Song of the Three Young Men 2–4,11–20a
New Testament: Matthew 18:21–35
Psalm 25:3–10
“Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” from Matthew 18:21–35
“Jesus Saves” - bumper sticker spotted on I-65
I usually roll my eyes when I see those stickers, or when I see the same words on a placard nailed to a telephone pole on some county road. That’s probably because I’ve assigned certain attributes to the person responsible. “Homophobic religious kook!” I say to myself with unflinching self-righteous indignation about the total stranger with whom I’ve never actually spoken.
When I look at my attitude now, I think, “what a tragically narrow way of going about life!”
Now, what about those people I actually know, I mean the ones I know actually sinned against me? I can take the same self-righteous attitude I did with the bumper sticker folks. I can be just like the first slave in the gospel reading and go after them without mercy. Indeed, the revenge or indignation or whatever it is will provide me a temporary rush…only to be followed by a desperate emptiness. This is what Jesus meant when he said the unforgiving slave would be “tortured,” and it reminds me of Milton’s words in Paradise Lost: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
Of course, there’s also the unavoidable hypocrisy of my daring to render judgements or hold resentments. I don’t have the word count here to venture into the “ignoring the log in my own eye” territory, but believe me, I realize I’ve got a lumber yard there!
Anyway, thanks be to God, Jesus hands us the keys to escape from our ludicrous self-made hells:
“Peter came and said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.’”
Jesus Saves
Fergus Tuohy
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