Many times a connection between the first reading and the Gospel is somewhat elusive. I felt this while reading through the daily scriptures this morning. It was perhaps the closing line of the Gospel that struck me that there was indeed a connection. More on that later.
In the first reading (JOS 3:7-10!, 11, 13-17), the story of the Hebrew people’s journey into the promised land continues, with the Hebrew people stopped at the Jordan river that is blocking their entry into Canaan, and under God’s instructions, Joshua tells the people, “this is how you will know that there is a living God in your midst…the ark of the covenant of the LORD of the whole earth will precede you into the Jordan… (and) when the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the ark of the LORD, the Lord of the whole earth, touch the water of the Jordan, it will cease to flow.” So, sure enough, as the priests stepped into the banks of the Jordan, the river ceased to flow and the Hebrews were granted safe passage across the Jordan’s now dry bank and into Canaan.
This story may remind us of another more popular story of the great Exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea provided by God’s grace working through Moses. Both of these stories have been interpreted as symbolic of “baptism” wherein we move through the waters of death into new life. The promise of God to keep the Hebrews safe in this crossing is the same promise we hear again in baptism and that continues throughout our lives as we constantly traverse life/death situations and circumstances. But what does this mean?
My experience is that it means different things at different times; however, there is a core reassurance, no matter the situation, that not only consoles, but also graces us with the ability to move forward to receive and embrace life as it comes in a way that can TRANSFORM us. That all sounds fine and good, but what would that really look like?
Enter the Gospel story (MT 18:21-19:1), and Jesus’ response to Peter’s question of how many times must we forgive someone who hurts or wrongs us, and continues to do so. Jesus replies “77 times,” and then launches into the story of the Master who in a complete act of compassion forgave the “debt” of a servant who had no way to “pay him back.” As the story goes, the servant who has been forgiven the debt by the Master encounters someone who owes money and cannot pay it back. So, what does the forgiven servant do… he/she has the fellow servant thrown into prison! When the Master finds this out, he confronts the “forgiven” servant with, “Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?”
If we believe that baptism is about forgiveness, what does it really mean to be forgiven? What does it mean to realize that “there is a living God in your midst,” Who is loving, forgiving and accepting you, me, and all of us, at every moment in our lives? What kind of “just” response could we possibly give to this unearned Divine compassion that we can never “pay back?” Could it be that we must simply receive it with gratitude? And if so, what would this gratitude look like….possibly walking forward through the water, on the dry ground, and across the Jordan…..TOGETHER? Could Justice really be Mercy?
I have found that whether or not I have really “received” something can only be measured by the extent to which it changes me in some way. When I look at the gifts or talents that I feel I have received (and that others have affirmed), I find that the gifts are not really gifts unless I “use” them, or, more accurately, give them away. It strikes me that this could be one of the challenges in today’s scriptures.
It almost seems that the servant in the Gospel, who had been forgiven by the Master, was actually not forgiven. It’s not that the Master did not offer forgiveness, so much as the servant did not really accept or receive it, because if it he/she had received it, they would have given it away, passed it along, forgiven others – gratitude transforming action. A colloquial capturing of this could be “paying it forward.”
And for that connection I was talking about…in the closing line of the Gospel, “When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.”
Peace,
Thomas
