference will be that if we die in our sins, it is our choice, not the larger society. We can ask forgiveness of God and our neighbor, but if we are not truly willing to forgive others, the faith is hollow within us.
Neither our Lord, nor any of the Apostles or the apostolic Fathers who have preached forgiveness have said that forgiving our neighbors who slight us, or do great injustice to us is easy. Jesus understands very well how very difficult and how very contrary it is to our human nature to extend the hand of forgiveness to those who have done us wrong, or even to those who wish us harm. That kind of forgiveness is completely contrary to our human nature, and God understands that. This is exactly why being able to extend forgiveness in the radical way that Jesus asks of us is something that takes great Grace, and is a sign before the world that the person who can forgive in the radical fashion which Christ asks of us manifests a sign of tremendous holiness of life, and they are showing that they can live out their Christian faith not only in word, but in action.
We are living in a time of tremendous upheaval in our nation. Not only have we been faced in recent months with a global pandemic which has seriously constricted our way of life and cost many their jobs or their livelihoods, but we have also recently seen protests, and in many places riots, over both the real and perceived abuses directed toward African Americans and other minorities by certain members of local police forces around the country. The resulting protests and riots have caused much disorder, they have also forced many Americans to take a hard look at our past as a nation.
One of the real difficulties, however, with the present moment in which we find ourselves is that the one thing you don't hear from all sides in these ongoing debates, discussions, and public disorder is the need for- and the willingness of-all sides to extend forgiveness to one another. Instead, because of the lack of an attitude of forgiveness, we see continuing disorder and riots in many cities, including the desecration of many public monuments. There is an utter unwillingness to forgive our neighbors.
We also would do well to remember that extending forgiveness does not mean forgetting injustices and wrongs done to us by others, forgiveness doesn't always equate to trust, and nowhere does Jesus ask that. But if we can truly learn to forgive, and leave the final judgment of others to God, our community, our country, our world would look a lot more like Jesus intended. As Christ forgives us, let us extend that forgiveness to one another.
