TWENTY FOURTH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - A

24TH SUNDAY OF THE YEAR – A: (Sir 27:30-28:1-7; Rom 14:7-9; Math 18:21-35)
Theme: Pardon is a Fountain to which we come to receive it and from which we return to share it

Reflection:

- Pardon and forgiveness is the central message of today’s readings and the church once again exhorts us to reach the profundity of its nature and to be filled-up with its mission;
- The word of God is offered to us not only just to listen for that time when it was read and preached but to ‘ponder over it and to mediate’ until it become part of our life;
- We come to the fountain to have the breezing experience of the spring that come out it and with the tremendous joy we return to tell it; the experience cannot be passive and will not be ineffective; it always makes the person ‘to come out of himself’ and ‘to reach others’ in order to share what he has seen, heard and touched;
- Pardon, likewise, a fountain of God’s mercy and love; a fountain to which we come to experience its pleasantness and its efficacy of ‘mercy and love’; once we experience this we cannot remain passive and ineffective; the power of the experience makes us ‘to go out of our comfort zones’ - such as our confined homes and even our life which we have often covered with the margins and borders so as not to be disturbed by others – and to break these borders lines and finally ‘to reach others’, even to the enemies (who have offended us), only with one intention of ‘sharing what we have experienced’ and that is of ‘pardon and forgiveness of God’;
- God stands out in the middle as the central force to whom we come and from whom we return to make the experience a living spring; spring is a living one only when ‘it comes out’ from the fountain and ‘go out to reach’ its destiny of offering coolness and breeziness. We become like living springs of God’s mercy and love in the form of Pardon only when we move – to its profundity in the backward direction and it its mission in the forward direction;

First Reading:

- Adding Wisdom to the Law and Worship:
o The book of the Sirach which is also named as Ecclesiasticus is the book which falls under the category of the ‘Wisdom and Poetry’ part of the Bible; in Old Testament we have different ‘categories’: First five books is called ‘Penteteuch’, that is, Torah or the Law, then comes the ‘History’ in the second category which comprises mainly of the judges and kings and third is the ‘Wisdom and Peotry’ which starts from Job and ends with the Sirach; and the fourth and final category is the ‘Prophecy’ in which we have all the prophets and their proclamation;
o The Sirach, the present book of which we are dealing today, is the wise literature which deals with the ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ life in the man’s either public or private affairs; it tries to search for the significance of the man’s character in his attitude towards himself (therefore inner life) and also towards others (therefore the relationships with others); According to this book, the true measure of the human character is not the ‘money or possessions and not even his status’ but ‘his virtue’.
o It adds ‘meaning and wisdom’ to the Torah which was given by Moses and to the Worship that the people of Israel offer to God; the practice of the law of God should not be a just an act of fulfilling a norm; the worship that is being done by God’s people should not be also a ‘mere ritual or rite’ which has no consequence in the life; either the following the Law or rendering worship to God should be an act of ‘intelligence and wisdom’ which has its fruits and effects in the life that follows;

- Anger a Sword – Pardon a Cord:
o The first reading of today present to us the contradiction between: Anger – wrath (27:30) and Pardon – Prayer (28:2);
o Anger and the wrath are like a Sword that divides the rapport, destroys the relationship and finally demolish the ‘unity’ between the relations (in the family), between the members (in the community), between the individuals (in the friendship) and between the faithful in the church; with the anger the distance becomes more; the misunderstanding takes the reign;
o Pardon and the prayer are like a Rope that unites the broken relationships and the construct the human life, again in the various levels, like that of family, society, friendships and finally in the Christian sense, the Church;
o It is we who have to decide about what to have in our hands: a Sword or a Cord; accordingly we will have either the life and happiness or the desperation and loss of life;
o Once again we have the same purpose as we meditated last week: To Build up the Human Community by the Cord of Pardon and Prayers, keeping aside and giving up of a Sword of Anger and Wrath.

- How and What For to give up this sword and take up this cord of pardon?
o The answer is found again in this reading in the verses 6-7: By remembering our destiny and by keeping in mind our journey towards the future glory;
o The questions of the meaning of life and human destiny in so far he is a Christian make us understand why we need to live in the harmony with our fellow brethren;
o These verses propose that we have to remember at least four things:
 First, we have to remember the end of our life and that will help us to keep aside the hatred and enmity and to repair our broken links: “Remember the end of your life, and set enmity aside” (v.6a): if as humans and limited being we have an end and if our end is to have life in the Lord in whom we believe, we have to lead a life of commitment to God and to the neighbor and when we remember this truth and act accordingly it is not so difficult to throw away the inhuman elements such as enmity and hatred and to embrace the means of pardon;
 Second, we have to remember that we are mere mortals and we are destined to corruption and death: “remember corruption and death, and be true to the commandments” (v.6b): as God’s people we are called to the life of immortality and we are also given the way to follow it so that we would enter into that immortality where the corruption of the body and the death are finally overcome and we enter into the eternal bliss; But this is only a call; it is we who have to answer this call and live accordingly by choosing the way of life that God has revealed in Christ; once we aim at this it is so easy to keep his commandments; by remembering and keeping in action the commands of the Lord we can build up the human unity with the means of reciprocal pardon and prayer;
 Third, we have to remember, as the continuation of the previous one, the commandments that God has given at mount Sion and which are perfected by Jesus in the ‘doubled effected commandment of love for God and for other’: “Remember the commandments, and do not be angry with your neighbor” (v.7a): if the central point of the commandments is that of love and if we want to embrace them to have life in the Lord, then, where is the room for the moments of anger and wrath? No more domination of these abominations which the sinner only holds (27:30), but the ‘God’s and fraternal love’ takes hold of us and leads us;
 Forth, we have to, ultimately, remember the covenant that has been established between God and us, the covenant in which there is the mutual fidelity both on the part of God to be our God and on the part of us to be his people: “remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook fault” (v.7b): once we remember that we are the chosen people of God Most High and we are raised to the life that is higher than the others and we are given the dignity of being his children, then, with the joy of the alliance we have with God we can simply forget and overlook the faults of others because they are not our aim; instead, our aim is to with God and for God and that happens when we completely engage ourselves in his service of love and mercy for others;
 All this ‘remembrance’ – even Jesus asks us to do everything we do in his memory, that is, in his remembrance – has a goal; and the goal is to be living in the Spirit of the Lord because it is the Spirit that makes us ‘remember’ what we are and where we have to head to and finally our destiny and thus make all of us ‘united’ with one mind and one heart; once this happens then, there is no place for anger and wrath but only the pardon and prayer take precedence;

Second Reading:

- We are for Christ:
o The message of Paul for us today is that of ‘living for Christ’ and if needed even ‘dying for Christ’ and in this way WE ARE HIS – we become his – either in life or in death;
o This messages exhorts us once again of our unity with Christ; we are united to Christ and our unity remains forever; no one separate us from Him as Paul reminds us in the same letter to the Roman, in the chapter eight, in which he speaks that “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ” and even death;
o We are no more ourselves and we are no more for ourselves; we are for Christ and Christ is for all; by sharing the mission of Christ as we follow him we are for others too; in anyway, we live for Christ and for others and not for ourselves;
o Once again, speaking this way, Paul exhorts us to participate in the death of Christ so that we can also rise with him to the life of glory; and if we want to connect it to our theme today, we have to remember that our life ultimately is not for ourselves and it is to offered for Christ; offering to Christ means ‘working for the betterment of others’ and in this way we give glory to his name and to the Father who has blessed us in Christ;

Gospel:
- Context of the text:
o We need not reflect too much about today because we have already mentioned everything of the contextual situation in the last week’s reflection; but to put everything is a word, in summary, we can say that we are still in the discourse of Jesus on the community life – the community which is build up of ‘the small and the little’ and of those who earn his neighbor with the fraternal correction – and the community life has as its central string the message of Pardon and Forgiveness which hold both directions – in the forward, the fraternal correction and in the backward, the common prayer;

- Structure of the gospel:
o Question of Peter and the Answer of Jesus (vv. 21-22)
o The Parable of the settling of the accounts (vv. 23-34)
o The Conclusion with the reference to the Heavenly Father (v.35).
o This is the tentative structure we can make, though not in the manner of biblical theology, in the manner of pastoral understanding; we need this in the pastoral level because we are here to build up our community of faith;
o The first one deals with the question of Peter (v.21): actually the discourse of Jesus on the aspect of the community of life seems to be having an actual ending with the verse 20 in which Jesus tells that “for where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them”. But Peter wants to know more about forgiveness and the exact number of offering forgiveness;
o Immediately Jesus rebukes and answers (v.22): not enough seven time but more than that; and the symbolism of infinite number is ‘seventy times seven’; in word, Jesus keeps aside the numeric and the method of counting in the attitude towards our neighbor though he uses the number seventy time seven just for the demonstration of the unlimited mercy we have to have towards our offenders;
o Parable of the kingdom of God: once again we see Mathew putting another parable on the mystery of the kingdom of God which he has done enough and more comprising everything of what Jesus has said in the form of kingdom parables (chapter 13); but the mystery has no end; mystery has no limit; and the mystery has no definitive and reachable end in time and history; therefore, it needs to be revealed time and again as the situation and the understanding of the people demand; that’s the reason why Mathew never stops himself narrating again and again the mystery of the kingdom in the parables and we see this very often even after dedication of one whole chapter for them; one of such is today’s parable;
 Parable of the King who settles the accounts: it is more than the granting of forgiveness, it is the parable of the king who wanted to restore his kingdom in which different people have to give an answer for their responsibilities; this also signifies the attitude of the king who is keen to see the ‘well being’ of his kingdom so that it would be complete and perfect;
 Parable of the servant ‘forgiven’ because of his prayer: it is also highlights the servant has owed to the master a good amount of debt and who is not in the condition to repay; and finally prayed for the patience and time for the restoration; not that servant asked to cancel the debt but asked for the little more time with the assurance of paying back everything; but the master is merciful and kind has ‘cancelled’ all his debt and left him go with the joy of being forgiven;
 Parable of reciprocal pardon: it is the parable of sharing of the joy of forgiveness; the servant who has been forgiven has not remembered (the first reading – speaks of remembering God’s love and life in the form of alliance) what he has received; he has completely neglected and kept aside the joy of being forgiven; the experience of forgiveness has also the mission of transferring to the others; the servant has not carried in his heart this joy to share it with his companion who has also indebted to him but a small amount; one pardon received does not become pardon shared it is accountable. That’s what happened in the parable; the servant who did not want to share, not what he has, at least what he has received and he has punished for his ‘hardhearted’ act; and finally as the result he is thrown into the prison until the repay of the full debt;

- Significance of the gospel passage:
o The pardon is the central point:
 We ourselves, as weak and incapable humans, cannot offer a perfect pardon to those who done wrong to us; therefore, we need to go back to the fountain to receive the grace and strength to share it with others;
 How much is forgiven or how many times is given forgiveness is not what matters for Christ but the attitude with which it is offered and that is the reason why Jesus at the end of the parable says that if we do not forgive our fellowmen from our heart even God does not offer to us the pardon;
 Even in the great prayer ‘Our Father’ we are reminded of this truth: ‘forgive us our sins AS WE forgive those who sin against us’. We see two phrases here in this supplication: ‘forgive us’ and ‘we forgive’ but there is one conjunctive verb which combines both of them and makes it one prayers and that is “AS WE”. It signifies that we receive the pardon of God only and only when we, on our part, are ready to forgive or have offered forgiveness;
o Christian mode of pardoning:
 Normally we do not want to forgive the offender unless and until he realizes it and comes and says sorry; it is the way of the world and it is the normal attitude;
 Having this normal attitude is not enough at least for us who have acquired the nature of Christ and his love; and we have to learn from him to our first step towards the mission of forgiveness;
 It is we who have to make first step; it is we who have to initiative to go and meet our offender and forgive him; it is what is did on the cross; Jesus has forgiven all this enemies and all those have crucified him even before they realize and would ask sorry; it is the same attitude we have to cloth ourselves with; to forgive other even before their asking for pardon is the way that Christ has taught us and we are ‘after his name’ – Christians – only when we practice it.

Conclusion:

- The Holy Eucharist is the fountain of Pardon:
o We are here around this table to be filled with the joy and experience of pardon of God and to return to our homes full of this grace so that we can easily call our offenders into the ‘joy of forgiveness’.
o Eucharist is the means which makes us ‘united’ into one community with reciprocal sharing of love which includes the offering of mercy and forgiveness;
o We are worthy to participate and receive this Eucharist only when we make peace with those who have done wrong to us, and that’s what makes our offering ‘raised to God’. Jesus asks us to leave our offering at the altar if we have something against our neighbor and to offer it only after restoring peace with pardon and forgiveness;

- We are to spread the mission of Forgiveness:
o Once we have experience the pardon of God at the altar and with the force of the sacraments, we cannot remain inactive, ineffective and passive;
o We are given also the mission of ‘sowing the seeds of forgiveness’ in our family, community and the church; we are given in order that we give to other; we have received so that we share and we share so that we receive again abundantly;
o Therefore, filled up with the joy of being forgiven and made new in the Spirit of Christ, let us rise up and go out to carry on this mission and that what it means when we conclude our Eucharistic celebration with the words of the mission: “the Mass is ended, let us go in the peace of Christ” and we respond ‘thanks be to God’: this the mission given and joy of accepting it by thanking God for giving us this life of joy and glory;

- Remembering the Truth of God’s eternal and unlimited forgiveness:
o Therefore, we keep in mind always this truth that, Pardon is a Fountain to which we come to receive it and from which we return to share it.