11th Sun. after Pent. Matt.18: 23-35 “Forgiveness x 777777…”
11th Sun. after Pent. Matt.18: 23-35 “Forgiveness x 777777…”
With the feast! In August we end the Church year and are blessed to have three major feast days: The Transfiguration on Aug. 6; the Dormition this Wed. on Aug. 15; and then of course our own feast day as we celebrate our patron St. Aidan on Aug 31! We start the new Church year in Sept. and again have two major feast days. The Nativity (birth) of the most blessed Theotokos on Sept. 8 and the Elevation of the life-giving cross on Sept. 14. Four of the 12 major feast of the Church year and our Patronal feast day within 6 weeks of each other! Do try to schedule in to come to some feast day Liturgies this year, you will be blessed and grow in your faith by doing so!
We are still in the glorious after-feast of the great celebration of the Transfiguration! Matushka and I were blessed to spend the feast day of Holy Transfiguration with Fr. Gregory and the monks of Holy Transfiguration Hermitage and they send our community their love and assure us of their prayers!
At the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John are blessed to witness Christ, manifesting the radiance of His ever-present uncreated light, that which gives life to all of creation. The Holy Trinity were all revealed. While they see Christ transfigured, they hear the voice of the Father, and see the Holy Spirit as the bright cloud overshadowing the disciples. The chosen apostles have their spiritual eyes opened to see the source of all life, everywhere present and filling all things. Christ is revealed to them and to us as true God of true God. This is not created light which they observe with their fleshly eyes – the sun didn’t get brighter from a massive solar flare. This is the uncreated light which gives life to all life. “The light of Christ which illumines all” as we say at every pre-sanctified Liturgy during Great Lent. The icon of the Transfiguration is traditionally the first icon that a beginning student will paint. This is because this transfigured light undergirds every icon, and is the very environment, the true reality being represented in every icon. It can only be encountered and experienced through our spiritual eyesight. It is represented in the gold surrounding the subject of the icon.
In this transfigured illumined state, the chosen apostles see Moses and Elijah with Christ – discussing His upcoming passion and journey to the cross in Jerusalem. The fathers tell us that Moses represents the Law and the departed and Elijah represents the Prophets and the living; having been taken up from the earth in the fiery chariot of God before experiencing death. So together they are representing our entire race of Adam, living in the uncreated light of the kingdom of heaven where the light of Christ fills all, with no variation nor shadow. Just before the transfiguration, Christ tells His disciples (Matt. 16:28) “…there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom” This is now fulfilled.
In today’s gospel reading we hear about the wicked servant who was forgiven the huge amount of 10,000 talents by his king. I did the math, and as 1 talent equals 75 lbs. of gold, at today’s gold prices ($1,215/oz.), the 10,000 Talents would represent about $14.5 billion dollars. With great relief this servant went out and expressed his gratitude to the King by grabbing one of his creditors who owed him 100 Denari – the equivalent of about $20,000 – and showing no mercy throws him into jail. The wicked servant was forgiven an amount more than 700,000 times the amount the wicked servant was owed by his fellow servant This is not just hyperbole to get our attention. The great forgiveness that we have all freely received from our Lord Jesus Christ, enables us to become Children of God, and receive an eternal treasure and inheritance that makes even this $14.5 billion insignificant in comparison. There are no limits to our eternal riches! And the terrible insult we have unjustly received and can’t bring ourselves to forgive from whoever, is about the equivalent of a loonie in the eternal scope of things. This is kingdom math. It is in an entirely different realm of reality.
This passage actually starts two verses earlier. (Matt. 18:21, 22) “Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?’ Jesus said to Him ‘I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” When Jesus replies to Peter’s suggestion of forgiving up to 7 times, and gives him a new limit of 7 x 70 = 490 times, He wasn’t telling him to get a bigger abacus to keep track. He wasn’t just setting a higher tolerance limit on forgiveness, Jesus tells this parable which clearly eliminates all limits to granting forgiveness. The key verse we should all memorize and allow to sink into our hearts until it becomes our own world view is: “Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had compassion on you?” Of course, to appreciate this we need to grasp just how much compassion and forgiveness – beyond all human comprehension – we have been granted by the grace and love of God. If we could begin to fathom this wonder, we wold be transformed. In today’s gospel passage it does not end well for the ruthless servant who refused to forgive his brother. The last verse ends with Christ telling us (Matt. 18:35) “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” Not much wiggle room there, forgive “from your heart” or face the consequences.
It is in our fallen nature to want to set some reasonable limits. Peter probably thought he was being quite charitable giving his misbehaving brother seven chances before saying “ok that’s it, you’re done” We often like to have a set of rules handy, so we can measure ourselves and congratulate ourselves on what good little boys and girls we are, and that after all, we aren’t like some of those others – who clearly don’t follow the rules as well? If we are keeping track this way however, we eventually get to the point where we despise ourselves as well as most of those around us, especially those we live and work with, because none of us can ever measure up to the rules. That’s actually the point of the law, to show us that on our own, without the forgiveness and grace of God, this is a hopeless journey. The law is meant to drive us into the forgiving arms of our dear Saviour Jesus Christ; into a life of repentance and forgiveness – of ourselves as well as each other. So we see that it is our faith, not our performance that unites us to Christ. His grace and love even heal what is broken and complete what is lacking in our faith when we pray. Our work is to be willing to walk in the faith and forgiveness, we are granted, allowing Christ’s love to posses us.
We know that the fondest desire of God’s heart is to completely and unconditionally forgive us when we come to Him in repentance. He is always waiting to do this for us, and to gather us up in His loving arms, but we must be active participants in the process. There are two conditions clearly given to us. The apostle John tells us (1 John 1:9, 10) “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” So we need to come to God and ask His forgiveness. But first, we need to realize that we have missed the mark and we need forgiveness. If we think we are doing rather well this week, – watch out! Remember that Christ only came to save the sinners – of whom I am first!
We always have the gift of free will, the ability to choose. When we determine to choose to forgive, even that which seems unforgivable, we are choosing freedom. How can we tell when we have forgiven someone, that the forgiveness process is complete? When the memory no longer causes anger or hatred to well up within us. When we don’t continuously re-run the incident on the movie screens in our mind, coming up with new “what we should have said or done” scenarios. On our own this can seem impossible. But when we choose to turn to God and allow the illumination given us in our baptism and chrismation to act within us, (Phil 4:13) “all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me
Of course we need to start where we are, and so any forgiveness is much better than refusing to forgive, but we need to continue to ask God to give us His grace to enable us to “forgive from our hearts.” It all starts with willingness and praying and asking God to soften our hearts, and grant that we may be able to have His love for all flow through us, to the hurting and needy people Christ brings to us every day. To be a healing presence to those who are difficult to even like, because in their pain their words and actions push us away. May God help us to get to the place where rather than being filled with resentment when we feel we are not being treated properly, we show Christ’s love and compassion.
So we need to both forgive others and also accept that we are forgiven. The Church gives us the medicine. Come to confession and you will hear me tell you, “May God forgive you all things through me a sinner both in this world and in the world to come and set you uncondemned before His terrible judgement seat. Now having no further cares for the sins which you have confessed, depart in peace.” What absolute freedom! We are granted a completely clean fresh start! Before coming to confession we can make all kinds of questionable assessments about whether we merit forgiveness from ourselves or others. We sometimes let ourselves off too easy, or more often at the other extreme, walk around in constant self-condemnation. When we don’t accept God’s forgiveness, we are actually full of pride. “I’m such a great sinner that God can’t possibly forgive me.” Really? Are you perhaps a greater sinner than the blessed Apostle Paul? He whom was responsible for the blood of the first Christian martyr, the great Protodeacon Stephen and dragged the first Christians from their homes to be killed. Get over yourself if you really think you have done something so unforgivable that God’s love and mercy are powerless in your case. The great unforgivable sin is to reject God’s great love and desire to grant you forgiveness and life. It is always your choice and He will never override your free will. If you can’t accept God’s great gift of forgiveness for yourself, you will certainly struggle with forgiving others, for no-one will ever be able to measure up to your impossible standards for long.
May we, through the grace and love of God be able to search our hearts and souls for any resentments and unforgiveness that may be hiding within us. May God give us His strength and love to be able to forgive all who have hurt or wounded us, knowingly or unknowingly, and may He also forgive us our judgements and trespasses, in the same way as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. With the Feast!