21st Sunday after Pentecost 17 October 2021 Forgiveness
God is abundant in His actions, as we see for example, in the size of the universe, and the variety of His creation.
This abundance extends to His attitude to our sins and our need for mercy.
He is rich in mercy (Ep 2,4); He runs to meet the repentant son (Lk 15,20).
He desires the conversion of a sinner (Ezek 33,11) and even the angels rejoice over one repentant sinner (Lk 15,10).
That He forgives so freely can be mistaken for indifference on His part; that He just brushes off the sin as a thing of no importance.
This is not the case, however. God sees our sin in the clear light of divinity, where even the smallest sin would be seen in its ugliness. (Like defacing a work of art.)
He saw sin as serious enough to require the Incarnation and Crucifixion to deal with it.
When God forgives sin He restores us to right relationship with Him.
God forgives us because He looks at us through His Son, the perfect sacrificial victim.
This sacrifice was such a strong act of love that it more than compensates for the sin of the world. God is more pleased with His Son’s sacrifice than He is displeased by our sin.
We could never atone for the sins we have committed against God; they are too many and too serious.
So we go through the Son, relying on His merits to make up for what is lacking in us. And this is essentially how we are saved.
We might settle for just good health and material blessings, but those things are just steppingstones to our complete destiny, which is freedom from sin, union with God.
Sin, meanwhile, is ugly and destructive. We need to ask for mercy whenever we sin, not just simply presume that mercy will happen anyway.
We need to be sufficiently contrite on the one hand, and sufficiently grateful on the other. Contrite enough to realize we are in a dark place; and grateful enough to realize we have been rescued from that darkness.
Not everyone is automatically forgiven. There has to be at least some contrition, some recognition of what sin means, and why it is so undesirable.
Many think of sin as just a part of life, normal human behaviour. It is very normal as far as how often it happens but it is not meant to happen.
Forgiveness is available to any who genuinely seek it. We are then claiming on the merits of Christ.
But if we do not ask we will not receive. There are various reasons why someone might not ask for mercy – they don’t think they need it; they don’t see how God comes into the picture; they are afraid to ask for it etc.
The more contrite we are in the process the more complete will be our forgiveness, and the less likely to re-offend. Also, in the light of today’s parable we will be more likely to forgive others whatever wrongs they have done us. Generosity flows from gratitude.
The first debtor in the parable must not have been contrite enough because he certainly was not grateful enough (Mt 18,28).
We need a real spiritual sensitivity here. The world has grown coarse with too long denying proper attention to Almighty God. The world denies sin and mercy, and cannot offer any way out of the tangle it has created.
We have, by contrast, the way to be free of sin and the way to Heaven.
Lord, have mercy on us.
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