19th Sunday Year B - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2015

The message of today’s readings is always relevant – though it is easy to take it for granted. We hear that sort of thing often enough in Church, are not surprised by the message, and assume that we agree with it – by and large. Yet, it seems to me that it is getting at was critical for Jesus, and, indeed, that it is anything but common sense. The Gospel today, as over the past couple of weeks, mentions eternal life, and talks about it in the present tense. Eternal life means more than life after death. It refers to the quality of genuine life in the now. It is the sort of inner life proper to God – and Jesus offers the experience to us now.

The life of the Trinity is essentially conscious, joyfully creative love. As shared by us, it is not a “you either have it or you don’t” kind of experience, but allows for more or less – the more the better: conscious, joyfully creative love and life! To identify it as love can sound a bit boring. So the writer of the Epistle got more specific, Never have grudges against others, or lose your temper, or raise your voice to anybody, or call each other names, or allow any sort of spitefulness. Interestingly, he focused first on the negatives. But then he went on, Be friends with one another, and kind, forgiving each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ. That is not common sense. Forgiving does not rate highly in today’s culture – just listen to the nightly news bulletins on TV. Yet forgiveness almost defines the attitude of the conscious, joyfully creative Trinity: Forgive each other as readily as God forgave you in Christ. If God does not forgive us, God would not be either joyful or creative! And to the extent that we are not forgiving, we are neither joyful nor creative. [Forgiveness, of course, needs to be clearly distinguished from codependence – that sometimes looks like it. True forgiveness is an expression of strength and of maturity.]

For the past couple of weeks, the Gospel has been presenting Jesus variously as the Bread come down from heaven, the Bread of life. It has challenged us to believe in him [meaning to trust him and his way of life], to let him nourish us, even to eat and assimilate and thereby become him. The Epistle said the same thing: follow Christ by loving as he loved you. We are smart enough, I hope, to know that for him loving us requires constantly and consistently forgiving us.

Our world is threatened by forgiveness, if we take it seriously. I want to be real here. I know that forgiving can be virtually impossible for some after the hurt or betrayal they have sometimes suffered. At times, I even wonder if it is harder to forgive someone who has hurt one we love, than it is to forgive the one who has hurt us. 

God does not say that we have to forgive. I don’t think that God says we even ought to. I don’t believe there are any “musts” or “oughts” with God. God simply makes the offer, Jesus demonstrates the possibility… but gently they warn us that Life to the full, if we want it to be ours, will depend on it. And they offer us their forgiveness to empower our moving more deliberately towards it.

Forgiveness, of course, does not rule out judging. We forgive what we judge to be wrong. But they are two quite different processes. God judges; Jesus judges. That is the source of their practical commitment to justice, even of their commitment to forgiveness. But God does not punish. God does not need to punish. Punishment is intrinsic to the offence itself. The punishment of unrepented sin is simply the impossibility of enjoying life to the full. Hostility towards others, selfishness, [even non-forgiveness] are of themselves incompatible with joy. That is why God constantly calls us beyond sin and unforgiveness. And sadly, that call is radically countercultural.