A homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 11, 2022
Ex 32:7-11, 13-14, 1 Tm 1:12-17, Lk 15:1-32
A news article about the cleanup of a toxic-waste dump quoted an environmental scientist about the contaminated soil.
It’s like a kitchen sponge, he said. You can rinse a sponge and squeeze it again and again, but you never get all the soap or dirt out of it, no matter how many times you try, no matter how hard you try.
You can get really close, but that’s it.
Which is exactly what happens when we seek forgiveness.
We human beings are flawed, imperfect, and we all too often misuse our God-given gift of free will to choose stupidly. To disobey the laws of God and nature, to do wrong, which always has consequences. And those consequences almost always affect our sisters and brothers as much as they affect us.
Almost always affecting our fellow humans more than ourselves.
And so, if we are people of good conscience, once we realize we’ve done wrong, we try — or at least should try — to clean up our mess.
And that usually includes a sincere apology to everyone we’ve wronged directly or to anyone else affected by our misdeed, and a promise to never transgress again.
Then it’s up to the other person or other persons to accept the apology and forgive.
To squeeze our trespass out of the sponge that is their hearts and memories.
We did the misdeed. The people we hurt have the choice of whether or not to forgive us, and to what extent. How fully they will forgive, how completely they will forget.
God forgives us when we admit our sin, when we acknowledge its seriousness, when we express our sorrow at having hurt our relationship with our Almighty Creator, and when we make a good-faith promise not to sin again.
God is the source of love and mercy. We humans, not so much.
When the shoe is on the other foot, when we have been done dirty and we are offered an apology, do we squeeze that figurative sponge once? A couple of times?
Or do we go all out like the scientist in the poisoned swamp?
Over the years, I’ve heard many people say they would forgive but not forget. They say that to forget opens them up to being hurt the same way again and again.
Other people opine that forgiving someone frees the person who forgives.
It’s clear that forgiveness, as a topic of discussion, can be staggeringly complicated and complex.
What seems simple is this: Don’t disobey the laws of God and nature in the first place. Don’t betray friendships. Don’t dehumanize or objectify anyone. Don’t abuse Creation.
In other words, get our acts together.
Then there’s nothing to seek forgiveness for.
It’s worth a try.
