Last week I used a word to refer to Peter’s misstep: He stumbled. To be a scandal is to be a stumbling block. Thus, a scandal is not primarily salacious, shocking and sordid but rather it describes being a hindrance, an impediment or an obstacle to belief. Both the first reading and the Gospel deal with the issue of forgiveness. The second reading centres on how we live has an impact on others’ faith. In the context of this reading, the lack of forgiveness can be a stumbling block to faith.
Forgiveness is an exercise many struggle with. Why do we find it hard to forgive?
A feature of this pandemic can teach us what it means to forgive. What is it? People are trying so hard not to die from Covid-19 but the fact is, died they have. In a sense, an attempt to escape death’s hold is grasping at the last straw of the freedom of personal choice. I have the last say on when and how I should go. But, of course, death will not let us win.
On the same note of “not winning”, have you ever gotten into a fight and feel that you need to say something more so that you feel justified? The operative word in wanting to have the last say is justice or fairness. As a virtue, justice is the constant and permanent determination to give everyone his or her rightful due. BLM, for example, is an effort to render justice to those wrongfully killed. But again, somehow an intense fight for justice may again hide this need to have the last say. If not, one feels unjustified and inadequate, feeling a loss which if unremedied will leave us poorer than we should be.
Why is that so? Why is it that when there is no justice, we feel an acute sense of loss—like we have been cheated? This gnawing inadequacy is possibly a symptom of the loss of faith in the Resurrection. This loss of faith is most clearly reflected in our funeral services.
In funerals, the last say comes in the form of giving a eulogy for a person’s life. George Floyd was somewhat lionised by his brother to the point of almost being canonised. The truth is that George was on drugs and his life was not as perfect as the white-washing was supposed to have made it so. There is no justification for the way he died but there has been no questioning if his life before his death should have any impact on the life after he died or supposed to have come into. Instead there was presumption that he would be in heaven, simply because his brother had eulogised him. But, more than that, the George Floyd’s unfortunate demise merely met the criteria necessary to promote a political narrative that Trump is a racist is therefore responsible for the poor man’s death.
The question is this: What happened if a person we eulogised is not in heaven? We have no way of telling, have we? The best eulogy we need comes from God Himself. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, “Come all you who saw me naked, hungry, thirsty and in prison and you came to my aid. Come now and share in my Father’s kingdom”. Indeed, God has the last say and even in cases where injustice is brazenly blatant—like “Apa Malu Bossku”. In terms of a funeral, the Eucharist is that place where God speaks most clearly. But it is not restricted to funerals. If justice is not located within this world, God alone gives the assurance that it will be so in the next world for the likes of Najib or Rosmah or any one of our corrupt politicians.
Without a perspective that God alone has the final say, sometimes in this life and a lot of times in the afterlife, we will be condemned to this putative search for a solution that will not fully satisfy us. It is like being chased by the “phantom” of things unsaid or situations unresolved. Thankfully, the Resurrection gives us an eternal frame of reference. Remember that Jesus Christ hung so shamefully on the Cross. There was no resolution to His most humiliating treatment and definitely there was no justice for His death. Perhaps this might jolt us to think a little bit more about how self-serving the narrative had been for George Floyd’s death. For if his death left us dissatisfied, then the same should be observed of all those who died unmourned, unnoticed, unknown. For example, the Iraqi or the Iranian soldiers rotting in the hot desert. Should that not concern us? The truth is that the sight of their decaying corpses does not even blip on our “justice” radar.
The power of the Resurrection puts into perspective this need for the final resolution of any injustice that is suffered here. Without faith in the Resurrection, forgiveness of our enemies will somehow violate our sense of fairness. “Where is fairness when the one who wrongs me is not punished”? Firstly, this reveals that our ability to forgive is associated with the idea of just deserts. Does the person deserve forgiveness? It is not wrong but there is a perennial fear of being short-changed. Secondly, and more importantly, our notion of justice is temporal in the sense that we believe that injustice needs a resolution here and now, not realising that justice cannot be perfect in a fallen world. Thus, God is there to make just what is unresolved.
Without the Resurrection our justice will somehow be vengeful—“I don’t get mad, I get even” which makes forgiveness almost impossible. The Psalmist reminds us that “Some boasts of chariots, some of horses, but we boast about the name of Yahweh our God”. The just man or woman depend on God for justice. We recognise that our justice if at all is only a token of God’s justice. Tokens are just that, poor copies. That means that if we fail here in justice, we can be sure that God’s justice will not fail. Thus, the need to have the last word does not really belong to us. We dare to forgive because we can leave the final say to God.
Finally, life is short. Some of us carry with us the burden of unforgiveness and that itself is physically, psychologically and spiritually crippling. It is not worth carrying unforgiveness. Mahatma Gandhi says, “Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong. The weak can never forgive”. Today, the lesson we learn is that forgiveness is possible, even for the most difficult hurt and pain because God can be trusted to supply for whatever is lacking in the justice of forgiving. Let us trust the Lord.
