Forgive me.
Society struggles with the idea of forgiveness, particularly in the face of violence or heinous crimes. Headlines exhort the state, government, and judiciary to ‘throw away the key’ for crimes ‘beyond forgiveness’.
How then, to square that with the Gospel today:
“Lord, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
God’s capacity for forgiveness is unlimited. But could that mean anyone? No matter how foul their crimes? It’s a question clergy know well whenever we speak about forgiveness and specifically the divine (and mysterious) capacity for forgiveness. “So” our imaginary interlocutor asks pushing the limits: “You’re trying to tell me that even Hitler could be forgiven by God and get into heaven?”
Well, the short answer to that is yes, it must be possible – even if the long answer is more complicated. And here, you are forgiven if you might be shifting uncomfortably, or even mentally thinking “Surely not…”
We find the very concept of forgiveness hard, so we instead fall into the easy trap of fetishizing punishment: the more extreme, or brutal, the better. ‘They deserve it’ we chant. ‘Longer sentences!’ ‘Drag them into court’ ‘Call that Justice?!’ Our minds frazzle at the merest suggestion that those people could be forgiven. How could we/they/God even think about forgiving them? They should all rot in hell! Our behaviour is like I crowd of old, one that shouted: “Crucify!”
Today’s Gospel confronts us asking a profound sequence of latent moral questions: how good are we at forgiveness? Do you forgive others? How good are you at asking forgiveness from those you wound? What is justice? What is mercy? What role do we all have to play in understanding that – or is it that we seek not actually justice, but revenge – and we forget that (as we heard only a fortnight ago) “vengeance is mine” says the Lord.
These are redolent, complex themes to grapple with.
Forgiveness, justice and mercy are interlinked. Throughout scripture a sense of balance when it comes to justice is always applied. In fact it is when the scales of justice and mercy are tipped too far one way or the other that sacred scripture can be its most robust.
“An eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth” we glibly quote as though there’s divine permission for a bit of mutual mutilation: but no.
In fact, the book of Exodus sets a scheme for reciprocal justice: the Hebrew is better read as ‘only an eye for an eye’ rebuking the barbarian Babylonian system of vengeful justice (where punishment is always more extreme than the crime). Alternatively, Kofer can be offered – a monetary payment instead of physical punishment but limited in value to relate to the crime someone is convicted of. It is a warning against harsh judgment – not a prescription for it.
Jesus uses this idea – and pushes it – in his explanation of divine justice, mercy and forgiveness in the Gospel.
His listeners would understand that Jesus isn’t telling a literal story of two slaves, master and those other slaves who seek justice. Jesus uses a metaphorical story to make his point – in the finest sense of rabbinic teaching. To ‘get’ how this is more than just another illustrative story – you need to understand a little of the monetary system.
A denarius was a coin whose value would equate to the value of one days work. If you valued denarii today at £50 the second slave’s debt is about £5,000 – a not inconsiderable sum, but not outrageous. A talent though of significantly higher value equated to about 60,000 denarii. So for someone to have racked up 10,000 talents is a phenomenal debt – that gives the first slave a debt of roughly £30bn.
That the master forgives such a whopping, massive, astronomically huge debt should then strike us as an act of extraordinary mercy. If you’re thinking, if he can afford to forgive 30bn, how much is he worth? That serves us well. How much is God, the creator of all and source of all, worth in our eyes? He is, after all, priceless and of infinite value and worth… and perhaps the slaves are, well, us: children of the Heavenly Father, enslaved… to money…
God’s generosity is unlimited. No matter how large our debt to him, how great our sin, in his compassion, love and mercy, there is the possibility of forgiveness. But something else is needed. This isn’t cheap one-way grace.
The Master’s righteous anger against the first slave isn’t because of the scale of his debt – but because the slave refuses to extend that same obligation of mercy to his fellow slave as he has received. The just punishment that follows is about a refusal to forgive, to act justly, to be merciful. It is about the hypocrisy of partiality: receiving but not then showing forgiveness.
We know this, even if we very much dislike admitting it. Our sense of justice and forgiveness is often partial, limited, half-hearted or prejudiced. Think about how we commonly react when someone does something wrong.
Those we favour – our friends, family, those whom we admire, we ‘give the benefit of the doubt’ We quickly seek to excuse, overlook or even condone their bad behaviour. ‘There by the grace of God go I” we giggle “It’s just them being them” as though that can or should justify our or their actions.
Those we’ve actually actively taken against, then even the smallest or most minor infraction they commit has us railing with indignation. Did you see what she did? Shameful! He should be fired – get me the manager, now! How quickly we take to our keyboards to condemn or fire off vitriolic emails to support our often non-existent misplaced case.
That picky partiality means those closest to us can find they get anything from the sharp end of our tongue to vitriolic payback if they hurt us, or cause us deep pain.
We all say justice, mercy and forgiveness are good things –so as long as they are on the terms we ourselves choose: the ones that often, unsurprisingly, unfairly benefit us. We are not impartial judges when we appear in our own court.
Jesus knows that we find forgiveness, justice and mercy difficult – so he advises us to forgive if only in order to be forgiven ourselves. We would be foolish not to take that advice to heart. The opportunities the Church provides for that are plentiful. And yet we pause at that chance.
For in asking for forgiveness, we first must acknowledge not only that we might have ‘done’ wrong, but also we need to recognise our need for forgiveness – to express remorse. For if we are to forgive others, then we must first learn the virtue of knowing and experiencing our own need to be forgiven.
The sins that we have committed might not be the greatest obstacle to our salvation but rather our refusal to embrace the universal nature of divine mercy and its implications for the way we relate to each other. Jesus tells St Peter ‘You must forgive seventy-seven times’ in other words ‘without limit’.
We’ve nothing to fear from the judgment of God as long as we don’t end our lives with a heart hardened against another person or bearing grudges. It’s not easy to forgive another person, but practice makes perfect and the grace to do that is there for the asking. The alternative, to harbour anger or grudges and to allow that to fester and grow is easier but ultimately futile. Resentment said Nelson Mandela is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. (Treatise of St Augustine of Hippo).
The Gospel today reminds us all of the need to think again about forgiveness, justice and mercy – especially when we see these virtues today corrupted, for social, financial or political ends. That begins with each and every one of us. For we must learn to forgive from the heart that we might be forgiven in turn and know the hope and joy of the promise of heaven. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it: without forgiveness, there is no future.
thebusypriest 