Suppose as you try to park your car, you underestimate your distance and scrape the entire side of the adjacent car—a brand-new, top-of-the-line, Lexus. You realize that it will take several thousands of dollars to have fixed. Just then, the owner of the car walks up, realizes what you’ve done, sees the depressed look on your face, smiles and shakes your hand. He then says, “Don’t worry about my car; accidents happen. I’ll be glad to take care of the damage. Meantime, I hope this doesn’t ruin your day.”
Knowing how justice-sensitive we are, such kindness and forgiveness assures us that this was a fairy tale. The accident was clearly our fault; we clearly owed the owner thousands of dollars, and yet he, instead of making a big deal of it, forgave us the entire amount.
Isn’t God worth more than a brand-new Lexus? During the course of a typical day, don’t we scrape his “car” many times? And each time we ask forgiveness doesn’t he smile, give us a hug, and tell us that he forgives us the entire debt? And guess what? This isn’t a fairy tale; it is straight out of the Bible. No matter how serious our offense is toward God, he reminds us that Jesus already paid off the debt, and that if we are repentant he forgives us. What a God we have!
Back to our story. Imagine that the same day you go home, park your twelve-year-old Camry on the street, go into the house, and then notice a neighborhood kid, veer off course, and put a scratch on the side of your car. Then you rush out, berate the child for not watching where he was going, walk him back to his house, and insist his parents pay for the repairs. What kind of person are you, especially after what happened earlier that day?
This is a variation of the story in today’s gospel (Matthew 18:21-35).
“…a king decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, the master ordered him to be sold…in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down and did him homage, and said. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.”
It would take more than a lifetime for the servant to repay the debt. The generous, compassionate landowner forgave him, just the way God forgives us.
Later,
“the servant found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe’”
The fellow servant fell on his knees and begged for more time to pay him back.
“But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.”
Doesn’t this get us angry, that a man who’d been forgiven millions of dollars would insist that another pay him back a few dollars on the spot?
What about us? Let’s close our eyes and ask the Holy Spirit to show us those who have hurt us and whom we haven’t completely forgiven. As we choose to forgive them and pray for them, the mercy of God begins to flood our own hearts in a new way. Our forgiving Father expects us to be like him. This is today’s Lenten practice—the most important of all.
