The Bigness of Forgiveness
Jesus graces us
to have forgiving hearts
and to pray for forgiving hearts
that is the spirit of the Lord’s prayer.
The story of Jonah was about a reluctant prophet who did not have a forgiving heart. He was vindictive and even saddened that God would relent from punishment of their dread enemies, the Ninevites. God does not give up on Jonah but helps him accept the bigness of divine forgiveness even if he does it quite poorly. Jonah still knows that God knows best.
The task of the Church
is to be a reconciling church,
reconciling the various conflicts
that arise in a polarized, alienated society.
There are times when the church can be involved in a way that nobody else can. It is not only the “official” church, but each one of us that is “church” in our families, work, society.
Opportunities to reconcile
abound every day.
If we tend only to individualistic piety
we will ignore and dodge
the grace to be reconcilers.
How often have I steered clear of conflicts when I might have been a reconciler? I was saving my own skin but letting others suffer unattended.
Again I have been influenced by the privatizing of religion,
by separation movements that split people apart
and create islands of isolation and desolation.
The Lord’s prayer teaches differently, forgive and be forgiven, be forgiven and become a forgiver, be like “Our Father”. It may seem scary to enter the war zone of combat but not when we bring hearts made sacred by the fervor and assurance of “God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.”