Week 19 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: Ezekiel 12:1-12; Psalm 78; Matthew 18:21-19:1

They just don't get it. It's a phrase we often hear. We hear it about bishops, for example, and other religious superiors in relation to sexual abuse and other kinds of abuse.

They just don't get it. It has taken so long for people to realise the implications of such abuse and the consequences of the way in which such abuse was responded to in the past. It's a bit like within a family the problems that come from alcoholism or drug addiction.

What will it take for the person who is so addicted to get it, to realise the problem? What will it take? Will it take something traumatic, something dramatic, something very serious before a person comes to understand the truth of their situation? In the prophet Ezekiel, we see in the first reading today, he has to do crazy stuff in order to bring something home to the people. They have eyes, but they're not seeing. They have ears, but they're not hearing.

How is he to get through to them? He has to do something crazy. They see the crazy things that he does. Notice how often the phrase, 'while they looked on', is used in the first reading.

He does these crazy things, packing up, moving out, going into exile, digging a hole in the wall, walking off into the darkness, then coming back and saying, 'have you understood what I've done, what it means'? Many of Jesus's parables are crazy scenarios as well. They are exaggerated situations which are meant to shock us, disturb us, make us think 'that's crazy'. And then the mirror and the light shines back on us and we say, okay, maybe not so crazy maybe more normal in our sinful world than we like to think.

So the parable today is crazy. A man is forgiven a debt of thousands and then the next moment refuses to pardon a fellow servant who owes him a pittance. What will it take to get through to someone like that? What will it take to break open a heart that's hardened in that way, that's so focused on its own interests and has no capacity at all to open in compassion to somebody else? Is it only some supreme kind of torture that will be necessary to get through?

We think of ourselves as reasonable, open and honest people. We see the craziness in Ezekiel's behaviour and we see the absurdity of the parable, the situation presented in the parable. But these are a mirror for us, a light shining back on us and shining back on us with questions like these. What are the things I do not see and hear because I do not want to see and hear them? What are the things that disturb and challenge me to the point where I look away, turn my attention to other things and don't want to think about them anymore? What are the things or people to whom my heart is closed so that I could be, if necessary, as brutal, as insensitive as the unjust steward, as indifferent as he is in spite of the many blessings I myself receive?

What will it take for me to get it, to see what I need to see, to hear what I need to hear, to open my heart to the people and in the ways in which I need to open my heart? When will I finally get it? When will I allow the Lord to take away my blindness, to open my ears and to strengthen my heart? When or how will we come to understand how to do forgiveness in a way that is completely truthful about the past, in a way that is truly healing of that past, and in a way that is creative of new possibilities for the future?

That's the most important question coming out of the readings for us today. It can only be by staying with Christ on his journey from Galilee to Judea and on to Jerusalem through his cross to the resurrection. That's the road to forgiveness. That's the road to reconciliation. That's the road to healing and that's the road to new life.

You can listen here to this homily