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Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.
The vengeful will suffer the Lord's vengeance,
for he remembers their sins in detail.
Forgive your neighbor's injustice;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the Lord?
Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself,
can he seek pardon for his own sins?
If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath,
who will forgive his sins?
Remember your last days, set enmity aside;
remember death and decay, and cease from sin!
Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor;
remember the Most High's covenant, and overlook faults.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (8) The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
He will not always chide,
nor does he keep his wrath forever.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
Brothers and sisters:
None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.
For this is why Christ died and came to life,
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
"Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive?
As many as seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'
Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, 'Pay back what you owe.'
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused.
Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?'
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart."
As we try to forge a spirituality that is more positive than what we learned in our youth, we need to keep in mind that some things never change. I know the emphasis on sin in the bible can be depressing, but it is unavoidable.
Like it or not, it seems that sin is a primary reality for humankind, and so is forgiveness. Most offending is against other persons, whether it is intentional and malicious or result merely of carelessness or neglect.
Salvation is another primary term that can't be ignored. We absolutely need to be saved from sin and its consequences because we can't do it on our own. Forgiveness is God's gift of salvation.
Forgiveness is so basic to the teaching of Jeshua that it is included in the universal prayer formula, the Our Father.
In a Manning Clarke lecture at the ANU, Canberra, in 2021 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/how-history-may-yet-be-the-death-of-us/13429892 Stan Grant spoke of the Paul Klee painting, Angelus Novus, which German Philosopher Walter Benjamin saw as the Angel of History: 'Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet,' explained Grant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus
I feel that all the rose-tinted glasses in the world won't change the realitysssssss that history is one gret cat astrophe. Well-meaning exhortations to 'be positive' and focus on how much progress humankind is making over time will not stop the rot. The catastrophe that is humankind's history shows that we need the strrength of a greater
Being (whom we call "God") to save us from ourselves.
The logic of today's gospel needs no elaboration, but the need to forgive on group and international levels is worth thinking about. Far more hurt is done by groups imposing on others than ever by individuals in the average peaceful society. Few peoples on earth have been imposed upon worse than our aboriginal peoples.
The Uluru Statement from the Heart (https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement) is remarkable above all because it is a statement of forgiveness from the peoples whose land and livelihood was taken by the Europeans who settled the Australian continent. This is the closing sentence:
"We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future."
The motivation of this forgiveness is expressed in the opening words of the Statement:
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty.
I wonder how many of us have reflected on this idea of the spiritual connection we all have with our homeland. For our First Nations peoples it is the core of their self-identity. Perhaps it is not possible for a secular people like us even to begin to grasp what it means, although I fancy that I may have some glimmer of its meaning in my own deep connection with 'home'.
The 'country' of my earliest memories, the place of my discovery of the wonders of the world and the discovery of myself, was our family farm. It was a bit unique - a particularly pretty place backing onto the river that in those days was a bubbling stream lined with weeping willows needed to stop erosion along the banks. Those willows in their first soft green dress of springtime were a delight to the eyes.
While we knew every blade of grass on the place, along with the mood and feel of the different paddocks, there was always something new to wonder at. And anyway it was home. Our self-awareness was identified with the place. Perhaps a suburban house provides less opportunity for that ; I don't know.
To be uprooted from one's home and homeland is a trauma that was inflicted on all the First Nations of this continent, yet they have the courage to engage us in the healing process not by further blaming the perpetrators but by inviting us to a new beginning.
Forgiveness is a two-way street . It must be offered AND it must be accepted. If we say No to this VOICE they are asking us to give them in parliament, it can hardly be seen other than as a rejection of that offer of forgiveness. The so-called black-armband view even claims we had nothing to apologise for.
"As we forgive others..."
The consequences of this rejection are scarcely imagineable on the spirtual level. What does it make of us? For starters it makes us as guilty of dispossessing the rightful owners of their home as were any of the early settlers or the more recent posses who took part in shocking massacres even in the 20th century.
The 'personal' isthe 'sporotual'. It might help us to think of what it feels like, being dispossessed and uprooted from home which all these peoples have suffered. Many refugees know what it is to be stateless. Many children know what it is to be homeless, or to have their homelife collapse when parents separate. Belonging is fundamental to self-esteem.
Imagine if we were told as children - the same as our dad and mum had been told year after year: 'You don't belong!'
Only forgiveness can heal. May we accept the forgiveness offered us. Vote YES.
Earlier draft:
HOW OFTEN MUST I FORGIVE?
The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a classic of forgiveness. If ever there was a people with cause for resentment it is our aboriginal people, yet in that Statement from the Heart they have invited the occupiers of their homelands to walk with them on a path of reconciliation. We can walk as equals, the past forgiven, the future for us to forge together. It takes your breath away to consider the generosity of this offer, but spokespersons for the original Nations have said it is their traditional way to forgive; to let resentment go and to live in peace and cooperation.
Forgiveness is:
'A willingness to abandon one's right to resentment, negative judgement and indifferent behaviour toward one who unjustly injured us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity and even love toward him or her.'
'Intervention research demonstrates that participants experience diminished anger, anxiety, and/or psychological depression and increased self-esteem and general well-being.' https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286403749_Examining_Group_Forgiveness_Conceptual_and_Empirical_Issues
The logic of our gospel passage needs no elucidation. One could reflect on the signifcance of the first reading from the fourth century BC to see that forgiveness is an ancient tradition also in the Judaeo-Christian family story. Strangely it is not much in favour these days. It shocks and saddens me to see families and victims furiously demanding harsher punishments for those who have hurt them grievously after a court has found reason for mercy in handing down their sentence. There's no question that these people feel let down, and rightly, but in our tradition mercy must hold a part in the resolution of every conflict, in meeting out justice for every crime. We believe no-one is beyond the reach of mercy. Indeed the logic of today's gospel is that if there is one who cannot be forgiven, then none of us can be. We are all in the same boat.
To love our neighbour involves three elements, I think:
respect, care and forgiveness.
At first it seems forgiveness should not be included in this list because it is negative, but it is based on the idea that the need for forgiveness is universal and unavoidable. No-one is exempt from needing to be forgiven, because there's not one of us without sin. We all offend; we all need to be forgiven. This may seem to go against the aspiration that the warped doctrine of oringinal sin as it has been taught to us should be dropped from our creed because in fact we are born in grace. We are the children of the Father's love...