Most
clichés or axioms make sense to me, and they probably do to you as well.
“Barking up the wrong tree” means what it says, right? A hunting dog has
mistaken where its prey currently resides. “Best thing since sliced bread”
doesn’t take much for us to understand, correct? If you have ever purchased
unsliced bread you know the greatness of being able to grab a piece without
getting out a knife and cutting board. For something new in one’s life to be as
good as that great invention means a lot. However, there is one adage that I
get, but until today I did not fully understand.
“Wow!
That really stuck in my craw.” I do not remember the first time I heard this
phrase, but it has always stayed with me. This in and of itself is somewhat
ironic because this idiom means something that we cannot get over easily. Of
course, like all good expressions there is something fascinating behind it.
Robert
Hendrickson wrote about the phrase “stuck in my craw” in the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. The craw, as you may already know is that
first stomach of a bird where predigestion happens. However, as Hendrickson put
it, “Hunters centuries ago noticed that some birds swallowed bits of stone that
were too large to pass through the craw and into the digestive tract. These
stones, unlike the sand and pebbles needed by birds to help grind food in the
pouch, literally stuck in the craw, couldn't go down any farther. This oddity
became part of the language of hunters and the phrase was soon used
figuratively."[1]
So, now that we know the root of this phrase, what is it that sticks in your
craw? What is it that you cannot easily digest? What do you have a hard time
forgiving someone else of doing to you or to others?
Intoday’s Gospel reading we heard something very challenging for those of us who
like to hold grudges. The way that we forgive others is the same way we will be
forgiven. Jesus’ parable about the indebted servant really sticks in my craw,
not because it annoys me, but because it stops me in my tracks. If I keep
holding on to something that someone has done against me, if I am focusing on
those sins committed against me, then I am forgetting the truth that God
forgives me of a much greater debt that I myself have committed. Having to
continue to digest this story, though may be a continuing blessing in my life
and our lives.
Every
time we gather together we can quite easily call to mind the story of the
ungrateful servant. For at each service we pray together the Lord’s Prayer. In
that prayer we utter the line, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin
against us.” Jesus both in this prayer and in today’s parable links together
our forgiven-ness and our ability to forgive others. Of course, God forgives us
first, but if we live in a state of holding something against others we are
intentionally stunting God’s graciousness. We are living as stagnant water
instead of living waters. We are plugging up God’s grace from flowing totally
through us.
You
may also know of another colorful expression that deals with this subject of
forgiving others as we are forgiven. The noted author Ann Lamott in the book Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith,
wrote, “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat
to die.” Something awful happens when we do not do the hard work of seeking to
reconcile relationships with those who hurt us. Like the servant in today’s
story, when we do not release the debts we hold against others, we bring this
wound upon ourselves. As difficult as it can be to forgive those who hurt us,
we must remember the abundant grace that God gifts us in saying we are forgiven
of our sins.
All
this being said, forgiving those who have truly harmed you may stick in your
craw. Jesus though calls attention to this in today’s parable. After the one servant—who
had been forgiven 10,000 talents, which if earning minimum wage would take
someone roughly 20,000 years to make—came to his fellow servant—who owed him
100 denarii, which would take roughly a third of a year to earn—the second
servant did not expect his debt to be forgiven. In fact, he pleaded with him
saying, “Have Patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” Forgiveness as
Jesus exemplified in this parable does not mean not remembering what one did to
incur this debt, but rather to recall how much greater God’s forgiveness has
been with us, and to act accordingly as others seek forgiveness with us.
The
longer we continue to swallow the rat poison the longer we will feel toxic
ourselves. Forgiveness does not always come easily. What people do may very
well stick in our craws. However, we are called to know that God forgives us
first and more abundantly than we deserve in 2,000 lifetimes! As we trust in
the way that Jesus shows us may we continue to pray, “Forgive us our sins, as
we forgive those who sin against us.”
[1] Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins
by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).
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