In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Obviously today’s Gospel is about forgiveness. There’s no doubt about it. But there are a couple of things we are not so clear about, I think, unless you read the footnotes. In order to understand the amounts of money that we are talking about in this Gospel – talents, and denarii – we have to know what this means. So the footnotes in the Gospel reading will tell you that a denarius is about a day’s wage for a labourer. This can be translated into any culture proportionally. So let’s say that the daily wage of a Canadian labourer nowadays is around one hundred dollars. That would be the lower number. The steward, who is in debt, owed ten thousand talents. What is a talent? Again, look at the footnotes. (It’s always important to look at the footnotes, not only to know what talents, and denarii are, but also most often in the Scripture readings that we have available to us, the footnotes tell us what other ancient authorities say. Those ancient authorities are Orthodox authorities so you don’t always take the printed text, which is most often printed by Protestants, as the final word. You have to look at the footnotes. Very often there are extra verses, and different words. The italics underneath are what our Scriptures say.) The footnotes will tell you that a talent is more than fifteen years’ worth of income for a labourer. This man owed ten thousand of those. So we are talking about astronomical amounts of money here. As we see, the steward who was forgiven his debt, is not ready to forgive the debt of the man who owed him a paltry sum.

You notice, too, in this Gospel that the king, the original lender of the ten thousand talents, didn’t ask for repayment of this money on a proportional basis with a certain amount of interest, or anything. The man wept before him asking for forgiveness, and said: Have patience with me, and I will repay you. He was forgiven the whole thing because the king had compassion. This is an important word for us to remember. The king had compassion, and he forgave him everything - the total, immense amount. He forgave him an astronomical amount of money. However, the steward was such a pinch-penny person that he couldn’t do exactly the same for this other man. He put him in debtors’ prison (something we used to have even in Canada, but we don’t have any more, thank God). We have to remember, too, that the king, when he found out what had happened, took back the forgiveness, and delivered the steward to the torturers so that he would thoroughly learn his lesson until he should repay the 10,000 talents.

The Lord says again at the end to you, and to me: The same thing is going to happen to you if you don’t, from your heart, forgive your brother. The end of the whole thing, for you, and for me is to understand that forgiveness is no option. Think of how many times a day we are saying the “Our Father”. Many times, usually. What are we saying to our Father in heaven? We are asking Him to forgive us our debts as much as we forgive our debtors. Those are the exact words. We ask God to forgive us as much as we forgive. So if we don’t forgive, we cannot expect God to forgive us anything. It’s “even-steven” like that. And again He shows us in different situations in our Christian lives that this forgiveness is not an option. This forgiveness is the foundation of our Christian life.

When people are reading the Gospel, they could think that forgiveness might be conditional: I don’t have to forgive until I am asked to forgive. There are all sorts of psychologically-orientated persons who will probably say the same thing. For the Christian, however, that is absolutely not enough. In the way of Christ we don’t wait to be asked to forgive. In the way of Christ, in the compassion which comes from the love of Jesus Christ, forgiveness is already there. The father of the Prodigal Son, even before the son had left home, was already living in forgiveness towards his son. He was waiting for that son, praying for that son, the whole time the son was away. He was always looking for that son so that when the son was returning the father didn’t need to be told. He saw him, ran towards the son, and embraced him.

The Lord in His love, forgiveness, and compassion for us is like this, and we must be the same because we must be like Christ. Our love must be like Christ's love. We have to reveal Christ. We have to show Christ. He is only shown in love, and compassion because God is love. Love is the essence of God. St John the Apostle says so – have a look in his Epistle: “God is love" (1 John 4:8). We have to embody this love if we are going to be authentic, Orthodox Christians.

It’s not for nothing that this parish is named after St Aidan. If we are going to be serious Orthodox Christians, and a sign of the Truth in N (there is only one Truth, and that is Jesus Christ), then St Aidan is the perfect intercessor for you because his whole life was an expression of compassion, and love for people around him. He gave away everything to people who were in need. He didn’t give away to people who were higher than him who had everything that they needed, except he did give them love. However, he always gave to the people who were in need. It didn’t matter what it was. If he had something, and a person was in need, he gave it. This is a wonderful, clear expression of the love and compassion of Jesus Christ, which holds nothing back, which hides nothing.

An expression of this, also, is shown in normal, Orthodox hospitality. When I was in Romania, I was taught that hospitality is the Orthodox expression of the way of terrorising people. We terrorise each other with hospitality. That is, of course, human. A nun once asked me this question: Have you noticed how when people come to your house, you have to eat something? (You can’t escape without being fed in an Orthodox household.) Another nun said that her spiritual father (who was a martyr under Khrushchev) had told her that a good guest has to taste a little of everything on the table although he doesn’t have to eat everything that is there. The principle behind all of this was taught to me by the first nun. She said: Why is this table full of everything, and it all doesn’t necessarily match, and go together? If you come to someone’s house, sometimes you are going to see all sorts of things there that are not connected with each other. It looks as though your host emptied the cupboards, and put it all on the table. She said: In fact, that is likely what did happen. They emptied the cupboards, and put everything on the table, so at least there is hope that there is something you might like, and enjoy. You don’t necessarily have to eat everything. The host is also demonstrating, in the context of Christian love, that he is holding nothing back, and nothing is hidden from you. He has put in front of you everything that he has, and he invites you to have what you like.

A group of us experienced this in a very poignant and touching way about fifteen years ago, the first time I went to Ukraine on a pilgrimage. We fat-cat Canadians went, and thought we were so great making this pilgrimage. We visited Ukraine at a time when there was a famine, and people had really nothing. We were making some visits, and the people insisted that we had to eat. What did they do? These people, in the villages that we visited, gathered everything amongst themselves, and they put it on the table in front of us who had come from so far to be among them. They put everything they had in front of us. We had to be careful that we didn’t succumb to Canadian-style gluttony, and eat everything up because then they would have had nothing left to eat. You see what openness, and the real expression of Orthodox hospitality, love, and compassion is all about. It shows itself in hiding nothing, holding nothing back, but offering everything. This is Orthodox hospitality with which we had better terrorise each other if we are going to be honest.

This is the expression of the love of Jesus Christ. It is open. It is compassionate. It cares about the other. It is always life-giving. It is always full of joy. It brings healing. It brings wholeness. It brings conviviality, you could say. Usually, on an Orthodox table you are not just getting food as food. There is going to be liquid refreshment, also, of a “spirited” sort. “Wine makes glad the heart of man” says the Psalmist (Psalm 103:15). This is part of our life: being together, drinking a glass of wine together with the food that we are eating. This is all part of the joy of being Christians together with each other. Just being together like this is how the Lord renews His love amongst us.

Coming back to forgiveness, we must remember that it is not an option. It is born out of love. As I was saying earlier, this forgiveness must always be there. It is a big challenge for us – how to give this forgiveness when we have been grievously hurt, offended, disappointed, or whatever else. How do we do it? You can’t just say when your heart is broken: I will forgive. It is not easy like that. You can’t just forget about it. If you try to forget about it, and hide it, it will eat you from inside, as it does to many people. People who are alcoholics and drug addicts very often are exactly the people who are very, very hurt, and they are trying to pretend that it doesn’t hurt. They are trying to hide from it. They are trying to anaesthetise their pain, and deny that there is this hurt. They are hiding from it.

The only way out is the Lord’s way out. That way is to ask the Lord, Himself, to be there, and to enable the forgiveness. You must be asking: How do you do that? The only way I have ever heard or understood that this becomes possible is to follow the advice and direction of Archimandrite Sophrony, who is the spiritual son of St Silouan of Mount Athos. (And Archimandrite Sophrony, himself, should be canonised.) Archimandrite Sophrony says that the best way to enable forgiveness, and to cover every need is simply to start to say repeatedly for the person or situation in question: “Lord have mercy”. He would have said, of course: “Kyrie eleison” because he really liked the Greek, which is so expressive.

“Lord have mercy” does not actually convey the proper meaning when we are trying to understand the meaning of “Kyrie eleison” or “Gospodi pomilui” in Slavonic or “Doamne milueste” in Romanian. “Lord have mercy” is our inadequate English translation of “Kyrie eleison”, which implies the pouring out of the oil of God’s love on whomever. Greek is very subtle, which is why my mother used to say: The Greeks have a word for it. She was right. “Kyrie eleison” means the pouring out of the oil of God’s love, His compassion. In other words, it is bringing His whole Self, His love to bear on this person, and on this situation. Let the Lord be between this person, this situation, and me. Let the Lord bring His healing love into this situation. That’s what “Lord have mercy” really means, implies, and effects when we say it over and over again to the Lord. Lord, pour the oil of Your love upon us. When we are doing this, the Lord brings healing, life, and light to the person we need to forgive. He brings softness, and warmth in time to our hearts. When we say this prayer enough times, praying for the other person, our hearts are themselves healed. This is how the Lord works with us.

I exhort you, please, to remember that for an Orthodox Christian forgiveness is not an option. It is a way of life. It is our way of life: living in forgiveness, praying for those who persecute us, blessing those who persecute us, just as the Lord says in the Beatitudes, and as the Apostle Paul is exhorting us to do. We pray for those who are hurting us, blessing them.

I can’t not mention St Juvenaly in Alaska. You know that St Juvenaly in Alaska was martyred. He was killed by Aboriginal people who didn’t understand why he was coming, and what he was doing. According to our modern interpreters, the descendants of the people that killed him (who subsequently became Orthodox Christians, and so are to this day) say that their ancestors saw St Juvenaly coming on a boat, and they tried to ward him off, but he wouldn’t go away. He kept coming, and so they began to shoot at him with arrows. They thought that he was “cuckoo” because it looked to them as though he were trying to brush the arrows away as if they were mosquitoes. Their descendants came to understand (and the modern interpreters also understand), that he was making the sign of the Cross on himself, and on the people who were killing him. He was blessing the people who were killing him. They didn’t understand the sign of the Cross at the time. He is not, by any means, the first of martyrs who is known to have been doing this.

There are many martyrs who have blessed those who were killing them. This is the real way of the Christian. This is the way of life, and forgiveness. This has to be in the front of our hearts and our minds every waking, and sleeping moment of every day. We can only accomplish this if we are living in the love of Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America