The
forgiveness of God is one thing, but the proof that we want that forgiveness is
the energy we expend to make amends for the wrong.
Fulton J. Sheen Thoughts for Daily Living (1955) 106–7
The need for
forgiveness is something of which we are, I suspect, all too aware. The last
few years have seen our politicians making fraudulent expenses claims,
journalists engaging in shady, underhand and illegal practices, the church
continues to be rocked by immoral behaviour which falls short of what it
expects of its clergy. People are hurt and they find it very hard indeed to
trust many of our public institutions. The wounds are deep, they will not be
healed easily. It will take time, and effort, and energy. There needs to be the
recognition of having done things wrong and a desire and heartfelt commitment
to turn away from the sins of the past and to work to make things better: this
is what repentance is, what it looks like in practice.
Today’s Gospel begins with a very
human question about forgiveness. In answer to Peter’s question Jesus tells him
to forgive his brother not seven times but seventy-seven times. We are to
forgive each other as many times as is necessary because God in Christ forgives
us. God loves us even to the extent of giving His only Son to die for us, to
take our sins upon Himself; to heal our wounds through the shedding of His
Blood upon the Cross. God demonstrates to the world the costly nature of this
forgiveness – it is not easy, it is painful, nasty, and cruel. But in the midst
of this evil and cruelty God’s love and life shine through: an act of torture,
sending an innocent man to His death, can become the place where our human
nature is restored and we can share in the divine life of love.
Our response to such divine
compassion has to be that we, as Christians, live lives of love and forgiveness:
we live it out as a sign to the world that the ways of cruelty and retribution
do not achieve anything. This will not be easy, it will be difficult: impossible
on our own, and still barely achievable when we do it as a community, unless we
rely upon the God who loves us and forgives us, who heals and restores us. It
will look like foolishness to the world, which demands retribution: there must
be someone to blame, someone must pay the price.
Well, someone did, two thousand years ago in a town in the Eastern Mediterranean
– a troublemaker, a prophet, who said he was the Son of God. He was not just a
man, but God himself, who came to preach Good News to a world which did not
want to hear him, which found it easier to kill a man who made people feel
uncomfortable, who offered a radically different way of living and being. He
offers the world unlimited forgiveness, not so that it can just carry on
regardless, but so that it can be transformed into a community of radical love.
This is not to disregard the matter of judgement: the master settles his
accounts but is willing to give the servant a chance to make amends. We are the
servant: we have a debt which we cannot pay. We have been forgiven, and so we
are expected to do likewise. We live lives of truth and love and forgiveness to
proclaim God’s marvellous love to the world and to invite it to join in. That
is why every day we pray ‘forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin
against us’ so that the ways of envy, of hatred, of retribution, are replaced
with those of love and forgiveness. God does it for us, so that we can do it to
others: recognising our human sin and weakness so that we can turn away from
it. We are to transform the whole world and everyone in it, so that they may
have live and life in all its fullness. We are fed by the word of God and by
the sacrament of His Body and Blood to be strengthened, to share in His divine
life, to fit us for Heaven, and to transform all of creation that it may
resound his praise and share in his life of the Resurrection, washed in His
Blood and the saving waters of Baptism: forgiven and forgiving so that all that
we say, or think, or do, all that we are may be for the praise of God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most
right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion and power, now and forever
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