Late one night a cheerful truck driver pulled into a roadside diner for a coffee break. While he was eating, the atmosphere became tense as three wild looking cyclists entered, wearing dirty black leather jackets trimmed in metal. Immediately they targeted the truck driver. One poured salt on his head; another flipped the doughnut on the floor, while the third “accidentally” bumped the coffee, spilling it onto the driver’s lap. Meanwhile, the driver said nothing. He quietly got up, slowly walked to the cashier, calmly paid his bill and left. “Man, that doodle ain’t much of a fighter,” sneered one of the cyclists. The waiter behind the counter peered out the window into the night and replied, “He doesn’t seem to be much of a driver either. He just ran his truck over three motorcycles!”
Getting even is the game many people play whenever they have been victimized. In good conscience, they defend their right to get even with the line taken from Leviticus, which Jesus quotes in today’s gospel, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But they fail to consider why God even gave the Levites this bit of advice in the first place. Before then punishments were rather harsh. If you wronged someone, his buddies would likely murder your entire clan. God is now urging that the punishment should never be more severe than the crime itself.
Confusing retribution with vengeance, many people feel that real justice is found when we can get even. If we can’t get even, we tend to hold a grudge against the wrong doer. In either instance, the pain of the wrong persists. The sentiments of bitterness and hatred cause us much suffering. No wonder, Jesus is urging us to move beyond revenge and break the cycle that perpetuates the hurt. Instead of seeking revenge, he challenges us to forgive.
“Oh no, I can’t do that. I can’t forget what that person did to me,” might be your first reaction but let’s get one thing straight. Forgiving and forgetting do not mean the same thing. So what should we do when find it impossible to forgive someone who has wronged us? I offer you three steps.
For starters, we can ask for the grace to forgive that person. Corrie ten Boom was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, incarcerated along with her family for helping Jews in Amsterdam during WWII. After the war, she traveled about, urging the citizens of Europe to forgive one another for the hurts and crimes they endured. One night after a talk in Munich, a man walked up to her and held out his hand, seeking forgiveness. Corrie froze when she recognized him as one of the most hated guards in the camp where she had been imprisoned. At first, she couldn’t reach out to take his hand, so she prayed for the grace to do so. “Jesus, I cannot forgive this man. Help me to forgive him.” At that moment, Corrie was able to take the man’s hand in a spirit of true forgiveness. She did not forget the pain that man had inflicted on her yet she received the grace to move on with her life.
The Jesus, who commands us to love our enemies, will give us what grace we need to forgive others. Practicing what he preached, he even prayed for those who were about to kill him. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That brings to mind the second thing we can do and that is, we can pray for those who have hurt us. One penance I often suggest when celebrating reconciliation is to pray the Lord’s Prayer thoughtfully, then keep the promise you have made. When penitents look puzzled, I remind them, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” For some people, that is the most difficult line they will pray today.
That archaic word, trespass, means to cross the line. When we say that prayer, we are saying that we will forgive those who cross the line of common decency so that we also might be forgiven for the times we have crossed the line ourselves. I advise penitents to forgive anyone who has hurt them in any way and if they cannot yet do so, then at least pray for that person.
Someone once told me, “When I want to change a negative attitude toward someone, all I have to do is begin praying for them. After about a week of prayer, my attitude toward them begins to change.” That brings us to the third thing we can do, which is to see that person in a new light.
So often, when we have been hurt, we fail to see the person who has hurt us as a fellow human being. When we pray for those who have hurt us, we begin to walk in their shoes and see that they too are hurting. When we pray for others, we see them not as our enemies but as people whom God loves unconditionally and whom Jesus loved enough to die for.
Speaking of enemies, Abraham Lincoln was once confronted by someone who protested his decision to pardon a Confederate prisoner of war, claiming that this was no way to destroy one’s enemies. In response, Lincoln said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
Jesus spoke of going the extra mile. I recall years ago when Avis, then the second largest car rental agency in the country, bragged, “We try harder.” This message said to the customer that Avis would go the extra mile in service. That is what I hear Jesus calling us to do as his followers. We are expected to go the extra mile when forgiving and serving others.
Today’s readings call us to holiness, love, and perfection. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus ends his lesson by urging us to imitate God when responding to those who have hurt us. Like Jesus, may we be slow to anger and abounding in kindness, doing our part to build a perfect world.