4th Sunday Lent C - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2013

Both today's Second Reading and the Gospel raise the issues of forgiveness and reconciliation.  They are difficult issues – difficult to understand, difficult to implement, difficult sometimes even to agree to.

Unfortunately, when people have hurt us, they continue to have power over us and to control our personal experience of inner peace until we choose deliberately to forgive.  Perhaps, they could not care less whether we forgive them or not.  But until we forgive, like it or not, we are not truly free.

In concern for our inner peace and freedom, Jesus invites us to forgive, even insists on it.  How we feel about that depends a lot on how we understand what he means by forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not excusing.  Forgiveness engages with what cannot be excused.  It does not mean forgetting [we have little control over memory].  And sometimes it may be important not to forget.  Forgiveness does not mean treating the offender as though nothing had happened.  Forgiveness does not mean no longer being angry.  [We have no control over what we feel.]   Anger itself is morally neutral.  It can fire us to act destructively; but it is also the precious energy source that empowers us to act for change, and for justice.

It is also important to distinguish forgiveness from reconciliation.  Forgiveness is one-way; reconciliation is two-way.  Reconciliation is restored relationship; but relationship requires the response of the other.  Relationships are built on trust; and betrayed trust is fragile.  Trust can only be re-established over time, and perhaps may never be.  Certainly, it is not possible unless the offender is truly sorry.  And it is important to distinguish true sorrow from remorse.  They are quite different.

It is interesting to notice the original motivation of the younger son who returned to his father in today's Gospel.  It was totally self-centred, self-interested.  He hadn't learnt anything.  He was not interested in relationship, in love and trust and shared intimacy.  He was interested in a life where he would no longer go hungry.

Perhaps, the totally unexpected and unimaginable enthusiastic welcome by his Father may have empowered him to grow and to change, to learn to see beyond himself and even to love his Father [perhaps for the first time], and to be truly reconciled.  But the story does not tell us.

Whereas forgiveness, being one way, does not demand the other's prior sorrow, reconciliation, which is two-way, does require it.  The wonderful thing is that forgiveness can enable and empower the other's movement to genuine sorrow – but not necessarily so, and not always.

Forgiveness is the distinguishing feature of God.  It was beautifully revealed in the risen Christ when he stood again among his disciples on the night of his resurrection with no trace of recrimination.  He was totally free.  In today's Second Reading, Paul proclaims his faith in the forgiveness of God.  He urges us to accept it, and to enter into relationship with God – that is, to be reconciled with God.  When Jesus taught us to pray, he saw us drawn into a flow of infinite forgiveness, and being swept along by it to bring forgiveness to the world: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. 

At the moment, forgiveness is in short supply in our world.  Close to home, in the light of the increasing revelation of clergy sexual abuse, the public mood is far from forgiving.  To forgive can seem like further abuse of victims already deeply hurt.  And still the temptation of Church people can be to prioritise defence of the Church over concern and care for victims.  The challenge is to find balance.  Victims cannot be betrayed.  Yet, without forgiveness, we remain a vindictive and violent world.

Such forgiveness, however, cannot suppress or wipe away anger; cannot sidestep the need to speak the truth, however painful it may be to hear it; cannot shirk the need for meaningful compensation; cannot avoid the need to reform certain attitudes and structures in the Church; and can never stop being vigilant.  It may be a long and painful process.

Yet, God is in our world, present in the current situation – present as a source of truth and life.  The important thing is to be prepared to search for the presence of God, to listen carefully, and to act with the energy, the grace, that God provides.