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Forgive Trespasses


Elev­enth Sun­day Af­ter Pen­te­cost. [I Cor. 9:2-12; Matt. 18:23-35] The Lord con­cluded the par­a­ble a­bout the two debt­ors with the fol­low­ing words: So like­wise shall My Heav­en­ly Fa­ther do al­so un­to you, if ye from your hearts for­give not ev­ery one his broth­er their tres­pass­es. It would seem that such a small thing is need­ed: for­give and you will be for­given. When you are for­given, you are brought in­to mer­cy; and when you are brought in­to mer­cy, you have be­come a par­tic­i­pant in all the trea­sures of mer­cy. So here is sal­va­tion, and par­a­dise, and eter­nal bliss. What a great ac­qui­si­tion for such a small thing as forgiving!… Yes, it is a small thing, but for our self-love there is noth­ing more dif­fi­cult than to for­give. We still per­haps for­give some un­in­ten­tion­al an­noy­ance dealt us in pri­vate so that no­bod­y sees; but if it is just a bit more sen­si­tive, and in front of peo­ple, do not even ask — no for­give­ness. There are cir­cum­stances when wheth­er you want to or not, you are not al­low­ed to ex­press your dis­plea­sure — and so you re­main si­lent. How­ev­er, on­ly your tongue is si­lent — mean­while your heart speaks and builds evil plans. Raise the an­noy­ance yet an­oth­er de­gree — and there is no re­straint. Nei­ther shame, nor fear, nor loss, nor any oth­er thing will re­strain you. Ego­ism which has reach­ed the boil­ing point makes a per­son as though in­sane, and he who gives in to it be­gins to talk fool­ish­ness. The peo­ple most sub­ject to this mis­for­tu­na­te state are usu­al­ly not just any­bod­y — the more civilized one is, the more sen­si­tive he is to in­sults, and the less forgiving. Re­la­tions will of­ten re­main smooth on the sur­face, but in­ward­ly there is clear­ly dis­cord. Mean­while, the Lord re­quires that we for­give with our whole heart.


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