What if you find it hard to forgive?
How many times are we called to forgive? Jesus’ answer in Matthew 18:21-35 is staggering: “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” But what if the hurt is too deep and forgiveness feels completely out of reach? If you are struggling with this, you are not alone. We will be wrestling with this alongside each other today.
Before going any deeper—and because we cannot go deeper before we do this—we have to be clear on what forgiveness is not.
Forgiveness is not condoning, excusing, or ignoring the harm done. It is not sweeping things under the rug. We need space and time to address and grieve our wounds.
Forgiveness is not automatic reconciliation. It is not going back to the way things were. Sometimes, things need to change.
Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. If you proceed as if nothing happened, no one will have learned anything. Forgiveness does not mean doing nothing to protect yourself from people taking advantage of you again. As the old adage goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
There is one more thing we must do before we can go deeper: We have to put a face on this. Pause for a moment. Without a real person to forgive or to seek forgiveness from, the words above and the words below will just be words.
Ready? Take a deep breath, then plunge in with me…
Jesus tells the parable of a servant who owed his master “a huge amount.” The master initially ordered the servant to be sold “along with his wife, his children, and all his property.” A lady I study the Bible with asked why.
Spiritually, this reminds us that our sins are never strictly private. We exist in a web of relationships, and our missteps entangle those we love. Historically, this reveals the absurd size of the debt. The English translation we hear at Mass simply says the servant owed “a huge amount,” but the original Greek specifies 10,000 talents. To put that in perspective, a single talent was worth about 20 years of a laborer's wage. Ten thousand talents was 200,000 years of daily labor. So when the servant begged, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full,” that was a lot of patience to ask for. Even if his wife, his children, and all his property were sold with him, it still wouldn't have covered a fraction of what he owed. There was really no way to work it off, and there was no way to earn it back.
The master, moved with compassion, didn’t just grant a payment extension, a debt restructure, or a discount. The loan was cancelled. The servant left a completely free man.
This servant, freshly forgiven, then ran into another servant who owed him “a much smaller amount.” The original Greek puts this at 100 denarii, or 100 days’ wages. This was a laughable amount compared to 200,000 years of salary. You would think that after being released from billions in debt, the first servant would be generous enough to let go of a few months’ pay. But he didn’t. In a tragic twist of irony, when the second servant fell to his knees, he begged using the words the first one did, “Be patient with me….” Instead of mercy, the second servant received a prison sentence.
When other servants caught the foul wind of what happened, they went to the master to report it. Nagsumbong sila. Now, if I were the master, I would have handled things differently. I would have had the second servant released immediately, paid off his small 100-denarii loan myself, and tacked it onto the first servant’s debt!
But God’s wisdom works on a deeper level. In the parable, the master sent the unforgiving servant to prison. Why? Because an unforgiving heart builds its own cage. The first servant was already imprisoned on the inside. Now his outside reality mirrored his internal state. But take note: Both men ended up in the same place—the prison! This was not revenge.
One clip from the movie "Evan Almighty" can give us a clue as to what the masterplan is. God does not magically give us patience or courage or love; God gives us opportunities to be patient, courageous, or loving. God was giving the two servants an opportunity to face the truth, reflect on their respective debts, and name their shortcomings. I think it is not too far-fetched to imagine that later, the Master would also send to that same prison the other servants who made “sumbong.” This is last week’s Gospel being lived out: If your brother sins against you, go to him. Others and even the church may be called in, if needed.
Perhaps the hope is that in prison, the two servants would name their mistakes. Again, forgiveness is not turning a blind eye to the wrongs that have been committed. One of the first steps towards forgiveness is to acknowledge that something happened that needs to be forgiven.
There is no guarantee that there will be a fairy-tale ending, and there need not be a happily-ever-after. Forgiveness is also not a cold reset or a going back to zero.
So what is forgiveness? “Forgive and forget” may be a nice-sounding turn of phrase, but I think one should not forgive and forget. (Also, for most of us, I don’t think that’s really possible.) I believe that one should forgive and remember. But remember in a different way. “Re-” is a prefix that means “again.” One should re-member: Recognize someone as a member of God’s wider family, even if they can no longer be in your inner circle of trust. Keep a space open for them in your goodwill, wish them well and pray for their healing, even if for your own safety or sanity, you keep them out of your daily life.
For example, a wife who has endured spousal abuse for as long as she can need not sleep in the same bed again with the husband who refuses to change, nor even stay under the same roof with him. You can say there is forgiveness even if they live apart and just co-parent their children in a civil way. Forgiveness does not have only one face. One needs to be creative to forgive.
If we pull all these threads together, what then is forgiveness? Here is a definition that some psychologists suggest: Forgiveness is a motivational transformation that inclines people to behave constructively toward someone who has behaved destructively toward them. In other words, forgiveness is changing how you see the other person. It means keeping even just a sliver of an opening for things to get better. Even if all you can afford at the moment is a 0.00005 mm fracture in your defenses, that is already an opportunity for grace to enter. As long as you don’t say “never ever,” you are already on your way to forgiveness.
What can help us pry open our hearts for that crack? Maybe it is in seeing ourselves as the first servant, allowed to owe billions and then forgiven billions by a God who is always motivated to give us opportunity after opportunity, chance after chance.
Your prayer assignment this week:
Continue thinking of that someone whom you need to forgive or someone whose forgiveness you need. Maybe you can sing this classic Tracy Chapman song.
If “sorry” or “forgive me” or “I forgive you” are what you can’t say, maybe you can say instead, “Can I hold you tonight?” This “holding” may still be at arm’s length or at an even greater distance like a billion miles away, but leave at least an opening. And maybe with the right words, with the right deeds, and at the right time, you will re-member each other.
Until that time, know that the Master is always saying to you, “You are always mine.”
