HOMILY FOR THE 24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR A

1. Sirach 27:30-28:7

2. Romans 14: 7-9

Gospel: Matthew 18: 21-35

" Un forgiveness is a spiritual pollution of God's atmosphere".

When a man named George Wilson who in 1830 killed a government employee who caught him in the act of robbing the email, he was tried and condemned to death by hanging. However, the president of the United states at that time, Andrew Jackson granted him executive pardon. George Wilson, however, refused to accept the pardon. The department of criminal investigation did not know what to do. The case was taken to the supreme court where Chief Justice Marshall ruled out that " a pardon is a slip of paper, the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged." And hanged he was. Even if we are opposed to the death penalty, we still cannot but agree with the principle that pardon granted has to be accepted in order to become effective. This is the point of today's gospel. When God forgives us, we must accept God's forgiveness. However, the gospel goes on to indicate that the way to accept God's forgiveness is not just to say " Amen, so be it" but to go out and forgive somebody.

Today we hear Peter asking Jesus in the gospel that how often must I forgive? perhaps St. Peter might have thought that he was so generous in stretching the number to seven. But Jesus said: " No, not seven times, but seventy times seven times." In other words that forgiveness must be unlimited, that we should always forgive our brothers and sisters.

How often must we forgive seven times? To ask this type of question is like asking, how often is it necessary for us to breath fresh air or to drink clean water, seven times? We ending dying and getting sick when we do not breath fresh air or drink clean water. We don't need to live in a polluted environment; we cannot breath well if we live in a polluted environment. Spiritual pollution in this context is caused by unforgiveness. When we are angry with someone, we cannot breath well. Our hearts palpitate so fast because it bereft of the right amount and quality of air. Our rancor and ill will suffocate us eventually. We need to drink clean water and breath fresh air. We cannot expect to stay healthy if we drink contaminated and breath polluted air. The same in our spiritual life, that when we are filled with animosity and antipathy, it is like drinking dirty water.

The parable of the Unforgiving Servant raises the frightening prospect that pardon already granted by God could be revoked. The king who forgave his servant his debt meant it. But when the servant went out and failed to forgive somebody, the King revoked the pardon. By his action the servant had shown that he did not appreciate and therefore was unworth of the pardon he had been given. Can we ask ourselves that is this a good analogy of how God deals with us? In fact that seems to be the point of the parable. " So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart"( Matthew 18:35). In other words, when God gives us His word of forgiveness, everything is not over yet. The deal is finally concluded when we are able to go out and forgive those who sin against us. The free grace of God's forgiveness needs our response of forgiving our neighbor to be finally ratified. Isn't that a frightening thought? " Forgive your neighbors the wrong they have done, and then your sins will be pardoned when  you pray"( Sirach28:2).

Sometimes we find it hard to forgive others even though that is the only way to anchor God's forgiveness.  The reason about that is very clear, it is because we fail to appreciate and celebrate our forgiveness. Like the ungrateful servant in the parable, we focus on the 100 denarii our neighbor owes us rather than the 10,000 talents we owe to God, which God has graciously cancelled. Let us think about this in perspective..  A talent was equal to 6,000 denarii. So hw owed his master the equivalent of 60,000,000 denarii. For a labourer working days a week, 50 weeks a year, it would take280,000 years to raise that kind of money. This astronomical figure shows that the servant owed his master so much that there was absolutely no way he could ever hope to repay that. This is the symbolic of the debt each of us owes God through sin; a debt we could never ever hope to repay even if we spent out whole life in sackcloth and ashes. Not evn the combined penitence of all humankind suffices to blot outa single sin. But God in his infinite mercy sent his own Son to die on the cross and take away our sins. And all He asks of us is to be grateful; to realize that He has done for us so much more than we could ever be required to do for our neighbor.

Let us remember this, Christ invites us to live the trilogy of love: love for ourselves, love for others as we love ourselves and love for God as He has loved us and forgiveness is the essential element that binds this trilogy of love.

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