Forgiveness: A share in God’s vitality

Our first reading this Sunday comes from Sirach, a book by a scribe named Ben Sira, who wrote around the year 180 BCE, when the Jewish people lived under the political and cultural domination of the Greeks. This scribe, who was very concerned about fidelity to Jewish law, urges forgiveness of those who offend so that one’s own sins also will be forgiven. He reminds his readers that forgiving one’s neighbor not only keeps the commandments, it allows one to continue to be faithful to “the Most High’s covenant” (28:7). This opening text sets the stage for the deeper dive into the matter of forgiveness described in this Sunday’s Gospel. 

This Sunday’s Gospel passage from Matthew begins with a question posed to Jesus. Peter asks how often he must forgive his brother, before adding “As many as seven times?” It is as if he thinks that would be more than sufficient, given the cultural significance of that number (some Jews believed the number seven symbolized fullness and totality). 

Because Jesus’ response to Peter has become so familiar to us, we risk missing the radicality of his answer, both in that context and in our own. “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times,” Jesus replies (Mt 18:22), making the case for exercising forgiveness always, in all circumstances, for all persons. Because such an assertion becomes almost impossible to imagine, both then and today, Jesus follows up immediately by telling a helpful parable.  

Jesus proposes that the mercy and compassion of God is like a king who required all debts to be paid. When a servant who owed him an enormous amount could not meet this requirement, the king, moved by compassion, forgave the servant all that he owed. Later the king hears that this very servant fails to do the same for his peer, who owed him only a little. In anger, the king handed over the servant to torturers until he could pay back his whole debt.   

Indeed, this parable is not just about the people of Jesus’ time, but it is also about us. So often we cannot begin to make atonement before our God for the debt of our own wrongdoings. Providing the motivation for our reconciliation with one another, Jesus makes God’s forgiveness of us the basis of our forgiveness of others. Yet, let’s be honest. Forgiveness is difficult at times. It often involves a process, rather than a mere exchange of a few words. It can entail undergoing a real change of heart and disposition toward the one who has harmed us. It frequently warrants a difficult conversation requiring our vulnerability in order to bring resolution to the wrongdoing. It may even involve having to make the first overture toward the one who we may think should be asking us for forgiveness. Yet, whatever it takes, Jesus understands that partaking in the love and vitality of God requires that we do as God does. We forgive. 

Failing to forgive has consequences in our relationship with the divine. Francis McNutt, a Catholic priest who often wrote about spiritual healing, noted that failing to forgive poses one of the greatest obstacles to deepening our experience of God. Further, in the Lord’s prayer that we recite as community, we request that our God “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Thus, we request forgiveness for ourselves in concert with how we forgive others.  

Still, many persons across human history have suffered kinds of harm so egregious and devastating that granting forgiveness toward the offender seems impossible. Such deeds as war crimes, physical violence, clerical abuse, or psychological cruelty can inflict a kind of comprehensive harm to an individual that makes it impossible genuinely to forgive the offender.  In such life-altering experiences, the process of forgiveness can risk retraumatizing the victim. 

Still, Jesus has left us a model of an honest and genuine way to extend compassion and mercy. We can ask God to forgive on our behalf. Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., recently noted that perhaps Jesus himself was too violated, too physically maimed, too traumatized during his passion and crucifixion to offer forgiveness to his accusers and executioners. Instead, he lifted up his voice in prayer over those who had afflicted him so gravely. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). 

This Sunday’s psalm response offers an insight for the same prayer. “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in compassion” (Ps 103:8). We partake in God’s life and vitality when we find honest avenues to be similarly kind when extending forgiveness.

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