Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
Intention: For God’s wise and guiding grace in the lives of all who are being affected by COVID-19: those afflicted with the disease, family members or friends of those afflicted, caretakers of those afflicted, and persons who are entrusted with decisions of public health and safety.
Today’s Gospel | Matthew 18:21-35
Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? 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 his brother from his heart.”
A Lenten Reflection
There is a story from the writings of the Desert Fathers in which a group of monks come to their elder with a question: “Tell us, when we see brothers dozing during the sacred office, should we pinch them so they will stay awake?” The old man said to them, “Actually, if I saw a brother sleeping, I would put his head on my knees and let him rest.”
Many of us struggle with the challenge of living nonjudgmentally. Like the monks in the Desert Father’s story and like Peter in Matthew’s Gospel, we search for ways to appoint ourselves supervisors of daily life and arbiters of God’s justice. However, Jesus calls us to a spirit of humility in which we see others’ struggles and imperfections as reminders of our own and of our shared need to bring ourselves closer to one another and to God. That perspective is the heart of forgiveness. It restores us to our right relationships with each other and recalls us to our right presence within our human family. True forgiveness reconciles, working to heal not only the forgiven but also the forgiver, allowing both to move forward by letting go of those hurts and mistakes that can often come to define us or others.
Author Paul Boese has suggested, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” Forgiveness preserves community, allowing us to live fully with the compassion and mercy that is God’s presence. Lent is a time in which we can renew our commitment to allow the light of reconciliation to overcome the darkness of sin. To both seek and accept forgiveness is to embrace the truth that God’s final word is never “no”, and so ours cannot be either.
Prayer
Eternal Father, Jesus called us to always treat others as we wish to be treated. Lead us to those that we have hurt or have hurt us. Deliver us all from hatred, cruelty, and revenge, and enable us to forgive and be forgiven, and to live reconciled to one another and to you. Grant that, especially when it would be easier to walk away, we will stand as persons of strength and integrity. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.