17th August >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflection on  Matthew 18:21-19:1 for  Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time: 'How often must I forgive?’ (2024)

17th August >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflection on Matthew 18:21-19:1 for Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time: 'How often must I forgive?’

Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada & Southern Africa)Matthew 18:21-19:1Peter went up to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times. ‘And so the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants. When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents; but he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt. At this, the servant threw himself down at his master’s feet. “Give me time” he said “and I will pay the whole sum.” And the servant’s master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt. Now as this servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii; and he seized him by the throat and began to throttle him. “Pay what you owe me” he said. His fellow servant fell at his feet and implored him, saying, “Give me time and I will pay you.” But the other would not agree; on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison till he should pay the debt. His fellow servants were deeply distressed when they saw what had happened, and they went to their master and reported the whole affair to him. Then the master sent for him. “You wicked servant,” he said “I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?” And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.’ Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and he left Galilee and came into the part of Judaea which is on the far side of the Jordan.Gospel (USA)Matthew 18:21–19:1I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.” When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.

Reflections (4)

(i) Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

People ask lots of questions of Jesus in the gospels. In today’s gospel reading, Peter asks a very concrete question, ‘How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me?’ He goes on to suggest an answer that he might have expected Jesus to agree with – ‘seven times!’ The number ‘seven’ was a symbol of perfection in that culture, so to forgive someone seven times would seem like perfect forgiveness. However, not for the first time, Jesus would have shocked his hearers with his answer to a question, ‘not seven… but seventy-seven times’. Jesus seems to set the bar so high as to be beyond us. The parable he goes on to tell seeks to justify his call for such forgiveness without limit. The first servant owed an astronomical debt to a pagan king. 10,000 talents would be equivalent to the vast international debts under which some developing countries labour today. He asks the king for time, but the servant could never have paid this debt back, no matter how much time he was given. The king simply cancelled the whole debt. Mercy triumphed over justice. Yet when this servant met a fellow servant who owed him a very small and manageable debt, he acts on the basis of a very brutal justice and, in so doing, lost the mercy he had received. Jesus is reminding us in this parable that God’s forgiveness is limitless. God’s forgiveness has been poured out on us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The parable calls on us to allow this boundless forgiveness to so touch and shape our lives that some of it flows through us onto those who offend and hurt us. It doesn’t mean that forgiving another will ever come easy to us. It has been said that everyone agrees that forgiveness is a wonderful value, until they have someone to forgive. Yet, the more aware we become of ourselves as forgiven sinners, the freer we will become to forgive those who sin against us.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Nineteenth week in Ordinary Time

In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus tells a parable about a servant who received the gift of forgiveness from his master but then refused to pass on that same gift to a fellow servant. It is a parable which both celebrates God’s readiness to forgive us whenever we ask for forgiveness and challenges us to be as ready to forgive each other as God is to forgive us. Jesus suggests that the gift of forgiveness we receive from God obliges us to pass on that same gift to others when it is asked for. The way God is with us is how we are to be with each other. That is what Jesus meant when, a little earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus called on his disciples to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. We can have all kinds of ideas about what being perfect means. However, in the gospels God’s perfection consists in God’s love, and especially, in God’s willingness to forgive. The saying, ‘be perfect as your Father is perfect’ in Matthew’s gospel is found in a slightly different form in Luke’s gospel, ‘be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful’. The call to perfection is the call to be as generous and as forgiving in our love as God is. Along with the call, the Lord also provides us with the resource to respond to the call, and that resource is, of course, the Holy Spirit, what Paul calls the Spirit of God’s love that has been poured into our hearts.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Learning to forgive those who have hurt us is probably one of the greatest challenges in life. Peter’s question to Jesus as the beginning of the gospel reading comes of out that sense of how difficult it is to forgive someone, ‘How often must I forgive my brother?’ The implication of his question is that there has to be a limit to forgiveness. Peter decides to err on the generous side, suggesting seven times would be often enough. In the biblical culture of the time, seven was considered to be the complete number. To forgive seven times is complete forgiveness; surely, no more could be asked of someone. Yet, Jesus does ask more, not seven times, but seventy seven times. There is to be no limit to our willingness to forgive. Jesus underpins this very challenging call with the parable that he tells. In that parable the servant owes his master ten thousand talents. This was a massive sum of money, equivalent to billions of euro today. It simply could never be paid back. In the parable the master felt so sorry for his servant that he simply cancelled the debt completely. Here we have the triumph of grace over justice. There is an image here of the gracious and generous way that God deals with us. Jesus reveals a God whose mercy triumphs over justice. The most memorable image of such a God is the father in the story of the prodigal son. The remainder of the parable in this morning’s gospel reading tells us that we must allow the mercy that God freely pours into our lives to flow through us to touch others. This is what the servant who was forgiven failed to do. One of the sayings of Jesus expresses the message of today’s parable very succinctly, ‘Be merciful as your Father is merciful’.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

The parable Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading has two clear messages. The first and most important message relates to God and the second relates to ourselves. The parable declares that God’s forgiveness is boundless. The first servant owed ten thousand talents, which is an astronomical sum of money. It is the kind of debt that could never be paid. We might think of the debt that some of the developing countries owe to the International Bank. The king in the parable simply cancelled the debt in response to the pleading of his servant. He allowed mercy to completely override justice. Jesus is giving us an image here of God’s mercy. We always come before God in desperate need of his mercy and God pours out his mercy in abundance upon us in response to our cry. As Pope Francis has said, Jesus reveals the face of God to be Mercy, a mercy that is immeasurable. We constantly live in the grace of God’s abundant mercy. The second servant owed this first servant whose debt was cancelled two hundred denarii, about two months wages. This is a manageable sum which could have easily been paid off with a bit of time. However, the first servant would not give his fellow servant the time he needed and had him thrown into prison. He could not pass on even a fraction of the abundant mercy that had been showered on him. As a result, he lost the mercy he had been shown. The parable is saying to us that there is an onus on us to pass on some of the extraordinary mercy we have received from God. When God graces us he looks to us to grace others with what has been so generously given to us.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

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