Teaching us about forgiveness

Our Gospel reading today is a story of what God really wants all of us to do when someone hurts us, wittingly or unwittingly. This is the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which you can read in Matt. 18: 21-35.

 “Peter [approached Jesus and] asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times? 22 Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 23 That is why the kingdom of heaven maybe likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants.

 24 When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. 25 Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. 26 At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.

 28 When that servant had let, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ 29 Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back. 30 But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he had paid back the debt.

 31 Now when his fellow servant saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. 32 His master summoned him and said to him, “You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. 33 Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you? 34 Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back his whole debt. 35 So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

 In the Lord’s prayer; the only prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples who handed it down to all Christians, we repeat it and recite “And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us… and lead us not into temptation.” Few Christians know that The Lord’s Prayer is the perfect prayer as it honors and glorifies God the Father when we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven… and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

 It just makes me wonder what goes in the minds of those pro-RH advocates who still claim to be Catholic when they pray this particular passage in the Lord’s Prayer? If they can’t do the will of the Father here on earth, surely they won’t believe the teachings of our Lord Jesus on forgiveness. As he clearly pointed out…“So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.” But this is not a request by our Lord, but a command for all of us to forgive those who hurt us… even if these people whom we already forgave…do not even care to forgive us back.

 Today’s gospel story has a very simple plot… a debtor owes the master and when the master collected from the debtor who can’t pay his debt, he kneels down and begs him for patience and forgiveness and the Master touched by his sincerity forgives his debt. But it turns out that this debtor also has loaned money to his fellow servants, but despite the plea for patience by the man who owed him, the debtor did not forgive him. When the Master learned of this, he ordered the debtor to pay up everything he owed and was sent to the torturers. So the Lord’s message is simple, when you forgive others, you also end up being forgiven yourself.

 We go back to the first verses of this scripture reading when Peter asks the Lord, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” If you multiplied seventy times seven, the figure of 490 appears. Simply put, that’s how much you must forgive your brother.

 If you looked through the Old Testament, this figure also represents the patience and more importantly, the mercy of God. You can read about this in the pages of Daniel… that God would give the Jewish people seventy times seven years. If you read how Moses was vilified by the Jews despite his getting them out of bondage by the Egyptian Pharaoh. Yet the Lord God showed only extreme patience and mercy to his chosen people… although he had those who worshipped the golden calf slaughtered.

 Today is the 10th anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attacks in New York City when the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed and one wing of the Pentagon was destroyed. In retaliation to this attack, the US embarked on a terror campaign, sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and this year, they got justice when they found and killed Osama Bin Laden. But it doesn’t change the stand of the church on forgiveness, which is God’s will.

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