Sunday Gospel Reflection, September 17, 2023: How often must I forgive?

How often must I forgive?

What role does forgiveness play in your life? 

   Everyone is in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. In the Book of Sirach, those who hold onto wrath and anger, like those who are vengeful, must learn to forgive one another, so that they might in turn be forgiven by God: Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? Sirach asks. If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? The only relief from sin is the Lord, kind and merciful, as Psalm 103 reminds us, God, who forgives our sins. To repent is to allow God to forgive us, thereby erasing the barrier that stands between us and God, but this can only happen when we acknowledge our need for forgiveness and allow the Lord to separate us as far from sin as possible: as far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us, the psalmist says. Only in this way can harmony be restored. 

    Even the disciples struggled with forgiveness. Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? Peter asks Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. In response, Jesus shares yet another parable about the kingdom of heaven, in which a servant humbly requests that the king be patient until the servant can pay him back, at which point the king is moved with compassion and forgives him the loan. However, the servant has no real appreciation for the immensity of the debt the king forgives him, and shows no like compassion whatsoever to those who owe him money, demanding instead, pay back what you owe. He is not slow to anger; far from it: he seizes the man who owes him a much smaller amount, and starts to choke him! The servant is unable to forgive as his master had forgiven him. Clearly, the servant has much to learn about the forgiveness of God and the forgiveness of man. 

    For, as Paul tells the Romans, none of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. We are baptized into the Body of Christ and are therefore members of a larger community, one in which forgiveness and mercy are essential to peace and harmony. We belong to the Lord as we live and as we die. By entering into union with Christ, we accept the forgiveness he effected through his dying and rising, paying the debt incurred by our sin. Through Christ, we know the mercy of God and can be reconciled to him. It is a challenge to allow ourselves to be forgiven, that we might then be forgiving in turn, thus healing the brokenness of our relationships and, ultimately, our world. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 

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