“Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.
Mt. 18:21
Jesus basically meant always forgive your neighbour and show mercy because our Heavenly Father always forgives and shows mercy. Jesus then told a story of a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. Basically, a servant owed the king 10,000 talents, which was at that time worth a lifetime of wages. The servant fell down and begged his master to be patient and assured him that he will pay him back in full. Moved by compassion, the master let him go and forgave him the loan. He let the servant go free without having to owe anything anymore! Completely forgiven. Debt forgotten. The servant then went out and met one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount, just a days worth of wages. He seized him and started to choke and demand that he be paid back. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him to be patient and assured he will pay back in full, but the man refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back what he owed! When the king found out what the servant had done he was outraged that the servant didn’t show the same mercy he showed him. The king handed him over to the torturers until he paid back the entire debt of 10,000 talents. Jesus ends his story by stating, “so will my Heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
Wow! How disturbing this parable is to those with hardened hearts! We are like the servant who stands before God so sinful and unworthy. We are like the servant who has a lifetime of debt, and each of us begging for His mercy. The beautiful truth is that our Heavenly Father does indeed forgive us our debt in it’s entirety and forgets what we owe. He forgets our sins. However, the condition is that we must forgive those who sin against us entirely and forget their sins if we want our Heavenly Father to do the same for us. When we harbour ill intentions toward others and are unforgiving toward our neighbour, we practically throw ourselves in the dungeon to be tortured. There’s nothing like the torture of a hardened, unforgiving heart. The scary thing is that if we decide to not forgive our neighbour and decide to remember his sins against us, so will our Heavenly Father when we are judged. The consequence is eternal damnation, eternity of suffering in the prison we put ourselves in. To decide not to forgive someone, especially if they practically beg for forgiveness, is outrageous when we ourselves beg God for His forgiveness.
Forgiveness is FREE. The only thing to be earned again is TRUST if that was lost. Forgiveness is DIVINE, thus we must rely on God’s grace and not our own understanding. Most of the time to forgive is unthinkable and might seem impossible. It is definitely impossible if we do not realize the log in our own eyes and can only see the speck in our neighbour’s eye.
The truth is that no one can sin against us more than we have sinned against God, and no one can forgive and forget unless we realize that God has forgiven and forgotten.
If we are finding it hard to forgive someone we must check ourselves before God. We must seek his forgiveness in Confession, then show the same mercy to our neighbour to truly be right with God again.
Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.