Homily Notes - 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time
24th Sunday of Ordinary Time--------“Holding Tight or Letting Go”
“Wrath and anger are hateful things yet the sinner holds them tight.” People often hold onto grudges. The writer of Sirach says we sometimes cling to our hurts as if we must.
What does that look like? One example Sirach could have used to explain might have been the experience of traveling around the ancient world. When an Apostle like St. Paul would go from place to place spreading the message of Jesus he would take one bag with him. Most of the time he was walking so he had to travel light. He would sleep out in the open, sometimes, but a lot of nights a wandering preacher would sleep in an Inn. Hotels were not like they are today. The rooms were usually built around a courtyard. The gates would be shut at night so there would be security from the outside world. But there was little protection from unscrupulous guests. Strangers slept side by side in the open rooms.
The conditions were the same if people were traveling by ship. Ships did not have staterooms. Most people would sleep on the deck, under the stars. The travelers, just like in the Inns, would be resting side by side. So, they would sleep every night on their bedrolls with their small bag of possessions wrapped in their arms. In that way, people would have to pry them out of the owner’s arms if they wanted to steal them. The apostle would clutch their money, their spare clothes, their tools for work to their chest as they slept, not letting go. Each traveler hugged what he owned close to their body unable to trust the strangers around them.
We can be like that with our anger and our resentment. St. Peter asks the question in the Gospel as to how much we must forgive? We all have our theories. We may have heard the old saying, “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.” Most of us are willing to forgive at least once. The normal number of times that the Jews felt a person should forgive was three times.
Peter seemed incredibly generous when he says to Jesus that he would forgive seven times. Seven was a full number. But Jesus says that we must even go beyond that. He says we need to forgive seven times seventy-seven times. Jesus means we must never stop forgiving.
He goes on further. We need to be able to forgive not just small slights, but very serious things. He tells the story of the king who forgives a large debt. The debt mentioned was a debt beyond our imagining. The real translation of how much the first servant owed was 10,000 talents. What would that amount be? One scripture scholar says that we would have to imagine an army of 100,000 men each carrying 100 lb. bag of silver to understand what was owed the King. Yet, the king readily forgives the debt when he sees the remorse of his servant.
In contrast, the man who is forgiving goes out of the room. He meets a man who owes him 100 denarii which amounts to 100 days wages, a fraction of what he himself owes. He coldly demands payment. He seems to have no concept that the forgiveness he receives must be passed on. The last line of the Gospel today must worry us if we take it serious. We are told we will be tortured unless we forgive those who we hold grudges against. Is that torture sent from God or is it self-imposed?
We all experience hurt in our lives. If we are serious Christians, we struggle with forgiveness. Why do we hold on to our bitterness? We probably do that because we do not want to be hurt again. We could ask two questions. One is how do I begin to let go of grudges. The second is, how do I know if I am making any progress?
We probably can begin to forgive by realizing how much we have been forgiven. God is constantly letting go of the disrespect we show to him as well as the hurt we cause others. We can reflect over all the hurtful things we have said and done as we have lived our life. The longer our life the more people we have probably come into conflict with. Do we acknowledge what we have done or do we just blame others? We also can think about how we have treated God. Do we believe in a loving God? Do we blame God for what goes wrong in our life? Worse yet, do we ignore the Lord? Do we even think about God? We have probably hurt God and neighbor yet God forgives us. When we acknowledge how much mercy we have received we start to leave resentments behind.
We know we are making progress if we become less angry. Many times, anger is not expressed toward the people who have caused our pain. We strike out at those we are closest to. When we do this less and less we are probably letting go of our past hurts. If we stop living in the past, if we start living for today this is another sign of making spiritual progress. All of this takes a lot of self- reflection as well as a willingness to look at ourselves truthfully.
We may never reach a point where we forget all the pain caused by others, but if we can let go of some of it is worth it. To be wounded is bad. To open the wound up again and again is unending torture. Jesus wants healing for us. Hopefully, we want it too. We want to open our arms to let the vengeance go.
Please note this is a rough draft, grammar will not be perfect.