Forgiving and Being Forgiven

In the Gospel of Matthew 18:21-35, we read the story of the servant who owed his master so large an amount of money that it would have been impossible for him to repay it in his lifetime. The master planned to recoup his money by selling the man, his wife and his children. The man begged forgiveness of the debt and received it. As it turns out, on his way out the servant ran into a fellow servant who owed him a “few dollars.” Servant number one grabbed servant number two and demanded his money. The man begged for mercy and was thrown into prison by his colleague. Most of us know the rest of the story. The first servant was thrown into prison by an angry master who had shown him mercy, forgiveness.

Jesus tells this story in an attempt to show us that forgiveness is a two-way street. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . .forgive us our trespasses (sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Our “hero” apparently did not understand this simple lesson. He certainly understood the wanting to be forgiven part and its importance to him. He seemed to miss or not care about the “as we forgive those who trespass against us” part. I have thought a great deal about this and asked myself why he only acted on the being forgiven part:  Did he simply not understand? Just not care? Want to have his cake and eat it too? Was he just unable to make the connection between being forgiven and forgiving? Or did he, in Jesus Parable, represent “everyman and everywoman, showing us how easy it is to accept forgiveness and yet not understand that we must also forgive.

Remember how Matthew began this passage. He began with his disciple Peter asking Jesus about forgiveness, about how often he should forgive a brother or sister. I do not believe Peter received the answer he hoped for. Peter was hoping for a finite number, “7.” Jesus gave him basically an infinite number, “77.” And, just in case Peter (and the others) missed the point, he answered with a story, as he often did, with the story we just looked at.

So why is it easier to accept forgiveness than to forgive? Perhaps we believe we were correct in the first place and are only receiving what we deserve; or, we are unwilling to accept our part in the conflict, our fault, our sin. Last week I attended a workshop for the Clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama entitled “Leadership in Anxious Times.” The leader, a Mennonite, reminded us that in any Church conflict, all parties have played some part and no one is completely free of responsibility. My mind and emotions immediately went back to a conflict in which I was involved and after which I resigned my pastorate. Was I the victim, was the church the victim, could I have done some things differently, could the church have done things differently? The answer to all these questions is yes. Would the results have been different: maybe, maybe not. I might still have resigned from my position, the church might still have been divided, but healing may have come easier to all concerned, and all of us just might have learned a lesson in how to react and function the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation.

The best example of forgiveness I have ever witnessed and the model for most such efforts in the world today is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa which was formed in 1994 at the end of the Apartheid segregation in that nation. Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu headed the commission, and it was designed to give the victims, those who had lost family members, property and homes to tell those who had committed these atrocities how their lives were affected by them. The perpetrators who desired were given the opportunity to respond and ask for forgiveness. This process paved the way for a peaceful transition in South Africa and gave the people and the nation hope for the future. Archbishop Tutu later wrote a book, No Future Without Forgiveness.

I leave you with a prayer and a scripture:

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see! everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”