Sunday 24 (A-2005): Why forgive? Read: Mt. 18: 21-35; Sir 27:30-28:7

“How often must I forgive?” Peter is asking the wrong question. It puts him at the center.

But the parable with which Jesus answers him puts the “King” at the center. In other words, the question is not how often must I forgive, but how bountifully I have been forgiven by God.

The how, when and how much I should forgive is not to be decided as if I were the sole judge of the situation, but on the basis of the plenitude of mercy with which God has forgiven me. That is the meaning of the parable and of the words, “not seven times but seventy-seven times.”

If we talk of forgiving others while forgetting that we ourselves are sinners who have been forgiven, then we will probably never really forgive anyone.

Whenever we ask God for forgiveness but refuse in our turn to forgive, then, as the parable says, we are “wicked servants.” Our prayer for God’s mercy has been insincere. For had it been sincere, the compassionate love of God now present in our hearts would have pointed out the way we are to treat our fellow-sinners, especially those who sin against us.

Some people raise objections to this Christian notion of forgiveness.

They say it fails to respect justice: in other words, I am justified in withholding forgiveness because the other has done me real damage and should pay for it.

Others say, if the one who hurt me does not ask for forgiveness, then I cannot give it, otherwise the other person will think it is okay to keep hurting me. So, it would be irresponsible to forgive them.

Then, it is said, there are some offenses that can never be forgiven since the hurt inflicted is so deep.

Still others will condition forgiveness on whether or not their neighbor changes and acts the way they want them to act.

All of these objections, while very understandable and very common, fail to grasp the fundamental meaning of the forgiveness of Christ. Let me try and respond to each one.

First, there are those who say forgiveness conflicts with justice and the legitimate demand for the payment of damages.

But what does justice mean? Human justice means giving everyone what is their due in a balance of rights and duties. Lady Justice is blind so as to treat everyone equally before the law. Such justice is essential for public order.

But human justice does not look at the heart; it mainly regards external behavior and only such behavior as it considers a threat to social peace (no-one is imprisoned for unspoken thoughts of hatred). It does not examine the spiritual torment of the criminal even although that torment may be the ultimate root of their crime.

But forgiveness goes to the heart. It recognizes that the sin committed proceeds from some form of spiritual chaos. It sees that the hurt I may suffer is often much less than the inner pain of the culprit, even although he does not know it.

Forgiveness allows the victim to try and heal the damage of the one who has done the victimizing; it allows the one who is hurt to see beyond their own pain and even to heal their own pain by trying to heal the pain of the one who offended them.

Like Lady Justice, the one who forgives is also blind, in the sense of not focusing on themselves, but seeking the good of the other sinner.

Forgiveness does not seek repayment, nor mere external order, but the restoration of inner, spiritual order in the hearts of all who are involved in the painful situation. Then external order will be real and not just forced; it will flow from the recovered inner order of the heart.

This is divine justice, the same divine justice which led Jesus to pay no heed to the hurt God experienced because of man, but to go to the root of that hurt in man’s sinful heart and to root it out by means of his forgiveness. Human justice is but a pale reflection of divine justice.

Others object that, if the other does not ask for forgiveness, then I cannot give it or else they will keep hurting me. This objection lacks courage and confidence in the power of forgiveness to change hearts: it is akin to the child who “will not play” with others unless everything goes its way!

Forgiveness is not like candy or soda that we hand out to people: it is a profound way of being, a whole attitude to life, to others, to self. If someone asks for it, then alleluia! It means they have recognized their sin and a relationship can be restored. If they don’t, then, as God does with us, it can still be on constant offer, always hoping to be taken up.

Forgiveness towards the other who does not ask is like a constant prayer for their well-being, a hope for their change. A forgiving attitude reaches beyond the externals and asks the Lord to heal the other and to heal oneself.

If a person keeps hurting me, I must keep forgiving them, otherwise my forgiveness is not real, is not rooted in the memory and power of God’s own forgiveness of me.

This does not mean that I should not make clear that certain behavior is wrong; nor does it mean that I should lay myself open at every turn to that misbehavior.

If a person will not change their sinful behavior, it means they have not yet truly asked for forgiveness. But the one who wants to forgive must keep that door open, otherwise the offending one will not have the chance of forgiveness.

If I slam the door of forgiveness shut because the other is not complying with my wishes, then a possible change of heart in the other will be met with that closed door; they will lose the hope of forgiveness.

Reject the misbehavior but forgive the one misbehaving. Reject the sin, but love the sinner. I know this is difficult, but it is our vocation as Christians.

Does one not become a Christian by a sacrament which forgives our sins? To be Christian means to stand as one forgiven and to be sent as a missionary of that very forgiveness one has received.

There will be many situations, for example in marriage, where the demands of Christ may seem impossible, not because of Christ, but because of the stubbornness in one or other or both parties. All I can encourage you to do here is to try with all your hearts to do as Christ asks of you: to believe, hope and love that forgiveness may recover, rejuvenate and refresh the original love of the wedding day.

Others say that some offenses are so deep that they cannot be forgiven. Think of those who caused the great disaster of 9/11. Think of the victim of abuse, sexual or physical or psychological. There is no denying the depth of the pain and destruction in these instances. One cannot make light of the suffering endured because of them.

Yet, when all is said and done, that hurt will not be healed unless true and lasting forgiveness can come from the hearts of those so deeply offended. That forgiveness will perhaps be made easier by the true repentance and sincere request for pardon by the guilty.

Whatever may be the truth of this, Christ would clearly proclaim: the greater the offense, the greater the forgiveness to be offered. The more deeply I am offended, the greater is the opportunity, indeed the vocation, to show the forgiveness of Christ which necessarily passes through the scandal of the Cross.

From a human perspective, it is indeed scandalous to expect forgiveness in certain circumstances, but it is precisely for those circumstances that Christ endured the scandal of the Cross, so that no hurt may remain without healing, no offense without forgiveness.

If, instead of looking so much to myself and my own hurt, I look as did Christ to the spiritual misery of the one who has thus offended me, I can, like the King in the parable, feel great pity for that person and forgive their entire debt.

We must also remember that the reason for which I may feel so deeply hurt is not always that the other has done something which, of itself, is terribly bad. It can sometimes be my own hyper-sensitivity, my own moods or selfish personality which lie at the root of the hurt.

I should never just focus on “my pain”, but ask myself honestly if the pain is the result of my own immaturity, my lack of discipline, courage and confidence. Sometimes we can end up playing the blame game: any pain or hurt I have is always somebody else’s fault, never my own.

The blank refusal to forgive someone may well be the result of that someone’s malice, but it may also be the result of my own psychological, emotional or spiritual fragility. If it is the latter, then I should recognize it courageously and seek the help I need – and forgive, indeed ask forgiveness from, the one I have been blaming.

Then there are those who condition forgiveness on the other changing their behavior to act “as I want.” This is spiritual blackmail. It is using forgiveness as a way of controlling others. This empties forgiveness of its meaning.

Forgiveness is supposed to set the other free! Not bind him to my arbitrary command! Such pseudo-forgiveness is more like the torture the king intended to inflict on the servant who could not pay. If forgiveness is not unconditional it will not set free – it is neither true nor loving.

Christ’s forgiveness sets us free from our sins: how can our forgiveness bind others to do as we wish?

Having said all this, it must also be said, however, that forgiveness is not a blank check written by the naïve. Forgiveness does not say that everything is okay.

Forgiveness precisely presupposes that there is something wrong. No one will either ask or give forgiveness if sin is not in the picture. Sin means that someone recognizes that they have committed evil or that evil has been committed against them.

Moral evil cannot be tolerated – that is why it must be forgiven! Forgiveness destroys moral evil, though it may not immediately destroy its effects; failing to forgive allows evil to stick around and get bigger. Forgiveness condones no evil: the lack of forgiveness lets it grow.

Indeed, the lack of forgiveness itself very quickly becomes a sin: it focuses both parties on the evil between them instead of liberating them from it. The lack of forgiveness can entrench the offended party in an ever greater resentment while entrenching the culprit in an ever-deepening mire of crushing guilt.

What is evil must be recognized and proclaimed as evil, not with a view to condemning it only, but with a view to forgiving it and thus destroying it …. and thus liberating those held in its grasp. How will sin actually be removed from someone’s heart if it is not called for what it is?

Sin is the “elephant in the room” of the heart of contemporary society. Nobody wants to admit it or call it for what it is because it makes them face the truth that morality is still the key to man’s happiness, and morality implies recognition of an absolute truth, and absolute truth implies the acceptance of, obedience to and adoration of the living God.

If there is no sin there is no forgiveness and there is no God. Maybe that’s why so many go around today throttling one another and demanding of one another, “pay what you owe me.”

To sin is human, to forgive is divine. If we want “to be as gods”, it is neither bio-technology nor humanism nor some exotic vitamin that will get us there. It is only the love of the living God alive within us and shown most perfectly in the deep, deep waters of forgiveness.

So the real question is not if, when or how I forgive anyone: it is whether I have truly accepted into my deepest soul the forgiveness of God for me in Jesus Christ.

For if I have received that forgiveness, I will not even ask whether I should forgive. I will just do it. I will feel compelled to do it. The divine will then have become human in me. Then I will understand the meaning of those difficult words which we say so easily: “Forgive us our trespasses, AS we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Msgr. Peter Magee

Sunday, September 11^th, 2005

Our Lady of the Presentation, Poolesville, MD (all Masses)