Friday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Once I had the misfortune of being in the middle of a fight between two good friends of mine. The one friend felt that that the other had ignored her at a cocktail party and so she took to making small jabs at him in conversation whenever she could. I kept trying to soothe things over by trying to give alternate explanations of what could be going on. She interrupted him in the middle of a conversation, he wasn't feeling well, he hadn't heard her and it was loud. But in her mind the slight turned into much larger proportions than anything that I or other friends could understand.
That's the way that Jesus seems to me in today's gospel (Mark 11:11-26). Take the poor old fig tree: Jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree, but discovers that it has no fruit - as anyone would know anyway, because figs happen not to be in season at that point. But it is the fig tree that gets the blame and the curse for pretty much being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Take, too, the people at the temple who are selling things. I imagine no one's told them NOT to sell things. Indeed, they probably see what they're doing as a service to the people coming to the temple but who have not brought the necessary animals for sacrifice. And, moreover, this is their livelihood. So it must seem a bit much to them that Jesus calls them thieves. Jesus has a point, of course, but it still comes across as harsh. In his own actions, Jesus reminds us of us and the ways we often view others in the worst possible light. This is why it is so important to consider all this in light of the last few lines of today's gospel: Jesus says that we should forgive anyone with whom we have a grievance so that God can forgive us for our transgressions. Wherever we see a "transgression against us" God sees even greater a transgression. Trying to take stock of things from God's eye view can help us become more faithful people. The reading from Sirach (44:1, 9-13) speaks hauntingly of the faithful who are not written down in scripture. They may be just as virtuous as Abraham and Moses, but they are forgotten. God reminds us in this passage that virtues like forgiveness, faithfulness and love are not forgotten because they live on in the people whose lives we touch, even though we die. Virtue endures because others experience it and want to emulate it. So, in contrast to the friends I mention above, I think of another friend who has been extraordinarily generous to me (while I've been on pregnancy bedrest and in postpartum recovery) but also to all those she meets, even the ones who have apparently slighted her. Her generosity makes me want to be generous too, to "pay it forward when I can." She's the one who is trying to practice Jesus' understanding of forgiveness and virtuous living because she knows that God sees greater sins in each one of us, and also that God shows us the best of what we can be. Today, let us be mindful of God's "eye view", seeking to repair grudges and emulate those whose virtue reminds us of the God we yearn to follow. - Jana M. Bennett