Sunday Homilies with Fr. Mike Schmitz - 09/13/20 How Do I Look? The Cost of Forgiveness

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Homily from the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. There is no forgiveness without justice. Forgiveness is neither excusing nor enabling evil. There is always a debt that needs to be paid…and somebody needs to pay it. Mass Readings from September 13, 2020: Sirach 27:30—28:7 Psalms 103:1-4, 9-12Romans 14:7-9 Matthew 18:21-35 Download the Homily Study

So, two years and one week ago today, it was September 6th, 2018, was just a day of tragedy. In Arkansas, there was a man, a 26-year-old man who was a Christian, a worship leader, and in his church. He was in his apartment by himself, just watching a football game late at night and eating ice cream. a woman an off-duty police officer entered his apartment and shot and killed him. His name was Botham John. The woman who killed him named Amber, Amber Geiger. Amber lived in the apartment below Botham. And she was coming home from being on duty and she thought she was in her own apartment.

She thought that the man who was standing in the hallway was a burglar standing in her hallway. But he wasn't. He was innocent. And she took his life. And in so many ways, you know, the response when people found out about this was justifiable, anger, righteous anger. There were people were angry at what seemed to be police malfeasance. You know, yes, she was off duty, but still a police officer.

People were angry. Amber is white and both of them was black. And I saw it as another case in which here's races coming into conflict. Others were angry at the justice system. Many believed that the Jean family didn't get the justice they deserved. Many believed that Amber didn't get the punishment that she deserved. She got 10 years in prison for taking an innocent man's life. There's a lot of anger, but there were some people who were also angry for another reason.

And the reason is that at the trial, after Amber Geiger had been sentenced, Botham's little brother, Brant got up and took the stand. He's an 18-year-old young man, and he spoke to Amber from the stand. And what he said made a lot of people angry. Made a lot of people not angry. It inspired a lot of people, but it made some people angry. And here's what he said. He looked at the woman who had shot and killed his brother, and he said, I am not going

to say that I hope you rot and die like my brother did. He said, I personally want the best for you. And I wasn't ever going to say this in front of my family or anyone, but I don't even want you to go to jail. He said, I want the best for you because that's exactly what both of them would want for you too. He said, if you're truly sorry, I know I can speak for myself, I forgive you. And I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you. There's a book called Mir Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

And in his chapter on forgiveness, he says these. of a longer quote, but I'm going to go with it here. He said, C.S. Lewis, he said, I said in a previous chapter of mere Christianity that chastity was most unpopular of the Christian virtues, but I'm not sure I was right. He says, I believe that there is one even more unpopular. It's laid down in the Christian rule, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Because in Christian morals, thy neighbor includes thy enemy, so we come up against this terrible duty of forgiving our enemies. He goes on, he says, everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something

to forgive, as we had during the war, first and second war. He was talking about the Second War War. And then to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. And this is a very key line that CSLIS points out. He says, it's not that people think that forgiveness is too high and lofty of virtue, it's that they think it hateful and contemptible. They say that sort of talk makes. makes me sick.

And half of you already want to ask me, I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew. And Lewis says, so do I. I wonder very much. See, you know, we're in the middle of this series right now called How Do I Look? And we recognize that Christianity is not just, doesn't just change some things. It's the one thing that changes everything. That Christianity is a worldview.

And we realize that that view, that vision determines our destiny. nation. And it has to change absolutely everything. And so we ask the question today, here's the first reading that talks about forgiving. Forgiving those who hurt you, we talk about in the gospel today. Here's Jesus. Peter asks the question, how often must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? So we have to ask the question, how do I look? How do I look at forgiveness? How do I look, how do we look at those who have hurt us? Peter even says, you know, should I forgive him seven times? And Jesus responds to these really hard words. This is like one of the hardest words of Christianity. Jesus says, no, I don't say seven. I say seven. I say seven.

77 times, even when what they've done is unforgivable. Let me go back to the story in Arkansas of both Mjohn and Amber Geiger. And we realized that Amber, she could never pay back what she did. She never pay back what she owes, not in a thousand years. Like justice, justice can never be done, really. No matter how long she was in jail, it would never be just. She could never pay back what she owes. And so when God says, when Jesus says, we have to forgive, what does he mean?

Does he mean just what we have to do as Christians is just kind of wave it away? Just kind of ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist. Pretend that we weren't hurt or act as if the person didn't do something that was terribly wrong. And the answer is no. We realize, we know this is true, that God is just. In fact, God is justice himself. And God cannot excuse evil. He can't enable sin.

I think of what we forget is what justice is. Here's what justice is. The definition of justice is. justice is giving someone what they're owed, or getting what is owed to you. Justice is giving someone what they're owed. And so if there's a debt, if there's something owed, then it's not justice unless that gets paid, unless that debt gets paid. And so this is all in the context, the forgiveness talk is in the context of justice.

There is always a cost to forgiveness. There's a price for forgiveness. Especially when we have a debt, you know, I don't know if you know this, but the average American has a debt of roughly $90,000 right now at this moment. The average American has a debt of about $90,000. And I know that dealing with a lot of students, a lot of students have debt because when it comes to school loans and there's a lot of talk about having like, you know, debt forgiven or school loans forgiven or any kind of debt forgiveness kind of talk is interesting and I totally get

it because if you had it staring down the barrel at 90,000 or more dollars that you owe to be able to say, I just wish we had debt forgiveness. That makes sense because it's so daunting. Just be, let me, let me get released from my debt. But that idea reminds me of when I was a, when I was younger and I first got my, my like first real job, you know, where they, you know, paid me for doing work and then left my parents who didn't. And all my friends, we were getting jobs too. I had some friends who worked at restaurants or some friends who worked at like the movie theater and I'd go to the restaurant and go to the movie theater and at one point, you know, some friend would say, oh, don't worry about it. You know, I don't

worry about it. You don't have to pay, it's on the house. And I remember like that even that term like it's on the house would be like, oh sweet, I don't have to pay. It's free. And it wasn't until later that I realized, oh wait, it's not free. It's just I'm not being asked to pay. Someone else is paying. The house is paying. Like if my friend working in the restaurant gives me a free meal, a free drink, or free anything, it's not actually free. On the house means that the company, the restaurant is paying for it. And it's so interesting how easy that is to accept, like, oh, sure, no problem. Someone else will pay for this until I remember I had a friend who said, don't worry, it's on me. And I was struck by the difference that happened

in me when someone would say it's on the house. Great, some nameless, faceless, anonymous thing is paying for this. It's free versus someone staring right at me with a name, with a face, looking at me and saying, no, no, no, I'm going to pay what you owe. That's what it's on me means. It's I'm going to pay what you owe. And I just realized like how personal that is. When someone says you owe something, but I'm going to pay for you, I think if we acknowledge and accept that, someone else is going to pay. I owe some, I owe a debt. Someone's going to pay that. If we acknowledge and accept that, it changes the way we look. It actually, it actually changes us. It changes the way we see ourselves. It, it, it, it, I see myself, it changes the way I look.

I'm someone who has been forgiven. And I remember like the very first time that that ever happened to me when it came to Jesus with our Lord. I, I said the story so many times, but recap, when I was 15 years old, I had this conviction of like, oh my gosh, I have sinned. Like, this is something I have done. I knew I needed to go to confession, went to confession, and maybe we're leaving where I had gone to confession with this recognition of, oh my gosh, Lord, that's what you think of me. Like how I looked at myself was,

Lord God, you declare over me that I'm someone worth forgiving. You declare over me that I'm someone worth dying for, and this is the thing. Whenever, how do I look? I look at myself as someone who has been forgiven. When you look like someone who's been forgiven, that means you've acknowledged and accepted, someone paid a price.

because I owed a debt. And every time I go to confession, every single time I go to confession, it is God himself, once again, declaring over me that I owed a debt I could not pay. So Jesus Christ paid a debt he did not owe. And it changes us. It changes how I look. Because I begin to look again, begin to look at like someone.

There was a cost. I had an unpayable debt. And there is someone whose name is Jesus Christ who took my debt on himself. And when you, when we realize that Christ has declared this over us, this is who you are. When we acknowledge and accept the payment of our debt, when we acknowledge and accept forgiveness, it changes how we look. An unpayable debt. That's what Jesus is talking about in the gospel today. He's talking about an unpayable debt. In the New American Bible, this is the translation we just read and declared here at the at Mass.

It says that a servant was summoned in before his master, and it said he owed him a huge amount. Well, in the original Greek, it doesn't just say a huge amount. It says the exact number, amount of money that this servant owes to this master. The number is 10,000 talents. Now, for us, that's not helpful. We think that's a huge amount. That's why the New American Bible translates it as a huge amount, because we don't know what 10,000 talents is.

Here's what 10,000 talents is. A denarius is a day's wage. So if you're a normal worker like this guy in the Gospel in the parable today, you get one denarius a day. A talent is made up of 6,000 denari. So one talent is worth 6,000 denarii. So 6,000 days wages. It's roughly the modern equivalent.

One talent would be worth $348,000. That's one talent. And so the total, 10,000 talents, it adds up to $3.48 billion. That's how much money this man owes the master. And he says, and he has like the gall to say, give me some time, I'll pay you back what I owe you. If the master gave him 200,000 years,

that's how long it would take for this one man, earning one denier a day to pay back the $3.48 billion this man owes him. It's an unpayable debt. And this is us, as as Christians, Like, how do I look at myself? I look like someone whose debt has been paid. I look like someone who has been forgiven.

And this is the cost of forgiveness. The cost of forgiveness for to forgive me. One of my sins is the life, the death, and the resurrection of God's only son. That is just, it gets declared out over us every single time. As I said, he paid a debt that he did not owe because I owed a debt that I could not pay. And because of that, how do I look?

I have been marked by mercy. How do you look as a Christian? You've been marked by mercy. and that worldview changes everything. How do I look? It doesn't just, no, here's the thing. It doesn't change the past because there's still consequences.

But it does change the future. It gives us a future of hope and it gives us a future of responsibility. It gives us a future of hope. It's not over. It also gives us a future of responsibility because it's not over. I would say it seems like

if there is any condition put on grace, grace is that free gift, but if there's any condition put on grace, if there's any kind of requirement placed on forgiveness, it is this, that it doesn't end with us. If there's anything God expects of those for whose debt he pays, it's this one thing that it doesn't end with us because here's the gospel, right? This person, $3.48 billion, I forgave you, the Master of even says, I forgave you because you asked me to. His debt has been paid. He's been forgiven. How does he look? Does he look at the world like

one who's been forgiven. Does you look at those who owe him debts like one who has been forgiven? Now he grabs him by the throat starts to choke him and says, you pay justice demands that you pay me what you owe me. So how do I look? I look at myself like someone who has been forgiven. How do I look? That means I have to look at everyone who hurts me as the kind of person who has been forgiven and who then therefore must also say to those who owe me, I forgive you. Now, no, this is, we're coming to the end and I get it because at this point people are like, but what if you've been really hurt? I understand this. What, what if, um, father, I'm still so, I'm still so angry. I'm still so wounded. Like, how do I even

do this? There's actually a process for this because we often get forgiveness wrong. We get, we get the Lord's forgiveness is so good. He just gives it to us, but our forgiveness has so many emotions to it. We have so much baggage when it comes to our forgiveness. How do we forgive? Well, Jesus gives us a very, very clear example of forgiveness in today's gospel. Forgiveness is not getting over it. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not excusing. Forgiveness is not enabling bad behavior.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation even. Forgiveness is essentially two parts, two movements. And the first movement is like in the gospel, where the master comes in and says, okay, here's exactly how much you owe. So injustice, we don't dismiss justice. We have to actually add up. The person who has hurt you. How much do they owe you?

Justice is real. How much did they take from you? What did they cost you? What did their actions against you take from you? Because that's how much they owe you. I mean, it's the same kind of thing if you loaned your car to someone and they dinged it up and now there's $1,500 worth of damage. That's how much they owe you.

And sometimes we lend our hearts to people and they bang them up and you have to, we have to sit down in prayer, hopefully in the Lord's presence and say, okay, Lord, what has this person cost me? What does this person owe me to calculate it? Those people who have wounded you in your past and sometimes you even carry those wounds in other relationships, like write it down, this is what has cost me. The way my mom or my dad treated me, the way this sibling treated me, this person in my life treated me.

That has hurt me in this way, this way, this way. Add it up. And the number might be a massive, it might be 10,000 talents. We need to add it up if we're going to be like God. We have to first be just. and say, this is how much you owe me. But then the second step is not to forget.

The second step is not to dismiss. The second step is not to say no big deal. The second step is simply to say this. This is how much you owe me. I release you. This is how much you owe. Justice demand that this is what you owe me. I release you from your debt.

I'm not going to wait around to make you pay me back. I'm not going to force you to try to. and pay me back. In justice, you owe me this much. In mercy, I release you from your debt. See, this is the cost of forgiveness. This is the price of forgiveness. It changes how I look. And this is what Brant, Jean, the 18-year-old little brother of Botham knew. Which is what he said. Again, is what he said. He said, personally, I want the best for you. to this woman, Amber, who killed his brother. And I wasn't going to say this in front of my family or anybody.

I don't even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you, because that's what both of them would want. And then he says, and the best would be this. Give your life to Christ. I think giving your life to Christ would be the best thing that both of them would want you to do. And he said, again, I love you as a person, and I don't wish anything bad on you. How does that look? How does this 18-year-old Brandt look?

He looks like someone who has been forgiven so he could look at Amber through the eyes of someone who has been forgiven.