Counting the Cost
Luke 14:28 - For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
I was reflecting recently with my wife about the call to forgiveness to which we have been called to.
Matthew 6:14-15 - For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
When someone hurts, wrongs, harms, or injures us or someone we care about, we likely don’t feel inclined to forgive them. We might even think that by withholding our forgiveness we are in some way punishing them and inflicting our own form of justice upon them. This rarely causes the other person to understand that we are attempting to silently punish them. The end result is that we inflict damage to our own soul, not theirs.
Yet, we have been called to something greater than unforgiveness, grudges, or resent. We have been called to lay aside ourselves and to forgive others.
Matthew 18:21-22 - Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
It almost seems unfathomable to think of someone offending us an innumerable amount of times and then we willingly, patiently, forgive them every time. However, we see just that in the life of Christ during His ministry. A triumphant example of God’s forgiveness is when He was crucified on the cross and He sought the forgiveness of those who wronged Him. We see the same manifestation of forgiveness in the words of St. Stephen as he was being martyred when he prayed that the sin of his murderers not be held against them. Again, in the life of St. Dionysios of Zakynthos who forgave his brother’s murderer and did not turn him in for justice, but spared his life. And again, St. John the Almsgiver, the Patriarch of Alexandria, one time remembered how there was a grievance between him and a priest. So he left during a church service to seek the priest’s forgiveness in the matter. Only then did the patriarch return to the church and finish the liturgy.
All of these events demonstrate not only unconditional forgiveness, but that this radical forgiveness cost them something. It cost St. Stephen his own life to follow Christ and to forgive his persecutors. It cost St. Dionysios the opportunity to enforce justice because he chose forgiveness and mercy instead. It cost St. John the Almsgiver some reputational damage as people around town would have speculated why he left the church to seek someone’s forgiveness.
These individuals sat down and counted the cost of serving Christ and choosing to forgive without any excuses or limitations. They would have had to been living out a life of forgiveness each and every day leading up to these remarkable moments. For example, St. Stephen would not have been a revengeful man and then suddenly become a saintly forgiver in the face of martyrdom. No, he would have been working out his salvation each and every day through his life of service, forgiveness, and love. St. Dionysios could not have forgiven his brother’s murderer if he was frequently harboring grudges against people for how they wronged him. No, he would have been tested in this virtue over and over until the point of demonstrating mercy and forgiveness to the worst offender. And St. John the Almsgiver would not have been so receptive to the Holy Spirit’s leading to seek out forgiveness if he had been previously quenching the Holy Spirit and justifying himself whenever there were misunderstandings.
Do we as followers of Christ understand our calling to forgiveness? Have we sat down and counted the cost of how much we may be asked to forgive others just as Christ has forgiven us of so much? Have we counted the cost of how hard it might be, could be, and will be to become like Him?
It might be easy to overlook the suffering that these saints had to endure and the internal anguish they might have felt in these moments of turmoil. What horror to endure being hated and stoned to death. What heart-wrenching sorrow and fury to meet your brother’s murderer who seeks safe harbor from you. How humbling to seek out the forgiveness from a lowly, local priest. Yet, these saints were fully human as we are and would have no doubt considered the easy way out, the path of least resistance, or the option that was most self-satisfying. Instead, they chose to follow Christ on a daily basis, they persevered through the trials, they let God’s grace work in their lives, and they let God lead them to radically forgive and seek forgiveness.
It cost these saints dearly, but they were willing to be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ one degree at a time, one day a time, one trial at a time. They knew they were being called to be like Christ over everything else. Being called to forgive one another as God in Christ forgave them.