Forgiveness

Peter asks the question how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? In Jewish custom seven was excessive, three times was apparently all that was called for. But even by doubling that number and adding another for luck Peter still comes short of truly understanding what Jesus has been telling them about the vastness of God’s forgiveness towards us, his wayward and rebellious children. Peter is expecting a pat on the back and a well done from Jesus but instead receives a rebuke and a Jesus uses a parable to try and show Peter how vital and generous God’s forgiveness is for us, and the demands that are placed upon us when we acknowledge and benefit from that forgiveness.

I suppose we can understand Peter’s question to Jesus, how many times? What are we to do with those who are serial apologisers, people who are constantly wronging us time and again? Surely we have all said to ourselves at one time or another “enough is enough, I will take no more and turned our backs. Or perhaps we have said the words but not felt them in our hearts, storing up the bitterness and anger, keeping count and being ever more and more consumed by our sense of injustice.

Not so says Jesus, that is not the way that forgiveness works.

Forgiveness is a matter of life and death! Joseph’s brothers, in our first reading today know the reality of that. If Joseph was to hold them to account for their actions towards them they and their families would starve to death because of the famine. So forgiveness is vital to those who are forgiven but it is also essential to the one who forgives. We may feel that Joseph would have been justified in withholding his forgiveness from those who had mocked and excluded him as a child; who had tricked him and sold him into slavery separating him from his father who thought he was killed by wild animals. Would we have blamed him if he had been unable to forgive? If instead he had taken his chance for revenge!

Even if we could not condemn Joseph God certainly could as Jesus shows us in the parable of the unforgiving servant. The servant has been forgiven so large a debt that it is hard to comprehend the generosity of the King. And yet, he goes out and has a fellow servant thrown into jail for what is a trifling amount by comparison. He ends up being handed over to the torturers until his debt is paid. Not his original debt to the King, that has already been forgiven. The debt that the unforgiving servant has to pay is the forgiveness he owed to his fellow servant. I have to say that I think it would take him a lot longer to pay that debt than the ten thousand talents he originally owed.

Surely if we are truly aware of how God has forgiven each one of us, of how much he has had to forgive us then we cannot do anything but forgive our brothers and sisters who wrong us. That must be especially so of us who gather here week by week to remember the sacrifice made to free us from our sins to win our forgiveness. I hope that each one of us spends some time in examining our consciences and reflecting on the week past before we come here on a Sunday. Preparing to offer our faults to God seeking his forgiveness and the strength to rise above them. If we are aware of our own faults and shortcomings then we should be better able to forgive those of others. Otherwise we are in danger of thinking that we know better than God or worse still of offering a poor reflection to the world of the God that we say we believe in.

Think of the torture of a grudge carried, of a wrong remembered and dwelt on, a wound at which we are constantly picking. Think of the pain as it burns within us and eats away at us. I read once that not forgiving someone is like taking rat poison yourself and expecting the rat to die. So we must forgive not only to fulfil that duty we owe to God but also because when we forgive others the person who is usually most healed is ourselves. Joseph knew that truth Jesus showed that truth in his life but we find it so difficult to grasp hold of no matter how much it is explained to us. we can accept it as an ideal as an abstract concept but when it comes to actually living it we find it incredibly difficult. But lip service or an intellectual appreciation is not enough as our gospel informs us it must be “from your heart.”

If you want to know how to forgive from the heart then perhaps this story will help you with a bit of practical advice. I thought it was particularly appropriate for today as you will see.

A woman on her Golden wedding anniversary is sitting with her granddaughter who asks her what the secret of her long and happy marriage is. “Well” she says “on my wedding day I decided that I would make a list of ten of my husbands faults which, for the sake of our marriage I would forgive him for.” “What were some of the faults that you put on the list?” the granddaughter asked. “To tell the truth I never did actually get down to writing the list. But every time he did something that got me really angry or upset I would say to myself “Lucky for him that is one of the ten” and forgive him.”

We should all give thanks this morning that God has one of those lists for each of us. That each time we fall short he is waiting there with open arms saying “lucky for you that is one of the ten”



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