Matthew 18:21 - 35
When we hear this very familiar parable, our first impulse is to see the ruler as a stand-in for God. He forgives the servant a huge debt, but the servant then goes out and refuses to forgive a fellow servant who owes him spare change. And of course the ruler takes back his forgiveness and sends the unforgiving servant off to be tortured until his unpayable debt is finally payed -- basically, never.
But I don’t think the ruler is a stand-in for God. After all, Jesus just told Peter that his followers were to forgive “seventy times seven times” in other words, they were to live a life of forgiveness. But if God only forgives once and then takes back his forgiveness, how is that an example for us? One authority thinks that what Jesus is describing isn’t forgiveness at all, but rather, has to do with false forgiveness -- something that comes from power, from selfish motives, something that comes from anything but the heart. The ruler is in a position where he can forgive or condemn; he has all the cards. Whatever he does, his servant is at his mercy. To be sold into slavery along with your family is humiliating, but so is being forgiven a debt you could never pay, and in a society where saving face was more important than it is in ours, the humiliated servant lashed out the first chance he got -- to a servant over whom he had power. And when he chose not to forgive his fellow servant, the only reaction of the ruler to save face was to take back his false forgiveness, to prove to everyone that his servant could not make him look like a fool. It’s kind of like when a parent gets angry at a child for something the child deserved, and then the child goes out and kicks the dog. And Jesus is describing a false forgiveness, one that can be taken back. The only problem with my interpretation is that Jesus says, “So my heavenly father will do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.” But maybe my interpretation is still valid -- maybe I can’t receive God’s forgiveness unless I make room for it by letting go of the resentment and ill feelings I have toward someone who has done me harm.
But we need to understand what forgiveness is. It is not denial, it is not saying that some serious harm done by someone to me is nothing; it isn’t Christian to say, “That awful thing you did, it’s OK.” Jesus didn’t tell the money changers that what they were doing was OK, he fashioned a whip and drove them out of the temple. He didn’t tell the Pharisees who laid heavy burdens on people by their rules and regulations that that was OK. He compared them to a whitewashed tomb. Forgiveness is not tolerating an evil in our midst, unless there is no recourse.
Forgiveness is not a shortcut. True forgiveness still requires repentance and spiritual transformation, often on the part of the one doing the forgiving as well. Grace is not cheap, and even though God’s forgiveness is freely offered, it comes only because Jesus has paid the price for it on the cross. We may be able to let something go, and that may be a good thing psychologically for us; but the true healing of the relationship requires a response from the brother we want to forgive.
Forgiveness is not the same as healing and reconciliation. There are situations where I may forgive, but things will never be the same in my relationship with the one I forgave. Healing may take longer than forgiving; reconciliation may never happen in some situations, even though it’s always the job of the follower of Jesus to be open to the possibility. Forgiveness is the beginning of building up God’s kingdom, not the end; because if we have not forgiven, we are stuck, we can’t move forward, we are letting ourselves be controlled by the one who offended us.
Finally, real forgiveness is not easy. One writer said “Forgiveness is the way to unburden yourself of the constant pressure to rewrite the past.” Henry Nowen said “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced by those who love poorly. And we all love poorly. … Forgiveness is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”
Holding on to anger about the harm done to me does nothing to combat evil; in fact it probably feeds evil. Forgiveness is saying, “What you did is not OK, but I refuse to be connected to it anymore.” It’s about freedom, really, freedom to escape the past, to live in the present, to look forward to the future without carrying all that festering resentment along with me.
There are some of us who can forgive more easily than others. It has to do with our temperaments. Saint Jerome wrote hundreds of letters many of which survive. It’s pretty obvious that he had a hard time forgiving people -- and he knew it, but he kept trying all his life. He even used to hit himself with a rock when his anger was getting the best of him. At his canonization, Pope Clement recounted all the great things Jerome had done, but said that the stone was the reason for his becoming a saint.
And we should never forget that Jesus tells us that God’s forgiveness of me is conditional; we pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It isn't that God doesn't want to forgive me; it's that when I don't forgive I'm causing myself pain; I'm imagining how I can get back at my enemy; I realize that while I don't forgive my prayers are just words – being an unforgiving person is probably something like being in hell. God doesn't put us there, but doesn't stand in our way if that's what we want.
