Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sirach 27:30-28:9; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35
The Book of Sirach is the source of this weekend’s first biblical reading. Sirach’s author was Joshua, the son of Sirach. (He should not be confused with Joshua, active centuries earlier as a disciple of Moses and leader of the Hebrews as they passed into the Promised Land.)
Some versions of the Bible omit Sirach, since it was not written in Jerusalem or in Hebrew, considered by some biblical scholars as requirements for authentic sacred Scripture. The Church, millennia ago, declared that Sirach is genuine, setting aside arguments that site and language are vital in judging the status of a holy writing.
Sirach wished to teach values to his students, drawn from Jewish tradition and belief. The need is easy to imagine: Bright lights and easy living lured the young even then.
Composed less than 200 years before Christ, Sirach very much had the bright lights and easy living of his day in mind. The intellectual environment all around him was powerful, affecting even pious Jews. It was filled with elevating human logic, an attitude taken from the Greeks whose military exploits had overwhelmed much of Asia Minor, including the Holy Land.
The reading calls upon its audience to forgive the faults of others, and to trust in the merciful God, come what may — a position inconsistent with the way many people thought. Wrath and anger are hateful things, the reading insists. No one surrendering to these faults is true to God.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans provides the second reading. Probably the great majority of Christian Romans, to whom this epistle first was written, were less privileged. They were tempted to look longingly at the rich and aristocratic, assuming that because of these advantages the “fortunate” controlled their own destinies.
Instead, Paul wrote, God controls the lives of all. He protects the just.
In the last reading, from St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus answers the question of how often, and to what extent, must disciples forgive wrongs done to them.
People then hurt each other as much as today. They, as we, owe debts, material or otherwise, to others. They, and we, yearn. They, as we, suffer when injured. They, and we, despair.
How should we react to hurts? The Lord answers that disciples must forgive, not “seven” times, but “70 times seven.” The number meant completely, absolutely, totally. True Christian forgiveness must in all things resemble God. Anyone insincere or pragmatic, stingy with forgiveness, is not of God.
Christian forgiveness reflects the essence of the Redemption. In Christ, we sinners are forgiven. This divine mercy displays the reality that “God is love,” and that in living by God’s standards, we should live eternally.
Reflection
The assumption, always present in this country, and alive today, is that the United States was founded to be a society founded on the Christian Gospels, with the purpose of promoting these Gospels.
Some of the founders were devout Christians. John Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister; Charles Carroll was a Jesuit-educated Catholic. Others were active believers. Others were not, and for them, state support of any religion was an unfair burden upon citizens.
Among the founders professing no organized religion was Benjamin Franklin. He once wrote, “Lighthouses are more valuable than churches.”
Churches are supposed to be lighthouses, beacons that guide people across the tossing seas of life to a port of security, righteousness and peace.
People, not buildings, form churches. The Scriptures call people to be lighthouses among their associates, in their communities and within their families, by loving all, as disciples, with a love that gleams with the divine love and commitment of Christ Jesus.