"If you forgive others their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others,
neither will your Father forgive your transgressions."
If the "Lord's Prayer" can be described as a summary of every Christian prayer, we should be deeply impressed that Jesus immediately glosses this prayer with a remark about the fifth petition. He underlines that phrase with positive and negative expressions: "your Father will forgive..." and "neither will your Father forgive..."
He might be saying, "Let me be crystal clear..." or "Make no mistake about it."
Refusing to forgive is not even a zero-sum game, in which one's gains are balanced by another's losses. Nobody wins; everybody is worse for failing to forgive.
And everyone wins when we do forgive because the Father "makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust."
Saint Francis of Assisi, imitating the Lord, taught the world the virtue of dispossession. He wanted to disown every claim on material or spiritual goods; he would rely solely on the gracious mercy of God. If we can't trust God to provide for us, he reasoned, there is no reason to live.
He first discovered the virtue of disowning material possessions, and then he discovered the amazing freedom of disowning resentments.
We can get an estimate of how this trash is treasured by listing the synonyms for grudge: grievance, resentment, bitterness, rancor, pique, umbrage, dissatisfaction, disgruntlement, bad feelings, hard feelings, ill feelings, ill will, animosity, antipathy, antagonism, enmity, animus, and a chip on one's shoulder.
Asked to surrender a resentment, I realize I am letting go of some precious possession. "It's mine!" I say. "I might exchange it for an apology or some recompense. But I'll be damned if I just let it go!"
I'll be damned if I don't let it go.
Francis saw this renunciation as the easiest, simplest, clearest and most accessible route to salvation. Why would anyone not take it?
I'm sure there are many reasons, but they are all anchored in the darkness of disbelief. Why does a sick man not take his medicine? Why does a weak person refuse physical rehabilitation? An ignorant person, refuse instruction? A disappointed person, ignore opportunity? Reasons are abundant; all of them, nonsense.
Reminded and challenged daily by the Lord's Prayer we decide to trust God again. He is the mother who, finding her infant playing with a sharp knife, persistently, insistently says, "Give it to Momma! Thank you! Give it to Momma!" until she receives the plaything from his trusting, innocent hands. Our Father buries every resentment beneath Mount Calvary where it molders in the blood of Jesus. It will reappear again on the Judgement Day as a flower, a blossom of mercy and grace.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.