Forgiveness

 

For some reason, I just noticed that Matthew Chapter 18 seems to wander in defining forgiveness.  In 18:15-20, the Gospel says to make every effort to correct what your brother did wrong.  Talk to him, and if he doesn’t get it, take a couple others with you to explain.  Then, if he refuses to listen (thinks he did nothing wrong??), “treat him like a pagan.”  That sounds like no forgiveness of his sin.

But in verses 18:21-35, Jesus says if your brother wrongs you to forgive him 77 times.  It seems Jesus has just said forgive no more than 3 times, and now He says 77?  And what follows that is the parable about the rich man who forgives a servant’s huge debt, but when he hears that same servant won’t forgive someone who owes him a small debt the rich man says to “hand him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt.”  What?!!  The rich man forgave once, and then later reversed his forgiveness?

So, am I being told to forgive 3 times, 77 times, or once --- and then watch and see what happens after that?

In simplistic terms, I guess the 3 times as my/our trying to evangelize fallen away Christians, or sinners.  The sinner might be someone who “just doesn’t get it,” and after our best efforts we should not provoke anger but just lay back and let a better teacher come forward.  And if he is of a mindset of “I don’t want to get it, because I am always right,” then we pray the Holy Spirit will find a better way to resolve our differences and bring him back to the church.

In simple terms, I see the 77 times point to confession, God will never turn His prodigal child away.  And, at personal level, I shouldn’t be holding grudges or speaking badly of someone who sees life differently than I do.  Causing others to become irritated or angry is causing them to sin.  I’m reminded of that poster in the church narthex, of the face of Jesus and the words to “see the face of Jesus in everyone.”  They are all God’s children, even if I don’t know why He isn’t punishing them --- yet.  I will resolve to always forgive others, and even as I forgive, I will then say the Our Father prayer will total sincerity.

And the rich man, I see as God, Who can forgive anything, even what Adam and Eve did.  But, in that case, forgiveness took a huge act of begging for mercy, by Jesus Christ on the cross.  But, … using the same parable, will the Father at some point pull back that forgiveness, for at least some of mankind?

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And then a differing view was instilled in my heart (with the trigger of a good sermon).

The human person can forgive, love, and even pray at three levels. 

The first level is sensory, when our emotions or reactions drive our decisions to forgive, love, or pray.  Sometimes our reactions are triggered by our senses: “Ouch, that’s hot!  What a gorgeous sunset!  Wow, she’s beautiful. Hey, that guy just cut me off.”  We think of emotions as split-second reactions that we couldn’t stop, but being aware of our emotions does allow us to work on changing them.  Some reactions are vices, sinful if we let them go on with no effort to change.  That’s like going to Confession with no firm resolve to sin no more.  For every vice, however, there is a virtue, and we can grow more virtuous reactions by resolving to do them, until the virtue becomes our split-second reaction, not the vice. 

The second level is a result of a mental choice:  I can will to forgive, love or pray because it is a commandment, and I resolve to obey what God commanded me. While mental implies a thought out function, It can become a rote process, no different than another reaction.

And besides mental and emotional, there is a third function of our human body, our spiritual being.  Prayer can be just rote mental prayers, or emotional reactions, or an awareness that we are always God’s children, and can talk to Him.  We can sincerely ask His forgiveness, or express our love, even in ways beyond words, from our heart.  If we take time away from our body’s mental and emotional triggers, in the deliberate silence of prayer we can tell Him in ways beyond words, and then perceive his love and forgiveness. 

Keep Your Eyes on God

 

I’ve been struggling to write a blog posting about love; it’s such a simple, yet immensely complicated thing.  I now have come to realize that I can’t really think about it --- not in the sense of understanding it.  God IS Love; how could I ever comprehend the totality of His Being so I can write it all down?

But there are some things I can comprehend --- or think I do.  How many hundred times did I read and reflect on Matthew 14, where Jesus walks on water, and bids Peter to come to Him.  And Peter does, also walking on water until He takes his eyes (and focus) off of Jesus, and he begins to sink.  I could write many words, deeply insightful and perhaps inspired words about this passage.  I mean I understood the message, or I thought I did.

In reflections in The Better Part (#47) about that Gospel, Fr. Bartunek wrote: “as he let his eyes wander away from Christ to examine the intimidating waves, he began to sink.”  Certainly, I could add to Fr. Bartunek’s words, but the word “intimidating” struck me.  What would you say if I asked you what was intimidating in your life?  I can imagine many of your answers.  It’s a rare person who would respond: “Nothing.”   We live in the world, and therefore the world does affect us in some way.  It must, but how we react is the question.  Do we ignore the world and events around us, or do we let them influence us in some way?  How much?  You can ignore the breeze or the beautiful sunshine, but you better not ignore that STOP sign.  So, in the situation Peter was in, how could he not be aware, and even worried, about the waves?  That’s why the quote I noted so struck me tonight.

I guess it started a few weeks ago, when my local church displayed a large banner in the narthex.  The banner had a large Image of Jesus’ crucified face, and the words “Seeing Jesus among us,” and lower down were the words “Seeing the face of Jesus in everyone.”  That face and the words seemed to hang with me, like it was important, but I wasn’t sure why.  On the surface, I equated it with the command that we must love God and neighbor, but that seemed too simple.

Tonight, reading Fr. Bartunek’s Gospel commentary about Peter sinking caused me to recall that banner, and my previous attempts to describe my thoughts about love.  I think I now have a better insight into a key underpinning about that word love, and what it means to each of us.  The banner is a suggestion on how we should live our life, seeing the face of Jesus in everyone.  After all, we are all God’s children and He loves each of us, whether we are a good child or a bad one, and so each person is our sibling.  There are many reasons for siblings to argue or even not talk to one another, but we have a parent telling us “to apologize to your sibling.”  In the Gospel of Matthew, that parent tells us rather bluntly that if we have anything against our neighbor to go and ask forgiveness before we enter the Father’s house, and in another place in Matthew are words telling us that we should ask forgiveness if our neighbor has anything against us.  Either way, we are commanded to reconcile before going into the Father’s house.  It’s like a father telling his kids to make up, no matter what the fight was about, or who was right or wrong.  That is what that banner tells me.

Peter’s sinking is not due to his not treating his neighbor right, but from choosing (with his free will) not to see the face of Jesus right in front of him.  And he begins to sink.  Earlier I wrote of how it seems Peter could not ignore the world around him, even as we can’t, but that word “intimidating” explains something he (and we) could do.  We could remember that banner.  There are troubles in the world, in our politics, in our state, and in our family, things in some way impacting us that are hard to ignore.  But we can choose to not be “intimidated” by them, to let those events outside of our control (like the waves around Peter) be a worry --- because it will cause us to take our eyes off the face of Jesus.  And we will begin to sink.

We can choose not to be irritated about politics or wars or even the behavior of some of our siblings especially if, unlike the STOP sign, it will have no immediate direct impact on us.  And in choosing not to be irritated by them, or talk about them to get others irritated about them, we CAN instead resolve to pray about them, because God can do something about them.  And in recalling the face of Jesus in each person, we can calm ourselves down.  Remember how much He suffered for us, each one.  Despite all that is happening, He is in control.  He is God.  Keep your eyes on God, and you won’t crash --- or sink.  Just trust in God.  I know that’s hard to do; that’s probably why they wrote those words as a reminder on one of our coins.    

Review: Justice

Review:  Justice
Judge Rightly, Give Freely

 

In his book, Fr. Gregory Pine presents very clearly the embodiment of the virtue of Justice, how it is lived.  I’m sure everyone has a “belief in justice”, but people might have differing practical, lived out, beliefs of justice, and often with a foundation of “my rights.”  Fr, Pine quickly moves to define this book’s purpose as a look at my neighbor’s actions --- is he doing what he ought to be doing, acting justly. 

“Instead of concentrating on our rights, we’ll focus on growing in virtue, making the effort to become just and act justly…. What is due functions as a guide….  The way God has created a thing sets the standard for how we ought to treat it.  My neighbor is a human being, (so) I ought to treat him accordingly; this entails respect for his freedom of self-determination.”

Fr. Pine speaks of God’s law at work in our nature, and the uniqueness of individual created human beings, and justice due from his neighbor or community.  There is a chapter titled: Working for the Common Good.  There is another titled: Acknowledging our Dependence.  You can see he moves far beyond a person’s definition of “my rights”, and opens up our hearts to the word “love”..  I enjoyed reading how clearly, with simple examples, Fr. Pine’s words get into the depths of the word Justice, and how they softly get into our depths.  Perhaps that’s why I underlined this portion on the last page of the book:

“As we progress in our states of life, we must leave space for love; we must allow ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ to give way to ‘ours’ and, ultimately, to ‘His’.  For by the life of love and mercy, we strive beyond the limits of mere justice.”