Forgive Them Anyway

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway."


A couple weeks ago, I posted Mother Teresa's adapted "do it anyway" mantra. The sentence above is the first part of it. Those words are some of the most difficult words I have ever read. The all-time most difficult are their inspiration:


"Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven times.'"


Matthew 18: 21-22. It is followed by the parable of the servant who would not forgive his fellow's debt although he was forgiven his own debt by his master. It ends as such:


"'Then the master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger, his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.'" (Matthew 18: 32-35)


My greatest fault is my unwillingness - or perhaps I should call it inability, at least without God - to forgive others. Grudges are - literally - sacrilege to God, and yet we hold them. I hold them. I'm not sure why forgiveness is so difficult for me. I can sooner love my neighbor, or refuse to lie, or keep myself from swearing, but forgiveness is my crutch.


Peter very well may have been pleased with himself that he thought to forgive someone seven times. That's a great deal of forgiveness, considering how difficult it can be to forgive someone once. Jesus, of course, turned Peter's self-satisfaction on its head (as He was wont to do): not seven times, but seventy times seven times. In other words, infinitely, because that's how much God forgives us. Infinitely. Every second, every nanosecond, every one-millionth of a nano-second, because we are always sinning. And we aren't just sinning, we're sinning against the perfect, almighty God. We are not entitled to forgiveness. We don't deserve it, and we never have. And yet, we receive it. We ask for it. We are given it willingly by the Father. 


In the parable, the master delivers the servant unto the jailers until he can pay his debt. The thing about debtor's prison was that you couldn't earn money because you couldn't work because you were in prison, so you could not possibly pay your debt. Thus, the servant would forever be imprisoned and separated from the master. This is Hell - eternal separation from God. It's terrifying. The parable sounds awful. We are bound to be unforgiving of others; how can we hope to escape prison? Well, here's the other thing about debtor's prison: you could get out if someone else - generally a family member, but sometimes a friend - paid your debts for you. 


Isn't that precisely what Jesus did? He saw all of humanity imprisoned in sin and death and completely unable to escape. So He paid our way out. He gave his life so that our chains would be broken. 


Of course, this doesn't mean that we can go around refusing to forgive others just because we have God's grace. In fact, it's the Holy Spirit within our new selves that urges us to forgive. Christians know that grudges are bad. Even if someone has wronged you terribly and you want to say, "But you don't know what they did," you know that you should forgive them. The idea may be completely unpalatable, but we aren't given a choice. God is in us, and His Spirit speaks to us. Even when we don't want to hear. Even when we want to make excuses. Seventy times seven times, He says. People are unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. It doesn't matter.


Forgive them anyway.