Twenty-Fourth Ordinary Sunday, Year A
Theme: On The Strength To Forgive 論寬恕之力
Let’s start today’s meditation with the fact that no man is an island, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him” (Genesis 2:18). In ancient times, perhaps some people were still able to be self-sufficient. Nowadays, it is impossible for us to be self-sufficient any more in highly industrialized societies. As individuals, we need each other to meet our different sorts of needs. Even countries on this planet form alliances to sustain and develop their economies in order to feed their subjects. We trade resources and services to develop and prosper. The question of fairness arises when we exchange and trade. Somehow we have built up some engagement practices and regulations so that we may continue interacting smoothly and satisfactorily.
The question of fairness is further complicated by the fact that even on an individual level, human beings have different layers of needs. To quote Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are physiological, security, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization needs. Perhaps money can be a good medium of exchange for the gratification of physiological and security needs, such as buying a hamburger or purchasing an apartment. However, money becomes less effective in meeting the needs higher up. All of us know that money cannot buy true love, cannot buy sincere respect, not to mention fulfilling self-actualization. We need a different set of rules of engagement to handle those interactions.
However, all men are mortal, “My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years” (6:3). In other words, all of us are limited in some ways in time and space, such as our life span, our strength, the resources we may control and our status in a certain institution etc. Together with some factors beyond our control, sometimes in our interactions and tradings, we are unable to pay the other side their due. We owe them something and they become our creditors. In order to maintain interactions in the future, either we pledge to repay later or the creditors write off the debts partially (Luke 16:6) or completely (Matthew 18:27). In the latter two cases, they are acts of forgiveness. This preliminary reflection shows some aspects of the nature of forgiveness.
Firstly, all mortals need forgiveness. From the reflection above, we come to know that within the shortness of our life span, we owe different kinds of debts which money alone cannot repay. Had money been able to exchange anything effectively, not all of us would have become debtors. I’m sure all of you have in your experiences occasions where you owe somebody an apology which money could not repay, an explanation or a respect and later regret that you find it too late to repay! There are even situations in which we may never be able to fully repay what we have received. For example, the life our parents gave us, a life-saving organ for transplants, the knowledge our teachers pass on to us, or a national identity when we are travelling etc. Even worse, sometimes, out of prejudice, we deny some people their opportunities of self-actualization. Sometimes, we debase the other side and turn them into an instrument to get what we want. We don’t treat them properly as human beings. We owe them the dignity due a human person. We make them our creditors …
As creditors, they have more room to manoeuvre. Indeed, they must have more resources to spare so that they could lend you the things you needed in the first place. And they also expect that you might not be able to repay within a certain period of time. So they are in no hurry to demand repayment because to start with they could afford to spare. Secondly, a repayment is good only when creditors are in need and in the danger of turning into debtors. When they can spare, they can do away with the repayment altogether and continue their status as creditors. What they earn in lending to you is their right to claim repayment from you when it dues. It is a subtle way to get an upper hand over the debtor! In other words, the less resources one has, the less he is able to forgive. Similarly, the more you are willing to forgive indicates that you have control over more resources. Simply put, creditors are more powerful than debtors are.
In contrast, many governments are doing a bad job in the governance of their peoples. They fail to adequately discharge their roles as Creditor in providing services to their subjects. Consequently, dissatisfactions are mounting everywhere and instances of social unrest break out. In order to divert those dangerous dissatisfactions elsewhere, governments start their propaganda machines to persuade people to hate some target groups to achieve their political agenda. People are happy to vent their frustrations on any target suggested by governments because they don’t have to go through the painful process of independent and critical thinking to discern the reality. Of course, government would turn a blind eye on hate speeches and lynchings which gradually engender a culture of death. Instead of understanding and forgiving our brothers, which enhance life, people enjoy complaints and vandalism which destroy life. Life on earth is not easy anymore and is no longer material alone because we are fighting a spiritual warfare against Satan’s agents! Since it is not something material, we need a different kind of strength to engage in this fighting.
As followers of Christ, we say the Lord’s Prayer three times a day. Church Fathers taught us that there are seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. We should not be long-winded in our prayers and we humbly ask for seven essential things in this Prayer. I opine that we are actually asking for not seven but eight things. One of the seven petitions is actually two. We pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Not only do we ask God to forgive our sins but we also ask God to give us the strength to forgive because we know that as debtors ourselves, we don’t have extra resources/strength to spare to forgive.
Indeed, God has given us this strength to forgive already. What we need to do is to develop and sustain this strength. Like athletes, we need coaching and training. Like athletes, we ourselves are our rivals while competitors from the other teams are not. A Chinese aphorism describes it well. Laozi says, “He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. 勝人者有力，自勝者強” (Dao Te Jing, #33). A truly mighty person is the one who is able to overcome/overtake himself. Now how shall we train ourselves to build up the strength of forgiveness? Here is Jesus’ recommendation, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22). The more we forgive, the more opportunities we have in knowing the situations of the debtors. Hopefully we can become more empathetic and mature. Furthermore, with more practices, we may discover what is blocking us from doing the right thing, from discharging our ambassador ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)!
Beloved brethren! We are called to be merciful like the Father (Luke 6:36). So let us forgive more to actualize our strength. Amen.
2020 Reflection
Picture Credit: gvm.com.tw
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