“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Thus Jesus taught His disciples to pray and in praying to forgive. These words are indelibly marked on our consciences as they have been on all our Christian ancestors before us since Christ first spoke these words, even as we may struggle to live them out. Forgiveness is a gift little understood outside of the household of God. In the world an offense may be forgotten, but is rarely truly forgiven. Forgiveness is the language that God has given to us in order to elevate us beyond our tit-for-tat fallen relationships that are so manifest in the world.
In our earthly relationships, it’s easy to begrudge and grow bitter, it’s easy to want to write off those who’ve offended or hurt us. The reality is, though, that bitterness and grudges are like getting bit by a snake over and over again. Whatever the initial harm that’s been done to us or another—whether real or perceived—our growing bitterness and holding a grudge against that person means that we continue to nurse the same old wound, over and over again. We keep that wound, we keep ourselves from healing, from loving in Christ.
Often, whatever the initial offense or hurt, our dwelling on it, our cultivating enmity against the person, will grow the hurt or offense into something much bigger than it originally was; it will take on a life of its own, and become a means through which the enemy underscores to us even more how we’ve been wrong or how our pride’s been wounded. And we give into these feelings of hurt ego and then get angry. And so, without forgiveness, these passions that are self-inflicted as well as those that are truly committed against us, continue to bite us and do us further harm.
The truth is that when we’re bitter, nursing a grudge, we turn someone else’s sin into our own sin and it eats at us like some spiritual cancer; if unchecked, it grows, infecting our souls, and destroys our faith as it alters our sense of reality. We cannot be close to God, we cannot maintain and grow our relationship and communion with God, while holding onto bitterness, while withholding forgiveness.
For this reason, God, in His great love for us, desires our freedom from this spiritual cancer: bitterness, grudges, enmity, and the sin of pride that is so easy to take offense. When St. Peter asks the Lord how many times we must forgive, thinking maybe seven times would be sufficient, the Lord replies, ”seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22), symbolic of an infinite sum.
The premise of this infinite forgiveness comes from God, Who is its Author. He grants forgiveness to us over and over and over again, as many times as we confess our sins to Him with the intent to change and amend our words, thoughts, and actions. And while we ourselves sin and then fight to forgive those who wrong us, God does not sin and yet He forgives us for our sins against Him and others.
To illustrate this truth, Christ gives us today’s parable: One of the Master’s servants owes him an incredible amount, ten thousand talents, an impossible sum. If we thought of God’s forgiveness towards us in terms of a debt to be paid, we’d never be able to settle such an account, which is why we call God’s salvation, “grace.” The servant is forgiven as God forgives us our trespasses, our disobedience, pride, lustfulness, unfaithfulness. But the servant, having received that gracious gift of forgiveness of his debts immediately takes his fellow servant by the throat, demanding that he pay all his debts, which by comparison with his own debts, are a pittance.
So, how can we withhold forgiveness from our fellow man and yet expect that no matter what, God will forgive us. If we do so, we presume on God’s grace and the fear of God is not in us, which puts us spiritually in a very perilous place. The Lord warns us that this shall not be.
When the Master in today’s parable finds out what the wicked servant has done, throwing his fellow servant into prison, failing to forgive his debt, the Master grows righteously angry. Jesus warns us, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” And so, Christ teaches His disciples to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive those who trespass against us.” This teaching goes to the core of what the Body of Christ is meant to be about: forgiving one another from the heart because we cannot claim communion with God while withholding forgiveness from each other.
At the same time, we have to recognize that forgiving others can often be a deep struggle, particularly in the cases of abuse or other deep and painful wounds.
For this reason, it’s helpful to remember that forgiving is not the same as forgetting. We may never forget a wrong, abuse, some grievous sin done against us, but we can with God’s help, learn to forgive and practice ongoing forgiveness. In other words, we can make the ongoing struggle and work of forgivness a matter of regular prayer.
We remember Jesus Christ’s words on the cross asking the Father to forgive His tormentors, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” St. Stephen, the Protomartyr said the same thing of those who in their hatred stoned him to death. Only the love of God can do this.
For our part, we can pray regularly to grow in such love; we can pray for healing; we can pray that God will give us freedom from bitterness and the great mercy to forgive—even if it takes a life-time. God will honor our struggle. God’s healing in this regard begins with the desire to want to learn to forgive others as God has forgiven and does forgive us. The world would indeed be a different and more virtuous place if more people were willing to put forgiveness into action.
Along with active forgiving, we can also learn to say no to nursing wounds and building grudges or spreading gossip and mistrust. We can learn to go to the person who’s offended us to speak to them about it. We can give that person an opportunity to explain, ask forgiveness, and reconcile with us. But even if that person doesn’t offer to apologize, we can, in humility, learn to forgive and love them and, even better, to ask them their forgiveness. This is the strength that our growing communion with Christ can give us.
Additionally, as we grow in Christ, we learn to cultivate an attitude of being slow to speak, slow to anger, and quick to forgive. St. Paul admonishes us, likewise, to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:22).
In this way, we learn to combat bitterness and grudges before they start setting root and spreading their poison. We grow free of this spiritual cancer in our local body of the Church. We demonstrate the love and forgiveness that’s not of this world, but which is, rather, indicative of being of the Kingdom of Heaven. In His love for us, in His desire to save us, free us, heal us, Christ God commands us to forgive as we have been forgiven—seventy times seven, and by the power of the Holy Spirit’s work in us and through us, He gives us the means to do so.
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 24 August 2014
On Forgiveness
Epistle: I Cor. 9:2-12
Gospel: Matthew 18:23-35
