The Difficulty of Forgiving

September 17, 2023

Last Sunday’s reading told us about our duty to stand up and have the courage to engage with our neighbour if we believed something was going wrong. And this Sunday’s reading, both in the first one and the Gospel are telling us that we must forgive one who does wrong.  Contradictory?  

And yet it was Mathew’s decision to have consciously placed these passages/ teachings one after the other.  After all we know from Scripture studies that the structure and positioning of the different stories and teachings of and by Jesus, are clearly decided by the author and not by the actual sequence of events. We don’t even have to be Scripture scholars to know that. Even a simple comparison between the chronology of the four Gospels would make it clear that obviously the Gospel writers did not have the same chronology. So, for example, the story of Jesus throwing the merchants out of the temple comes at the beginning of Jesus’ story in John’s gospel but, comes at the end in the other three, even though it must have happened only once.  And so we can easily conclude that each of the Gospel writers chose to place things in specific contexts rather than others because of the theological message they wanted to communicate.  We must remember that the literary genre that we call the Gospels is not the same as the genre we call History.  The Gospel genre is a PROCLAMATION of the Gospel writers’ belief in Jesus, each built around a different retelling of Jesus’ life.  While they are all built around the same historical Jesus, they present different versions of these events, using at times a different chronology, different words, and different aspects of the Jesus whom they wished to proclaim to a specific audience. And since each audience had different needs they picked and chose and edited what they had experienced to respond to those specific needs.  

So it was clearly Mathew’s choice to  place a teaching about confronting the wrongdoer immediately before a passage on forgiving the wrongdoer.  So are we supposed to confront or to forgive?  Frankly, I have found that different people seem to naturally veer towards either confrontation or to forgiveness. When I am angry with one who has clearly done wrong (in my perception of course), I find myself more ready to stand up and confront them, rather than to forgive them.   On the other hand, I have a sense that some others may use the mantra of ‘let’s forgive’ in order not to have to speak up and confront others who are doing wrong.  

 And yet we need to find a way to do both, which is may be why Mathew places both types of responses to our neighbour one after the other. Mathew seems to have realised that there are many nuances to this over-riding commandment to love our neighbour, and so places various teachings of Jesus together to give us a range of responses to how to practise this commandment. So we need to learn to discern: When does one confront, when does one forgive?  

 Could we say that one clue that we might consider to help us find a way through the dilemma raised by the teaching to forgive, as compared to the teaching to confront, is that the forgiveness we are asked to practice, at least according to today’s reading, is when we (or our loved ones) are personally or individually hurt or harmed by another, while last Sunday’s mandate to confront wrongdoing is with reference to wrongdoing which harms many, not just myself or my loved ones.  

But that is extremely difficult because the hurt we feel when we (or our loved ones) are hurt is far far more real than the hurt we may feel when there is wrongdoing that affects many. And yet it is in the former case that we are called to forgive seventy times seven, and are reminded (in the Our Father prayer too) that if we do not forgive others the harm they do to us, we ourselves will not be forgiven.  

But should we forgive always, just because a person asks for forgiveness, irrespective of whether the other person is really sorry or not?  After all the person could just be mouthing words of apology to get out of a difficult situation, and may not really mean it at all.   This, of course, is not handled in the parable that Jesus offers in today’s Gospel, but it is something we could very well ask ourselves in the real life world we live in today.  

A popular serial I once watched offered this insight in response to whether we should forgive someone just because they say they are sorry.  The protagonist in the serial is advised, that if the person is apologising just to make himself feel better, then he should  not forgive. But if the person is genuinely apologising then one should forgive.  And to know if the person is truly apologizing, he is advised to look at the person’s life to see if s/he has truly changed in his/her behaviour.  Seems sensible enough!

And yet, perhaps even that insight is not Christian enough. After all, the prodigal son was forgiven even though he really only came back because he was hungry. The woman caught in adultery didn’t even ask for forgiveness.  And if we want to understand the depths of Christian forgiveness in today’s world, then I think of Gladys Staines who forgave those who burnt and killed her husband and two sons, despite the fact that they did not repent.  And we all remember Jesus on the cross saying, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.  So apparently, we are called as Christians to forgive even if the other has not repented.  That is asking a lot.

But though it is asking a lot, perhaps we tend to forget that such acts of forgiveness change us forever, irrespective of whether it changes the other wrongdoer or not.   IF we can reach a stage in our spiritual growth where we can truly forgive such wrongdoing or crimes against us or our loved ones then something happens within us ourselves.   There is something in that genuine act of forgiveness that heals us, and in some cases may even heal the other, like the second robber on the cross with Jesus  - but the primary healing happens within us.  This is similar to what I have earlier shared, namely that prayer is not about changing God, but rather about changing ourselves.  This seems to  hold true even in the matter of forgiveness - WE are changed when we forgive, irrespective of any change that may occur in the other.  The fact is that true and genuine forgiveness helps us let go of the hate and revenge that cripples our hearts.  It actually sets us free.  So, forgiveness works primarily to heal ourselves.

Furthermore,  however righteous or good we think we are, perhaps, we forget that we too need forgiveness ourselves.  I would suggest that we don’t take this teaching too seriously (namely that we will not be forgiven unless we forgive those who harm us), because perhaps most of us see ourselves as less in need of forgiveness than others.  Jesus challenges this view of ourselves - and this is brought out most forcefully in the Gospel, when Jesus tells the people who came to stone the woman caught in adultery: Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone”.  And the Gospel writer continues poignantly: When they heard this, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders”. (John 8: 9).  Kahlil Gibran reminds us: “… the righteous is not completely innocent of the deeds of the wicked, and the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon…. for the wrongdoer cannot do wrong, without the hidden will of you all”.  

And that brings us to the previous Sunday’s exhortation to stand up against evil and wrongdoing.  We need to ask ourselves the hard question as to whether the wrongdoing that others are seen to do, are very often, partially at least, the result of our failure to stand up and attempt to set things right for all.  As Pope Francis teaches: “Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.” And so, for example, we have the strange phenomenon that one sixth of our world suffers from malnutrition and hunger, when there is more than enough food to feed all.  Or as Pope Francis again says: “How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”  And he continues: “Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own".

So, we need to forgive, because we really need forgiveness ourselves. The unforgiving servant in the parable, who put his debtor into a prison for an amount  that was minuscule compared to what he himself owed his own master, was like the one who, as Jesus said, could see the speck in the other’s eye but not the log in his own.  We ourselves, for instance, may be able to see the evil of the man who robs from our home, but we either do not see the evil, or despite seeing we keep quiet or even acquiesce, in the acts of the rich who keep life-saving medicines out of the reach of the poor, because after all they have a right to make profit.

And so, I would suggest that our journey towards becoming Christian is a pilgrimage, in the same way that the Bible too is a record of the pilgrimage of God’s people's relationship with, and understanding of, God.  While we may not have reached that ultimate stage of being able to forgive like Jesus did (or Staines), we must keep that goal in mind, and keep walking on this path of learning how to forgive.  The road is long and arduous, but we must keep trudging along, and hopefully when we reach the end of our life, we would have moved a bit closer to becoming those who can truly forgive.  Let’s keep walking. 

First Reading: Sirach 27: 30 – 28: 7

Anger and wrath, these also are abominations,  yet a sinner holds on to them. The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance, for he keeps a strict account of their sins. Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbor anger against another, and expect healing from the Lord? If one has no mercy toward another like himself, can he then seek pardon for his own sins? If a mere mortal harbors wrath, who will make an atoning sacrifice for his sins? Remember the end of your life, and set enmity aside; remember corruption and death, and be true to the commandments. Remember the commandments, and do not be angry with your neighbor; remember the covenant of the most high, and overlook faults.

Second Reading: Romans 14: 7-9

For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

 

Gospel: Matthew 18: 21-35

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”  Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him,  and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.  But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’  Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’  But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.  Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.  Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’  And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”