This Sunday, for the second Sunday in a row, we are asked to consider forgiveness - not only for what we have done, but also for what we have failed to do - and that includes not forgiving each other! As I mentioned in last week’s homily, I read that Amazon.com lists over 160,000 books on the topic of forgiveness. That’s 32,000 more than books on sexuality. That alone should tell us what the human heart hungers for most and why the Church considers it so important to preach about!
Like the cartoon character Charlie Brown himself, good old Saint Peter craves affirmation. Like a needy little puppy looking for a pat on the head, Saint Peter is always on the look-out for ways to impress Jesus. No matter how hard he tries, he seems to keep missing the mark over and over again. You have to love this big klutz with a soft heart!
The stories of Saint Peter embarrassing himself are numerous, but the one we have today is typical. Jesus had just told his disciples that they must forgive one another. When Jesus finishes speaking, imagining that another chance to impress Jesus has presented itself, good old Saint Peter springs into action. Peter knows well that the rabbis had always taught that people needed to forgive three times. Peter gets out his little mental adding machine and multiplies three by two and adds one for good measure. Then he asks his question and answers it at the same time. “How many times must we forgive? Seven times?” He obviously expected Jesus to say, “Wow, Peter, how generous you are! You are better than the best! Seven times is way beyond the call of duty!” You can almost see his big eager grin melt like wax when Jesus told him to forgive, not three, not even seven times, but seventy-times seven times. In that culture, that was a way of saying – “forgive without even counting the times!”
The first mistake people make when it comes to forgiveness is thinking forgiveness is for the benefit of the offending party - that forgiving them requires that we let the ones who hurt us off the hook! To be honest, it is the other way around! Forgiveness of others is actually a gift we give ourselves. It lets us off the hook! Think about it! Grudges consume vast amounts of time and energy: the incessant mental energy of rehearsing it over and over in our minds, the regular bad feelings it keeps generating for us in the constant retelling of it to anyone who will listen. We all know people who constantly bring up their festering grudges and we have to stand there and let them drag us through their “bag of stinking grudges” again and again and again! Let’s all forgive so that we can make sure that we are not one of those people who drags a stinking bag of grudges around with us and makes sure everybody hears about it!
While we are working so hard dragging around our grudges, the offending person is probably not even aware of the punishment we are inflicting on ourselves. As the comedian Buddy Hackett put it, “Don’t carry a grudge. While you are carrying the grudge, the other guy’s out dancing.” Again, as Mark Twain so wisely said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
“In the long run, it’s not a question of whether they deserve to be forgiven. You’re not forgiving them for their sake anyway! You’re doing it for your own sake! For your own health and well-being, forgiveness is simply the most energy-efficient option. Muster that heart power to forgive them and see it as a way of looking out for yourself! Forgiveness releases you from the punishment of a self-made prison where you are both the inmate and the jailer. Forgiveness releases you from the incredibly toxic, debilitating drain of holding a grudge. Don’t let people who have offended you live rent-free in your head and keep you up at night! If they hurt you before, why let them keep doing it, year after year, in your mind? Forgiving, even seventy times seven times, is actually a favor you do for yourself! Think about it! Forgiveness is a perfect way to keep rotting garbage from piling up in your own mind and heart!
The second reason to forgive is also for your own good – so that God will forgive you! The Book of Sirach, our first reading today, lays it out quite clearly. “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?” Jesus put it this way, “Forgive and you will be forgiven. The measure you measure with, will be measured back to you.” Holding a grudge is a dangerous, as well as a self-defeating, thing to do to oneself!
In short, grudges are like cancers. They need to be stopped, cut out and removed before they kill us, emotionally and spiritually. As the first reading says, only a sinner “hugs them tight” and “nourishes them" in an insane need to be “right.” The need to be “right” is very expensive. The truth of the matter is that you can still be right, without you ever needing to convince the one who offended you that you are right! As the ancient Chinese philosopher put it, “One who truly believes in himself has not need to convince others!” Forgiving is ultimately “agreeing to disagree” and then letting it go for the good of you both!
How many old grudges are you carrying around in your mind
and heart? Who do you refuse to forgive? Wouldn’t today be a
good time to cut yourself free, emotionally and spiritually? Wouldn’t today be a
good day to make up your mind to forgive whoever has wronged you! Do it today! Do
it for your own good! Believe me, it could very well be the biggest step toward
self-care that you will ever take!
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