DARING TO FORGIVE
Living under a ruthless foreign power like the Roman Empire and in a society where rivalries were rampant, Jesus dared to teach about forgiveness as a major theme. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; for this is the Lord's prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Peter is curious as to the maximum number of times he must forgive someone who has wronged him. Peter wants to know how many times he must forgive that person. Jesus tells Peter a parable about forgiveness with disproportionately large numbers because he knows Peter wants to use numbers to explain the concept of forgiveness. You want to discuss money? Here are some figures for consideration. Jesus uses a parable about a king who summons his debtors to account and deals with one who owes 10,000 talents. A talent was a massive amount of silver, our lexicon tells us, worth somewhere around 10,000 denarii (and a denarius was worth a day's labor). This means that one hundred million denarii are equal to ten thousand talents. You can easily calculate this by estimating the current dollar value of a day's work and multiplying that figure by 100,000,000. Although many translations paraphrase for "ten thousand talents" is "a huge amount," this is actually an understatement; just trying to think of an amount worth the salary of 100,000,000 days' labor should be enough to convince us of this.
The master simply cancels this enormous debt. The newly forgiven debtor runs into a coworker who owes him a mere hundred denarii (equal to one millionth of what he had just been forgiven). To our surprise, he throws the fellow coworker into prison though the indebted sum is within the realm of possibility of repayment in contrast to the sum that was forgiven by the king. Here is the hinge on which our reflections must swing. If we consider the relationship between love and forgiveness, we can grasp the message of this Gospel
story. Refusing forgiveness is the same as refusing to love, and that's never okay. For this reason, refusing forgiveness is also always wrong. Many different meanings of "forgiveness" exist in our society. For some, granting forgiveness is a condescending act that can only be done by someone higher up the social hierarchy, bending down to an inferior. Think of our President’s pardon! For some, it conveys a message that they have forgiven the offender but will never forget their pain. If one adopts this mentality, they will always feel angry but never do anything about it.
Thus, another interpretation is that one may force themselves to hold in their pain and rage. Even if they've been viciously attacked, they'll keep their emotions in check. These people will live a life muzzled up in joyless chains. "Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who 'forgives' you does so out of love and takes the consequences of your actions upon himself." A quote from Dag Hammarskjöld. This view upholds the element of sacrifice and freedom.
Gratitude, especially grateful love, is the true engine that drives forgiveness. If someone has shown me compassion out of genuine love, my true response will be profound gratitude. If someone has hurt me, I will want to help them find the freedom I now enjoy. The gift is one that I would like to share with others. The forgiven servant missed this step of the stairway of freedom. Memories can be healed by time. The ability to forgive frees us from the chains of our past and allows us to make peace with our recollections. To forgive is to release oneself from the grip of hurt, resentment, and anger. The decision to forgive is a healing one. By praying for the offender and asking God to restore the broken relationship between us, we are able to forgive them. We continue to be victims if we refuse to forgive. When we forgive, we not only benefit the person we are forgiving but also ourselves. Fr Tom Kunnel, C.O.