24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 17th September 2017)
God’s forgiveness is unlimited – (Matthew 18:21-35)
St. Peter is the focus again this Sunday as he was two weeks ago. In today’s Gospel, Peter asks Jesus, ‘Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?’ Jesus gives the well known answer, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.’ It appears that Peter, once again, misses the mark. My favourite scripture scholar, the late Fr. Raymond Brown once wrote that we may be too quick to judge Peter in this story. Fr. Brown suggested that most of us might forgive once or twice, but let someone offend us a third time and we will probably say that enough is enough, no forgiveness now.
Peter, Fr. Brown suggests, was being very generous in the offer to forgive as many as seven times. Seventy-seven times, which is Jesus’ standard and really suggests unending forgiveness is a high standard indeed. And the Lord goes on to tell the parable of how the kingdom of Heaven holds us to that standard. In the tale of a generous master who forgives his servant an enormous debt, only to learn later that the same servant has refused to let a fellow servant off the hook who owes just a pittance. We are being taught here to strive for the way God acts towards each of us. Forgiveness is available to us in the sacrament of reconciliation each time that we come to God honestly. And to the sinner who sincerely repents, that forgiveness is unlimited.