21st Sunday after Pentecost 6.11.11 Enough for all
This parable (The Unforgiving Debtor) makes so much sense when we hear it, yet we find its message so hard to apply in our own lives.
As we hear the story it is obvious what the first debtor should do: forgive the second. Out of gratitude for having been forgiven so much he should have been willing to forgive the second debt (the first debt being 600,000 times greater). A million dollars as against $1.66!
So should we be willing to forgive those who offend us when we have been forgiven so much more by God.
One lesson here is that we should cultivate gratitude for being forgiven. It is no light matter to have our sins removed so easily as it appears to happen.
We do not find it so easy to have our financial debts removed. It would be nice if we could clear all our bills by just going into a room and saying we are sorry! I don’t think many commercial concerns would be so forgiving as God is.
Of course there is some payment required from us on our debts to God, and this takes the form of the penance we do for sins committed and the desire to atone for those sins by doing as much good as possible. So we do not get off entirely free but even here the work required from us is so light by comparison.
We have to cultivate this sense of gratitude otherwise it can be easily lost in the hurry of life. We can have our sins cleared away without much thought, more or less taking it for granted. We are so accustomed to the idea that God readily forgives us we might not stop and wonder what a great privilege it is.
This, presumably, was the first debtor’s problem. He took his forgiveness lightly and did not let it sink into his consciousness. If he had been more grateful he would have been more generous with the second debtor.
We have to be grateful, and generous.
God is generous. He asks us to do a little of the same as He does, only He does a lot more. He can forgive millions, billions of sins a day, and we can find it hard to forgive one sin from years ago.
We need a boost to our generosity of spirit. We need not begrudge throwing a little mercy around. It is not ours in the first place; it comes from God. If we compare it with money a major difference is that Mercy is in unlimited supply.
We can hand out mercy to all comers and we never lose anything ourselves; in fact, we gain.
We come to desire that others receive mercy as much as we want it for ourselves. Our familiar prayers are in the plural – forgive us our trespasses; pray for us sinners now; Lamb of God ... have mercy on us; May almighty God have mercy on us... etc
It would be very strange if we were to say to the Lamb of God: Have mercy on me, and only me! No, we have to wish that mercy on others also, including those who have offended us.
We have nothing to lose if other people are forgiven. We don’t have to fight over who gets God’s mercy. There is enough for all.
To begrudge forgiveness to another is really the equivalent of wanting that person to stay ‘bad’, at least in our estimation. But how do we gain by keeping others bad? If we let them turn good we would like them a lot more and everyone gains. There is enough for everyone and more besides.
So we can pray with true conviction and increasing desire: Lord, have mercy on us.
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