24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Simham)

Last week Jesus was talking to us about something which we find very easy to give and difficult to take. Correction. Today Jesus is talking to us about something which we find very easy to take but find it hard to give. That is to forgive.

Let us be honest. None of us can go through life without getting hurt. After all we are humans and we have feelings. Naturally we will be hurt. Now what happens when we are hurt? As soon as we get hurt self-pity walks in to our front door. You welcome him inside. But once self-pity is entertained, it produces legacy of bitterness, resentment and anger. Then the memory of wrongs done to you  flow inwards where it festers. As a result it poisons your spirit, and destroys your peace and it destroys your health and your capacity to love. Some people have years of stored hurts inside them which is shown in their ill health. Now how to deal with the hurts? I know it is difficult to deal with the hurts, because they really hurt. But Jesus gives us the Mantra; Mantra of forgiveness.  Jesus tells Peter “you need to forgive not seven times but seventy times seven.” Make it a habit.

When he was teaching his disciples how to forgive in Mathew as the fifth petition in the prayer he taught them to pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And he follows it up with the explanation in verses 14 and fifteen of chapter six. No other petition in the Lord’s prayers is explained like this. He says “”For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).Compare it with our First Reading Ecclesiasticus 8:2-4: Forgive your neighbour the hurt he does you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven. If a man nurses anger against another, can he demand compassion from the Lord? Showing no pity for a man like himself, can he plead for his own sins? My brothers and sisters, if “LOVE” is the soul of Christianity as I told you last week; “FORGIVENESS” is the ultimate expression of that love. Think of a world without forgiveness. It will be chaotic. Where there is no forgiveness, there is hell. Whether it is in the heart, or family or community, if there is no spirit of forgiveness, you can see hell there.

Secondly, Jesus tells a parable and gives us the reason why we need to forgive; and why we are obliged to forgive. Beautiful story of a forgiving king and unforgiving servant.

What I want to highlight in the parable is the equation of the respective debts in the parable. First servant, you know how much he owed to the king ? Ten thousand talents. What is a talent? A “talent” is a measure of weight, close to about 130 lbs, which was used to measure  gold and silver (and presumably other precious metals). In monetary terms then the talent was roughly equal to about 15 years worth of wages for the typical worker. The king in our parable is owed 10,000 talents, or about 150,000 years worth of income. This is no little debt. All of this debt is written off by the king. What a generous act of mercy.

Now he goes and finds his fellow servant owed only 100 Denarii. A denarius (plural = denarii) is a small silver coin that was roughly the daily wage for the typical worker. This is not a big dept. It can be written off or he can be given some more time to pay. What troubles the onlookers is a man who received so much of forgiveness was not able to forgive his fellow servant who owed him very little. Comparing to the values of debt he was forgiven, the debt of his fellow servant was nothing.

The point of this parable is clear that we need to be forgiving. Forgiving our brother or sister from your heart is the essence of Christian faith.  For two reasons.

1. We need to be forgiving because God has already forgiven us in Christ. 1 reason. Its our duty to forgive. Not generosity, but its duty.
2. We need to be forgiving because unless we forgive we cannot ask for forgiveness. This is the reason why we need to be forgiving.

Now, is it easy to forgive? Especially those who used us and abused us who caused so much damage to us?. No it is not so easy. But, Is there any other alternative? Vengeance can only lead to vengeance. Its only mercy that can lead to mercy. Go to any psychiatrist, he will say forgive and try to forget. Look at our God; how much we offend him. How we neglect him and use and abuse his creation. Is he not forgiving? That is why they say “To err is human and to forgive is Divine.” We are called to be forgiving like our God.

Fr. Showreelu Simham