“Who’s Counting”

Let us pray. Lord, it is so hard to be patient when others continue to harm us and they somehow don’t see their wrong. We give you thanks that unlike us, you are infinitely patient. Grant that we may have a small fraction of the forgiveness in your heart. Amen.

This past week, we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Bible readings for today emphasize forgiveness. Is God subtly trying to tell us something? 25 years later, are we to the point where we can forgive those heartless, brutal acts?

Today, we hear about Joseph who years later forgave his brothers who nearly killed him, but instead opted to sell him into slavery. Then in his letter to he Romans, Paul encourages his readers not to judge others, but to learn to accept the religious practices of others that may be different from their own. Finally, we hear the question that Peter asks Jesus in the gospel for today about forgiveness and we are all poised on the edge of our seats awaiting Jesus’ answer: “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as 7 times?”

When you think abou it, Peter’s suggestion seems more than generous. Imagine if a work friend kept taking the candy you were saving for an afternoon snack off your desk, and every time you told him to stop, you found it gone the next day. It would probably be less than 7 times before you started to put the candy away in your desk drawer and stopped talking to him.

Now we live in a world where everything is counted. Human beings can be quite merciless in the way we calculate the rewards we think we deserve and the wrongs that have been committed against us. We like to hold grudges and nurse our hurts. We seek revenges because we want those who harm us to feel as awful as we feel. We point fingers and assign blame so we don’t have to carry it.

Hopefully on this 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we can reflect on how we have used the years since. We will begin to see that revenges and blame don’t work as well as we may have thought. Do we want to stay in a world where we continue to count wrongs, where the cost becomes way too much or is there another way?

Jesus seemed to be saying, “Yes, there is another way — the way of the kingdom of heaven, the way of forgiveness, a way that is often impossible for us, but possible for God.”

God is our heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally and forgives us infinitely. In Jesus Christ, God offers us entrance into a world where we can live free from the bondage to the sin that holds us when we can let go of the need to continually tally up our good deeds and others’ wrongs. In the kingdom that Jesus opens up to us, even to forgive 77 times or 77 billion, Jesus illustrated his teaching by telling the parable of the “Unforgiving servant.”

Sometimes it is small because he gave us his life to pay off every single debt that we owed to God. That is grace–God’s riches at Christ’s expense.

So, how many times should you forgive the one who sins against you? The plain and simple answer is, “who’s counting?”