Forgiveness

(Forgiveness Sunday) (Matthew 6:14-21)

Last Sunday, having heard the reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the Great Judgment, we considered that the Gospel gives us a “roadmap” by which we can make the journey of life so as to arrive safely in the kingdom of heaven; and that the Orthodox way of life – prayer, fasting, giving tithes and alms and offerings, struggling to replace our passions with the virtues, and loving and caring for each other, and for all who are made in the image of God – is the way to make sure we can complete the journey. Today, we are given another important instruction for putting love into action. Our Lord tells us that, if we desire to be forgiven for our sins and offenses, we must do the same for those who sin against us. This is such an important step on the spiritual journey that it is incorporated into the prayer that our Lord Jesus Christ teaches to us: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

We know that when we have sinned against another person, we need to ask them to forgive us, if this is possible. (I’m thinking here about when our sins are, in effect, anonymous, as when we cut someone off in traffic, for example – or in other such situations, where we don’t know the other person involved. When this happens, all we can do is ask God to forgive us; and that the other person will forgive us by God’s grace in their lives.) It isn’t easy to ask someone to forgive you for having sinned against them – but it is necessary. But what do we do when someone comes to us and asks us to forgive them?

The simple answer is that we forgive them. We can say, “I forgive you.” Or we can say, as we do during the Forgiveness Vespers service later today, “God forgives – forgive me, a sinner.” If that person comes and makes a prostration asking forgiveness, we respond with a prostration. If we are sincere in our action, this exchange has a powerful and profound impact on the persons involved. This is one of the reasons why many confessors will ask, at the end of your confession, “Have you forgiven everyone who has sinned against you?” If the answer isn’t, “Yes,” then there’s more work that needs to be done!

But sometimes we say, “I don’t know how to forgive him (or her) for his (or her) sin.” Here is the connection between love and forgiveness. Remember, love is not a feeling – although our culture teaches us to think of “love” in that way. Love is a choice we make; love is a decision; love is an act of the will. If love is only a feeling, how do I know if I will love you tomorrow, or if you will love me? If love is only a feeling, how do I know you will still love me if I offend you in some way, or sin in some way? How do you know if I will love you if you give offense or sin? If love is only a feeling, how do we trust in the love of God, Who is not subject to feelings – for God does not change. Having decided to love, having chosen to love, as an act of His will, God loves us even when we have offended Him, or anyone made in His image. Because He loves, God chooses to forgive the penitent who comes to Him and asks to be forgiven. Forgiveness, then, is love in action; forgiveness is a choice we make, a decision, an act of our will.

It is in this way that we forgive those whom we say we don’t know how to forgive: by choosing to forgive them. We say in our prayers that we forgive them; we say in our confession that we forgive them. And every time we remember the sin or offense, and it provokes us against that person once again, we consciously stop, and, in prayer, forgive them once again, asking God’s help to overcome the feelings that still affect us, and cause us to remember the wrong done to us in a way that is harmful to our souls. We continue to do so until we can remember the circumstances and not be provoked – and then we will know that we have, indeed, forgiven that person for his or her sin. We do this as an act of our will; we do this as a decision to love.

Not only that: We also choose, consciously, deliberately, to interact with the person as if the sin or offense had never taken place. It doesn’t matter how we feel; it matters how we love. By interacting as if there was no problem, had never been a problem, we are choosing to love; and so we are finding the way to forgive. Now, this is easier to do when the person has come to us and admitted their fault, and asked us to forgive them. But we do not have to be limited in our forgiveness – we do not need to wait for them to ask. We can choose to forgive them whether they ask or not; and our spiritual healing begins as we make this choice to forgive.

Brothers and sisters, we are upon the threshold of the season of Great Lent. Let us remember that God has already forgiven our sins, by His death for us upon the Cross, and His resurrection from the dead, which we look forward to celebrating on the Feast of Pascha. Our sins are forgiven by the mercy of God, as an act of His love; all we need to do is ask to be forgiven to receive the joyous release from sin and death, and the hope of life in the kingdom of God. Let us, then, being filled with the love of God, also forgive each other, and all persons, for the sins and offenses we have experienced; and let us humbly ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against, so that, together, we may rejoice in the love of God, and look for the coming of His glorious kingdom.