This week our readings continue the theme of how to respond to others who do us wrong. This one really doesn’t seem to call for any interpretation – what is there to add?
We can note that Jesus really isn’t going beyond what we read from Sirah in the first reading. Sirah shows how the understanding of the Israelites had by his time (about 200 BC) moved a long way from the strict reciprocity of the early law codes found in Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Exodus (that we noted last week): “Do not show pity. Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot!”
It also appears that the Jews of Jesus’ day were expert at attempting to walk back the message of revelation in a cloud of detail. So we have Peter (the foundation of the church…) asking the question wrapped up in the numerology that the Jews were fond of – let’s try and put some limits around this clear God-given principle about forgiveness – let’s be reasonable here….. (And in saying that we should also remember that this technique is not in any way peculiar to Jewish interpretation. The Catholic Church has often shown itself to be a master of this approach.)
Jesus of course is having none of it. There is no limit to the requirement to forgive.
We may not be very comfortable with this, but I can’t offer anything to soften the blow.
Focusing on trying to understand more fully what Jesus was telling us isn’t going to take us anywhere – that’s the game Peter was trying to play. Maybe we have to focus instead on understanding why it is so hard to follow his instruction – for hard it is. As far as I can tell, it is a universal human instinct to want to fight back, to give as good as we get. Forgiveness just doesn’t come naturally. This reality is around us constantly – the language of violent disagreement, name calling, disparagement of others who disagree, and so on, drowns out what little attempt we might make to live out the Gospel message. It can be overwhelming. Much easier to just give in and join the chorus of invective along with everyone else.
Perhaps the fact that it doesn’t come naturally also makes it more difficult to step back and look at the situation clearly. In this uncomfortable territory it is easier to respond by gritting our teeth and at least attempting to follow Jesus’ command, than it is to try and figure out why it’s so hard.
Why is forgiving hard? I don’t find this an easy question to answer. However there may be at least some part of the answer in what Paul tells the Romans (and us) today: “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”
Paul is stating an aspiration or ideal state here. Clearly most of us do live for ourselves – we might wonder how else it is possible to live. But the complete selflessness that Paul calls us to is exactly what makes sense of the command to forgive without end. Forgiving is hard work, crazy hard if you have to do a lot of it. But, following Paul, if we live for the Lord then there is not a lot of forgiving to do. Jesus has already forgiven everyone – that’s what salvation means. We might feel put upon, but really there is nothing to forgive. The forgiveness is already done, whether we would do it or not. If we live for the Lord then we can forget about needing to forgive, we just have to do whatever it is we are doing as followers of Jesus in whatever time, and place, and task we have.
I not sure if this makes it easier to live as Jesus tells us to, but maybe it does help to identify what the battle is we need to fight. If we live for ourselves and try to forgive endlessly, we will fail. If we live for the Lord, then we can shelter behind his forgiveness (not just his forgiveness of us, but his forgiveness of the other guy also), and maybe behind that shield we will find our forgiving a little easier.