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24th Sunday |
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Dear Preachers:
Forgiveness isn’t easy, especially when offenses against us have caused pain not only to ourselves, but to someone we love. A conversation recently with a woman who had a bitter divorce gave evidence of the hurts that accompany almost every divorce. The woman is an unskilled worker with a fourteen-year-old daughter to raise. She wonders how she’ll pay her daughter’s fees and expenses for this new school year. Her former husband has withheld child support, though he can afford it. The mother is a devout Christian and feels guilty for her anger and resentment toward her former spouse. I wonder how she will hear this parable today in church?
Sometimes when I read scriptures the sense is rather clear and I can take something with me, a message for reflection. Even if I don’t understand an entire passage, I listen for a word, phrase, image or verse I can chew on and pray about till the next time I go to the bible or hear the scriptures proclaimed in church. For example, last week I was challenged not to let an offense against me fester. Instead, I heard Jesus say I should go to the offending brother or sister and talk over the offense with him/her. I don’t have to be a bible scholar to get something from passages like that.
But then there’s today’s story! The passage starts simply enough with a question by Peter. His inquiry picks up where we left off last week with Jesus’ description of the reconciliation process members of the community should pursue when an offense against them has been committed. By now, who among us doesn’t know the centrality and importance of forgiveness in the Christian community? Lest we forget, we are soon reminded of it whenever we say the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Even if we weren’t religious people, psychologists have told us of the importance of forgiveness, not only in our relationships with others, but for our own mental well-being.
In today’s gospel passage Peter puts a question about forgiveness to Jesus. Peter seems to think he has the right answer. But Jesus answers the question in a way that must have surprised Peter and, as if to back up his response, Jesus tells a parable. But this parable isn’t like one of those passages I mentioned above, easily accessible for reflection. It is a rough-sounding parable. On first hearing I feel edgy because God doesn’t come off sounding like anyone I’d like to get close to or get to know. After ending the parable about the unforgiving debtor’s being handed over to the torturers, “until he should pay back the whole debt,” Jesus adds, “So shall my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother/sister from your heart.” See what I mean? Sounds like quite a change from the loving compassionate God Jesus has been manifesting in his speech and actions. As a preacher I also suspect that closing line is going to reinforce the image of the punishing and demanding God some of us still carry around within us, even if it is deep down at an unconscious level. What’s a preacher to do with all the baggage this parable is carrying?
As we approach this parable let’s remember it is a Parable – not an Allegory. The parable is setting out for us something about what it is like to live under God’s dominion. The king is not a figure for God; nor do the debtors represent us. Jesus presents a story in response to Peter’s question. It is for us to consider. What is there in the world of this parable that reveals something to us of the workings of the kingdom of heaven? If we make God’s behavior the same as the king’s in the story, we will run into some tough issues: Is God really as vengeful as the powerful king? Will God stop being merciful if we are not forgiving? Is God’s forgiveness conditional? Whatever happened to the all-embracing mercy of God that Jesus has been revealing in the gospel? Let’s look more closely at the parable. First its setting or the occasion of Jesus’ telling the parable.
Peter asks his question about the number of times we “must” forgive. Poor Peter! He probably thought he was finally getting the point of Jesus’ teaching, since Jesus had just explained the process believers had to go through to be reconciled with offenders (Matt. 18: 15-20—last week’s gospel immediately precedes today’s). Peter probably thought he was being generous by suggesting forgiving a brother/sister seven times. That seems like a lot of forgiveness for a repeat offender. And in their belief, seven was a perfect number, it had a fullness. But even a “perfect number” has its limits; at a point one could say, “There, I have done what is required.”
Jesus’ response, “seventy-seven times,” as if to say, “you must forgive on and on and on.” He is telling the community that forgiveness is not counted or measured out like items on a shopping list – a dozen eggs, a six-pack of beer, two pounds of potatoes. Forgiveness, Jesus is saying, has no limits. You can see why he would have to follow up this statement with a parable. Jesus needs to underline the prominence, and quality forgiveness must have in his church.
I wonder if there is a part of the parable that has been cut out? After the initial debtor is forgiven the huge debt, why don’t we hear about his relief, joy and celebration? Why isn’t he jumping up and down like a person who has been let out of prison or won a 10-million-dollar lottery (one commentator says that in the original language the “huge amount” the servant owed the king would be the wages of a day laborer for 150,000 years!)
The unforgiving servant couldn’t possibly pay back what he owed to the powerful king. He says he needs time, but no matter how much time he would be given, or what he might have tried to do, he would never have been able to pay back even a fraction of what he owed. He was completely under the power of the king. But instead of “justice,” he received mercy. Parables always seem to have an element of surprise, something no one using worldly logic would have predicted. The servant has entered an entirely new way of living; using the world’s sense of justice, his debts should have ended his life and the life of his family. They were about to be sold. Instead, he and his family are set free from a debt they could never have paid. In the light of the great gift, the servant should have seen the rest of his life as living under the freedom he was given. He should have been aware that “all is gift.”
But none of this sinks in; he somehow has blocked the gift from affecting his life. We have proof-positive that he is unchanged when he refuses to forgive his fellow servant, “who owed him a much smaller amount.”
Sometimes as I work on a parable – rather, as a parable works on m – I try to paraphrase the major issues I am hearing. So far, this is what comes to me. The parable’s main features: a person owes a debt he could never repay, even though he claims he will. The debt is forgiven, not because of anything the debtor said or did, but due to an entirely gratuitous gesture by the one who owed the debt. The released debtor is unchanged by the gift he has received and immediately refuses to offer another debtor forgiveness for, in comparison to what the former owed, an insignificant amount. Since he was unaffected by the master’s enormous generosity, he is back to where he started, in debt with no way to pay it back. Now he must pay the consequences of his debt.
I hear the core gospel message restated in this parable. There is nothing we have done, or can do, to earn forgiveness. God gives it to us over and over again, “seventy-seven times.” First of all, we need to reflect on this truth. Our life with God is a gift, from beginning to end. We pause at today’s Eucharist to let that truth sink into our bones. When we asked for forgiveness today, we received it. The Eucharist is our act of thanksgiving for what we realize again we have received from the hands of a gracious God. A sign that we really believe we have been forgiven free of charge is to give similar forgiveness to others, again and again.
I am thinking of that single mother whose husband refuses to pay child support. I would go after him with the force of the civil law until he paid up. But in the light of today’s’ s gospel, I would pray for the power to forgive him so that I could get on with my life and set him free to do the same. After he has paid up!
Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091326.cfm
ONE GOOD BOOK FOR THE PREACHER
Barbara E. Reid, PARABLES FOR PREACHERS: YEAR A (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2001. Paper, $14.95 ISBN0-8146-2550-9.
A biblical scholar applies her rich scriptural background with her love of preaching to analyze the gospel parables as they appear in the Sunday and weekday lectionary for this liturgical year A. This is not a mere repetition of previous commentaries on the parables but a fresh and insightful approach. Especially useful are guidelines for interpreting the parables and an overview of Matthew’s gospel.
The preacher might highlight that the prayer we recite together most frequently incorporates the very same message as this parable. When, at the end of the Our Father, we pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” we are asking God to let the experience of being forgiven so transform our hearts that we may likewise forgive others. It would be a foolish person who would pray the other way around, asking God to forgive us only in the puny measure we are able to forgive others. What 18:35 as well as 6: 14-15 express is that the extent to which disciples learn to forgive in this life has ramifications for eternal life. —Reid, pages 140-1
Barbara Molinari Quinby, MPS, Director Office of Human Life, Dignity, and Justice Ministries Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC
Mini-reflections on the Sunday scripture readings designed for persons on the run. “Faith Book” is also brief enough to be posted in the Sunday parish bulletins people take home.
From today’s Gospel reading:
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you? Reflection:
In Jesus teaching it is quite clear, we must be known by our forgiveness, not because we have to earn it from God. But because God has already forgiven us without reservation or limits. If we hold back forgiveness from others, then this is a sign we have not accepted it ourselves from God and allowed it to enter our hearts to change us. Christians are those who live and act in the light of God’s forgiveness.
So, we ask ourselves:
POSTCARDS TO DEATH-ROW INMATES
“One has to strongly affirm that condemnation to the death penalty is an inhuman measure that humiliates personal dignity, in whatever form it is carried out.” ---Pope Francis
Inmates on death row are the most forgotten people in the prison system. Each week I am posting in this space several inmates’ names and locations. I invite you to write a postcard to one or more of them to let them know that: we have not forgotten them; are praying for them and their families; or whatever personal encouragement you might like to give them. If the inmate responds, you might consider becoming pen pals.
Please write to:
(While the prison is in Raleigh mail for inmates is processed at this address)
For more information on the Catholic position on the death penalty go to the Catholic Mobilizing Network: http://catholicsmobilizing.org
(Always includes the 6 latest reflections with the newest first.)
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