Fr. John O’Callagahan. “Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you! Pray for them, be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate!” This is counter-cultural to say the least and questionnably possible at all, especially when the wrongs go on and on, or where there is deep injustice. We can all think of examples, harrowing ones that we mightn’t even want to name. It is these injustices, and the suffering they entail, which are the topic of Jesus’ words today.
There is a variety of possible responses, from ‘burying the anger’ and perhaps letting it seethe under the surface of our lives; to retaliating in a more or less thought out fashion; to at least in some cases reporting it to the police; not a bad option, as it might at least prevent other people from getting hurt. But what do these responses produce? Among other things more human fall-out, private humiliations going public, a cycle of retaliation, perhaps even prison. It might deliver what some people want: revenge, a certain pleasure in seeing the offender suffer.
In the Old Testament, in the story of Adam and Eve, the eldest son Cain killed his brother Abel; then further down the family tree, the young Lamech declared, and I quote, ‘sevenfold vengeance for Cain, but seventy times seven for Lamech!’ Things went, literally, to hell! With time the Old Testament prophets would try and limit the ever expanding circle of violence and reduce it to a simple tit-for-tat retaliation: ‘you take my eye out, I’ll take one of yours out, only one!’. It was rough justice but at least it didn’t increase the damage by, for instance, a multiple of seven.
When Christ came he turned the practice of retribution on its head and called us to forgive, seventy times seven times. He came to bring something much more than retaliation, and more than judgement, something that replaces the impotence of legalism.
In the Our Father he explicitly taught us to pray ‘forgive us this day our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Let us be careful to understand this properly: it is not because I forgive people who have offended me that God forgives me. No, it is because God forgives me my offences, and freely establishes and restores my relationship with him, that I in my turn can forgive others. The more we recognise our own faults and offences the easier it is to forgive others. It is when we recognise ourselves as in daily receipt of God’s love (in whatever form) that we are able, impelled and even relieved, to forgive others. We ‘pass on’ the generosity we receive, even seventy times seven times.
It seems to me that forgiveness is a special gift of Christians to the world. The reality of ‘perpetual retribution’ is not restricted to ancient times; hell can be found today in places where there is no forgiveness. And neither Jews nor Muslims preach that God is love nor demand such a practice of forgiveness among themselves. But Christians are called to overcome revenge with forgiveness, by passing on the love we receive from God. It may be easier to relate to each other simply in terms of rights and duties, keeping up a steady equilibrium, calculated friendship, but that is not the Christian way. Let anyone who goes against love and forgiveness, against Christian compassion, not dare to say that he or she has been born of God. And by forgiveness we can also show the world something true about God, and to what dignity he has called us. For this let us pray for the help of the Holy Spirit!