Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
What’s the hardest thing about being Catholic? Is it believing that Jesus, who looked just like us, is God? Is it believing that Mary never sinned, and did not have original sin? Is it trusting that Jesus will not allow His Church to teach anything about what we are to believe or how we are to live that goes against His will? Is it that bread and wine are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit to truly become the Body and Blood of Jesus? Is it having only one spouse for an entire life? Is it not using artificial contraception, or artificial means of conceiving? Is it going to church every Sunday and holyday? Is it not lying, not gossiping, not coveting? Or is it Jesus’ command that we hear today, that we are to forgive?
Maybe some of those other things are hard for us as well, but I hazard a guess that forgiving someone who has hurt us is one of the most difficult parts of our faith. I don’t mean forgiving someone who didn’t really do us that much harm, or even forgiving someone who did us harm, but whom we easily love and so we easily forgive. And I don’t mean forgiving a stranger whom we don’t care about and will never see again. I mean forgiving someone who truly pierced our hearts by their actions, by their betrayal, by their serious wrongdoing, whom we know, with whom we interact.
And yet, that’s what Jesus calls us to do as His followers. We forgive, not only seven times, but seventy-seven times (and if you think that the number seventy-seven is meant to be exact, think again; it means over and over again). Forgiveness should be easy, because, as the author of Sirach says, “Wrath and anger are hateful things.” We usually stay away from things that are full of hatred. But for some reason, we can cling to wrath, anger, and unforgiveness.
We think that by holding on to the pain, to the hurt, to the wrong, to our grudge, that it makes us more powerful. We think that it hurts the other person by our being mad at them (when, in fact, the other person generally doesn’t know and/or doesn’t care). So we nurture our hatred toward that person. What that person did can be truly wrong, maybe even heinously wrong. Maybe someone ruined our good name, or cost us our job. Maybe someone inflicted great bodily harm against us, or, sometimes even worse than bodily harm, emotional or spiritual harm. I’m not talking, and neither is the Lord, about ignoring the bad behavior, or saying that it doesn’t matter. Forgiveness only means something when what happened does matter, and did really hurt us.
Perhaps even more striking than what Jesus teaches us about forgiving others, though, is that the way we forgive, or don’t forgive, others, is how we will be forgiven. Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says it this way: the measure we measure out to others will in turn be measured out to us. In other words, God will forgive us as we forgive others. This shouldn’t come as a shock, though, because we say it each time we say the Our Father: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. May we take it as: forgive us, because we’re forgiving others. But we can also look at it as: forgive us in the measure that we forgive others.
I want you to close your eyes now. Go ahead, close them. Think of a person that has hurt you, that you are having a hard time forgiving, or maybe cannot forgive. Think of that person’s face, their eyes. Think about what that person did that you are finding it difficult or impossible to forgive. Maybe you feel that hurt welling up inside you again, that anger pulsing through your body, wanting retribution, wanting justice, wanting revenge. What words did you say to that person in anger?
Keep your eyes closed. Now picture yourself standing before the judgement seat of Christ. You are there, cognizant of your sinfulness, but wanting mercy, wanting to be welcomed into heaven. You can almost feel the joy, the warmth, the light coming from just beyond where you are. You can sense that you were made for that place, that it would complete you. And from the mouth of Christ you hear the words that you spoke in anger to the person you cannot forgive. What do you feel now?
You can open your eyes again. If we really took that exercise seriously, it was probably pretty stark; maybe even scary. I know it was for me as I composed this homily. Jesus died for us, He forgave us for leading Him to the cross, not because He had to, but because He loves us. He wants to forgive us, and the only thing that can stand in our way is our lack of forgiveness towards others. So today, even if it can only be far away and can’t or shouldn’t be in person, forgive that person who has harmed you. Let go of the hatred and the grudge you’ve been holding on to. Forgive others, so that your heavenly Father can forgive you.
