There is a wonderful movie called
“Rosanna” which is set in Italy. The hero runs a little bar and
his wife seems to be sickly, and anticipates dying soon. Her one
wish is to be buried next to the child they lost. However, the
cemetary is rapidly filling up, and although there is land that could
be used for a new cemetary, the owner was spurned by the woman before
she married the barkeeper, and out of spite will not sell the land.
Much of the movie has to do with the hero trying desperately to keep
people from dying before his wife can be buried. In one particular
scene, the hero has discovered a dead body, but propped him up in a
chair to look like he is still alive. A mortal enemy discovers that
the man is actually dead, and pulls out a pistol and says, “You
think you can get away with me by dying? I'm coming after you!”
And he shoots himself in the head, making the problem for our hero
even worse.
This gospel passage shows us Jesus
telling Peter that his followers are expected to forgive, seventy
times seven times, which basically means “always”. To be a
follower of Jesus, you have to forgive those who harm you. But the
rest of the passage – what is it about? Jesus likens the Kingdom
of heaven to the situation where a king is owed a huge debt, and is
about to sell the debtor, his family and all his property to get what
he is owed, but when the debtor begs him, saying he will pay the debt
if he is given a little more time, the king forgives the whole debt.
He does not say, Okay, you have more time, he forgives the debt. And
then the debtor goes out and throttles a fellow servant who owes him
a very small debt. The onlookers are offended and they tell the
king, who takes the debtor and throws hands him over to the torturers
until the whole debt is paid. And Jesus then threatens us with the
statement that Our Father in heaven will do that to us if we do not
forgive our brother in our hearts.
Three things catch my attention in
this parable. The first is that the king forgives the whole debt.
He had every right to his first option, which was to recover his
money. He could have been more merciful and given terms of repayment
to the man. But he forgave the whole debt. The second thing is that
Jesus tells us Our Father in heaven will do this to us if we don't
forgive. The third thing is that we have to forgive in our hearts.
A lot of people look at this passage
and say that we are like that unjust servant, and the king in
question is like God, and the second servant is like our neighbor,
and that's certainly a legitimate way to look at the passage. But
maybe if we plunge a little deeper.
The King forgives – and does so at
the request of his servant. When the king forgives it is as though
there is no debt, as though the servant had never borrowed anything.
The pre-debt relationship is restored. And all because the servant
asked. If the king is meant to represent God, then the king is also
giving an example of Godly forgiveness – forgiveness in the heart,
as it were. I think most of us can think of someone who offended us
in the past, and maybe we forgave that person, and maybe we even are
on fairly good terms again. But when we remember the offense, it
sets off our adrenalin, we relive the offense, we can still feel how
we felt then. I think that means we have not forgiven in our hearts.
I think it means that at some level there is still a barrier between
us.
When the servant refuses to extend the
same kind of charity to his fellow servant, having him put into
prison until he pays his debt, the wicked servant widens the gap
between him and his fellow servant. His heart is hardened; his
fellow servant becomes less of a human, more of a thing, in his eyes.
And when this happens, the wicked servant also drives a wedge
between himself and the king; in a way, the wicked servant has lost
his status before the king as a fellow human being and as such pays
the consequences.
Now although Jesus tells us that if we
do not forgive in our hearts, our Father will do the same thing to
us, it isn't that God is waiting for us to slip up, and then plans to
punish us if we do. The real point is that as long as we have not
forgiven others in our hearts, we really can't have that relationship
with God which we seek. A heart full of resentment, bitterness,
anger, is not a heart that can give itself entirely to God. And if
we can't become one with God then we will be very sorry indeed.
Being a Christian takes work. Some of
our fellow Christians say that all you need to do is acknowledge
Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Others say that if you avoid sin and
frequent the sacraments, that's all you need. And you know, I
suspect given the love God has for us, and given the fact that He
gets what he wants, and that he wants every one of us to be with him
in heaven, We'll probably wake up someday and know that we are going
to heaven. But even in the next life, we can't come into his
presence as long as there is anything holding us back. Maybe God
will give us an infinite amount of time to forgive our brother in our
heart, but it will certainly make things go a lot smoother if we
learn to do this now. In fact some saints have said that forgiveness
in the heart is literally the key to living in the Kingdom of heaven.
Sometimes if we cannot forgive in our hearts, we actually need help.
Being unable to forgive is one of the main reasons people see mental
health professionals. So on this Sunday let us ask, is there anyone
we need to forgive?
No comments:
Post a Comment