Thought for the Week: ​How to measure true forgiveness

​There is quite a double edge to this and we do not always cope with it.

Sure, we will grasp with both hands what the Psalmist says: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.” That is great when we mess up. We ask God for forgiveness. But, when someone does us wrong; when someone does us dirty, we say: “Not so fast". We are not so full of compassion and mercy. We are not so slow to anger and of great kindness. We may be quick to anger.

And yet, this is how Our Lord taught us to pray – forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

In a gospel passage Peter comes to Jesus and asks: “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Peter always asks the questions that we would like to ask. He is so earnest and so eager to do the right thing. But Peter also always seems to be getting it wrong.

Peter must have done his homework, too. There is an ancient rabbinic tradition that says a person should forgive another who has sinned against him as many as four times. So, Peter, earnest and eager, tries to be even more extravagant than the rabbis, and he adds three more times. He asks: “Should I forgive a person even up to seven times?”

Perhaps Peter was expecting Jesus to praise him for even suggesting such extravagant forgiveness.

This doesn’t happen. Rather, Jesus turns and says, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Peter wants a rule, a measurement, so he holds wide his hands and says: “This much, Lord? Should I forgive even this much?” And Jesus says: “No, much more than that. As far as the east is from the west, that’s how much you should forgive.”