How many times have you “forgiven” God?
Year A – 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matthew 18:21–35: “How many times must I forgive?”
Today we conclude the fourth discourse of Jesus, devoted to life in community. The Gospel passage continues last Sunday’s teaching on fraternal correction.
Peter asks Jesus: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how many times must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” It is already a generous proposal: seven is the number of fullness, whereas rabbinic tradition generally spoke of three times.
Jesus had already strongly insisted on forgiveness. When teaching the disciples the Lord’s Prayer, the only petition of the prayer that Jesus later explicitly commented on was precisely the one concerning forgiveness: “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” (cf. Matthew 6:14–15).
Jesus answers Peter’s question in a surprising way: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Jesus’ answer, 70 times 7, in Jewish symbolism points to infinity (7 indicates perfection, while seventy times signifies multiplied perfection), a fullness without measure! Against the logic of Lamech’s vengeance, who boasted that he would be avenged seventy-sevenfold (cf. Genesis 4:24), Jesus sets the superabundance of forgiveness.
Then follows the parable of the king who cancels an astronomical debt owed by a servant, a debt impossible to repay. That servant, however, proves merciless towards a fellow servant who owes him a relatively modest amount: one hundred denarii, the equivalent of about one hundred days’ wages. When the master finds out, he withdraws the cancellation of the debt. Jesus concludes: “So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart.”
1. Forgiveness is a decision… on a journey!
We know how difficult it is to forgive. Anger, resentment and the desire to repay the evil we have suffered come more naturally. Some people even regard forgiveness as a weakness: the one who forgives would supposedly be incapable of standing up for his or her rights. To paraphrase Nietzsche, goodness would be an inability to rebel, patience cowardice, and forgiveness an inability to take revenge!
Yet the word “forgive” evokes the idea of “giving”: it is a complete giving. But it is not a cheap gesture. At times it costs blood and tears. Even the grace of God, Bonhoeffer reminded us, is a “costly grace”. Forgiveness was given to us through the love of Christ carried all the way to the cross.
For this reason, forgiveness is a decision sustained by grace. Often it is not enough to make that decision only once: it must be renewed whenever the memory of the offence rekindles the pain. We learn to forgive by walking along the path of forgiveness.
Unfortunately, many Christians will hear this word while carrying resentment towards someone in their hearts, perhaps for years, determined not to forgive a wrong they have suffered. And they may hear it without feeling touched in the slightest. “Yes, yes,” they tell themselves, “it is a beautiful thing, but unrealistic. Real life is something else! And besides, what that person did to me was far too serious…”
2. But… how many times does God forgive?
The answer seems simple: always. But are we truly convinced of it?
The Old Testament continually proclaims God’s love and mercy: “The Lord is good and great in love,” today’s responsorial psalm proclaims (cf. Psalm 102). But there are texts with harsher language, such as that of the prophet Nahum: “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and bears a grudge against his enemies” (Nahum 1:2).
The people of God gradually came to understand the depth of divine love. In Jesus, revelation reaches its fullness: God is Father, love and mercy. Yet we too risk imagining him as a severe judge to be feared rather than as a Father to be loved.
Why, then, does Jesus seem almost to threaten us at the end of the parable: “So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if each of you does not forgive your brother from your heart”? Because the forgiveness received and the forgiveness given are inseparable. Not because God’s mercy has a limit, but because our heart can close itself to the gift.
Stubbornly refusing to forgive is like spreading a waterproof sheet over ourselves: mercy continues to fall, but it cannot penetrate.
3. And how many times have you “forgiven” God?
The question may be surprising. God, of course, does not need our forgiveness, because he commits no wrong against us. Yet we can feel hurt by him and may even come to harbour resentment.
How many people have drifted away from faith because a prayer seemed to go unanswered, because of bereavement, illness, tragedy or incomprehensible suffering? And what are we to say about wars, the suffering of the innocent and injustice?
Perhaps almost all of us have something to “forgive” God for: an unanswered question, a wound, a reproach hidden in our heart. We should have the courage to stand before him sincerely and say: “Lord, there are things I do not understand. I have suffered and, at times, I have even been angry with you. But I want to continue to trust you. I entrust to you my questions, my anger and my wounds.”
It is a journey of reconciliation with God, not because he needs to be forgiven, but because we need to heal the wounded image of him that we sometimes carry within us.
4. And how many times have you forgiven yourself?
Sometimes we struggle to forgive others because we are not at peace with ourselves. We have not forgiven ourselves for a failure, a weakness, a wrong choice or a mistake from the past. We may know that God and others have forgiven us and yet continue to condemn ourselves inwardly. We therefore need to receive fully the forgiveness that has been given to us and to learn to forgive ourselves too, so that we do not remain prisoners of our mistakes.
Forgiving ourselves does not mean trivialising evil or avoiding our responsibilities. It means recognising that no mistake can have the final word over our lives.
The final word always belongs to mercy.
For meditation…
- Ephesians 4:32 — “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”
- Colossians 3:13 — “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 — God “has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation”: the Christian is called to be an ambassador of reconciliation.
Fr Manuel João Pereira Correia, MCCJ
