The context in which we hear God’s word really matters, as the reality of our lives affects the meaning and significance of God’s word for us. Last Sunday’s Gospel stated that he who had been wronged had the responsibility to confront the man who committed a sin against him, detailing a series of steps he would need to take in order for his brother to achieve forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation. In today’s Gospel, we hear a parable about forgiveness in response to Peter’s question about how many times we must forgive a brother who has sinned against us. In our modern world where vengeance, retribution, and revenge are played out on our streets, our schools, and our homes each day, this reading has a deep significance for us. Friday, we commemorated September 11th, the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that shocked our nation and the world. Many lost their lives that day; many police and firefighters sacrificed their lives to save others. As we hear today’s Gospel on a day that has much meaning for us, we’re called to listen to the ways that God’s word interacts with this specific reality.
We can listen to God’s message about forgiveness as an abstract teaching, knowing that we’re called to forgive abundantly for our own sake and for the sake of our neighbors in the context of our faith. But, when we try to put forgiveness into practice in specific real-life situations, it’s another thing altogether. We all know that we need to forgive in order to move on with our lives and to live out Christ’s Good News, yet this isn’t so easy in those hurts that exist in our lives, that tear us up inside. Maybe intellectually we can understand the need to forgive, maybe we can even forgive someone who has sinned against us up here, in our minds, yet when we look into our hearts, at the deep-seeded emotions and feelings that reside there, forgiveness might be hard to come by. I remember one morning at the mission site where I served as a missionary in Ecuador, a woman came into our parish office to request a mass intention; she wanted us to pray that the strong arm of the Lord would come down on her husband. When the nun asked her what she meant by this, she explained that her husband had harmed her in a terrible way – in fact he had abandoned her and her children for another woman; she now wanted God to get revenge on her husband, for God to strike him down for what he had done. We had to explain to her that this was not the purpose of mass intentions. I think that may of us in our society are like this lady, in that deep down in our hearts, we may want God to punish someone who has harmed us, to get revenge.
Let’s look at what our first reading says about forgiveness. Ben Sirach was a Jewish scribe who wrote in Jerusalem two centuries before Christ. The book of Sirach that we have in our Catholic Scriptures, but which is not included in the Protestant Bible, addresses many ethical situations that we face in life. Today, Sirach tells us that although wrath and anger are hateful things in our lives, we often hold onto them. According to Sirach, God’s wisdom tells us to forgive our neighbor’s sins and injustices, so that when we pray, our Lord will likewise forgive us our own sins. If we nurture anger and hatred, where will we find healing? Where will we be on our journey of faith? In recent decades, we as a Church have not only focused on the sins and injustices that we commit as individuals, but also sins that are a part of the structures and framework of our society. As we mark the 9/11 anniversary, perhaps God is calling us to look at the ways we as a community can implement forgiveness and reconciliation. Perhaps, this is the best way we can honor those lives that were lost on that day. In our Gospel, God calls us to extend forgiveness in a way that goes beyond what a reasonable person would do. We might think that forgiving someone once for a sin would be noble, but Jesus tells us to forgive not once, not twice, not seven times, but seventy-seven times, forgiving in a manner that far exceeds whatever sincerity the sinner might offer us, forgiving in a way that goes far beyond the seriousness of the offense the sinner had committed. Perhaps in telling us to forgive so many times, Jesus is showing us the abundance and magnitude of God’s own love and mercy, of the many times God forgives us for the sins we have committed, for the ways we have broken God’s laws and have strayed from the path of faith.
Jesus shows us in today’s parable that forgiveness can affect great change in our lives and in the lives of others. When we forgive someone instead of engaging in a cycle of revenge, we help him find reconciliation and liberation, helping to free him from guilt, shame, and all that is weighing them down. In forgiveness, we also liberate ourselves from bitterness, vengeance, and a cycle of violence that could eventually consume us and lead us away from the path of salvation. The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 wished us harm and wished to destroy us, that is true, but there are also many people throughout the world and from the countries from which the terrorists came that have paid a big price for the terrorist attacks as well; they are in need of reconciliation as well.
We recognize that the world is a tough place right now. People are lashing out in anger and violence. People are being attacked. Businesses and private property are being destroyed. Some people feel like their voice should be heard and they force their voice on others - but they don’t want to hear what the other person has to say. Schools, businesses, churches, stores, restaurants - no place is operating the way it did before the pandemic. There is a lot of fear out there, for sure. The world is a place that needs forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation right now. How can we help in that process?
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