From the book "Boa Nova", chapter 10,
entitled "The Forgiveness".
On this very special chapter,
Humberto de Campos recovers something
precious to all those who dedicate themselves
to the study of the Gospel.
Most of us, when we read a passage
by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John,
ask ourselves: “Why did Jesus teach
that specific lesson
in that specific moment?
What motivated Jesus to teach it
to this and not to that apostle?”
Gospel scholars usually call
that context of the lesson
a “experiential situation”.
So they ask this:
"What concrete situation
in the life of that apostle,
that disciple
or that specific character
of the Gospel
motivated or inspired Jesus
to bring a universal lesson?”
Because it’s clear that Jesus’ lessons
go far beyond time and space.
There’s no geography in the Gospel,
no historical time
restraining Jesus’ teachings.
He made a point of stressing out:
"My words
are words of Eternal Life."
Because Jesus speaks to the immortal spirit,
He doesn’t speak to the specific
situation of one incarnate,
He speaks to the situation of a spirit
at a certain moment of the journey
of moral evolution.
All of us, in a certain situation,
whether in this life or another,
will experience a specific angle
of the teachings of Jesus and at that moment
when our heart finds,
when our heart is faced
with something unexpected, an enigma of life,
it is to the Gospel that we turn
and always find in it a safe itinerary
of how to act, how to feel,
how to face that concrete situation.
Today’s lesson is about forgiveness
and which one of us has not experienced it,
whether forgiving or being forgiven?
Most of the times, when we deal with
the lesson of forgiveness, we imagine ourselves
in the condition of those who forgive.
We always think: “Forgive how?
Whom? How many times?”
And seldom we think:
“How many times was I forgiven?
In what situations should I be forgiven?
What are the flaws
of my personality
that bring suffering to the people
that love me?
How many times does our presence,
our mere presence
force people who live with us
into a continuing exercise in forgiveness?
Because we’re just
not capable of changing now.
We need time.
We all need time to change.
So this lesson of forgiveness
is a lesson in which Jesus invites Peter
to change places,
he invites Peter to change perspective,
because he asks:
“How many times shall I forgive my brother?”
And Jesus, subtly,
in an answer that sounds like a parable...
It’s as if He asked:
“Peter, how many times will you need
other people’s forgiveness?
And when we think that way,
we become human.
When we think
that we need to be forgiven,
when we think
that for many centuries we will need
the forgiveness and mercy
of the people who love us,
of the people who live with us,
then our hearts are indeed
filled with humility
and we begin to face forgiveness
from a different perspective, not the perspective
of those who offer forgiveness,
but of those who receive the gift
of someone else’s forgiveness.
That’s the keynote, that’s the main theme
of chapter 10 of the book “Boa Nova”,
which talks about forgiveness.
What was the situation behind that lesson?
Once again, the focus of the lesson is Simon Peter
and we are forced to confess,
after having read countless times
chapter 10 of the book “Boa Nova”:
did Peter really learn the lesson?
Maybe not...
The lesson given by Jesus on forgiveness
was only actually learned by Peter
the day he denied Jesus,
the day when he made perhaps
the biggest mistake of his existence, and then,
when he made the huge mistake
of abandoning, denying the Master,
he became a creditor of forgiveness,
and for you to experience forgiveness
with all its flavor,
for you to experience forgiveness
with all the strength it has,
only when you make a mistake,
only when you feel forgiveness
coming your way.
Only when you feel
generosity and mercy
involving you and saying:
“Hey! I’m human too.
I forgive you because I love you.
I forgive you because it’s impossible
to keep walking by your side
resenting you for what you did.”
It’s then that we drink this water
and we begin to think:
“If I need forgiveness so much,
why shouldn’t I forgive?
Why not give some of what I receive so much?”
So we can think that Simon Peter
began to have lessons about forgiveness
in this beautiful passage,
but his teaching, his education
was only concluded
when he failed,
when he needed forgiveness.
And forgiveness was automatic,
because Jesus had already forgiven him
before he made the mistake.
Before he made the mistake,
Jesus had warned him,
had alerted him of his weakness,
of his need for mercy...
Each one of us, in our spiritual journey,
still has many flaws
that need to be corrected,
but we must admit
that each one has a theme,
each one has one flaw
which is the master of all flaws,
it’s that element which perhaps
we will need
many centuries to correct.
It’s like a negative
characteristic of our personality.
If we consider
the figure of Simon Peter,
he was an elder, a patriarch,
a Hebrew patriarch, a pious man,
a faithful, serious man.
He took his faith,
he took his belief in God seriously,
he inspired confidence and assurance
for the whiteness of his hair
and the righteousness of his life,
but maybe for that very reason
Simon cultivated a kind of arrogance
and intolerance.
Intolerance.
Imagining himself rich in experience,
he was intolerant to weakness.
Figuring himself as someone
who had reached a certain stage of wisdom
and maturity in physical strength
and spiritual potentials,
he was still intolerant
towards younger spirits,
who are still
in the process of experimenting,
who are still testing,
who have not found themselves yet,
who have not allowed to be found.
Intolerance,
Simon’s main characteristic.
And that intolerance will make him
ask Jesus: “Master...”,
in chapter 18, verses 21 to 22
of the Gospel of Matthew.
“So Peter, approaching Him, said:
‘Master, how many times
shall my brother sin against me
and I forgive him?
Up to seven times?’
Jesus told him: ‘I do not say to you up to seven times,
but up to seventy times seven.’”
Why that perspective?
“How many times
will my brother sin against me
and I will forgive him?
Why not ask: “How many times
will I sin against my brother
and he will forgive me?” That changes everything...
In the first situation, I imagine myself
always the giver of forgiveness, never the creditor.
In the second situation, I admit
that I’m the creditor of forgiveness.
Jesus then answers with one sentence
that is a parable.
What motivated that question?
Why did Simon Peter ask that question?
Of course the Gospel of Matthew,
chapter 18, says that they talked
about how we should deal
with our adversaries,
people who don’t agree with us,
people who attack us,
who speak ill of us,
those who don’t understand us...
That was the theme:
how to deal with those people.
Because of course we all know how to deal
with those who agree with us.
We all know how to treat those people
who applaud our decisions,
our words and our actions.
What’s difficult is to know how to deal
with those who became our opponents,
adversaries, and who are often
aggressive in their opposition,
they wound us, they slander us,
they hurt us with their angry attitude.
How to behave towards them? That was the theme,
so Peter asks this question
and Jesus answers with a sentence
that gives food for more than a week of thought...
Humberto de Campos,
having access to the spiritual files,
drawing from the concrete source
of the story of Jesus’ passage on earth,
explains the context to us.
And the context, once understood,
makes the message shine like a sun.
What is the context?
Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem,
but very early on He was taken
to the town of Nazareth.
Nazareth, then,
was the place where Jesus spent his childhood.
There He grew up, became a teenager,
a young man, reached maturity,
and began his short mission of 3 years,
which would change the history of our evolution.
It was in Nazareth. And we could imagine
that Nazareth would be the town
where Jesus would be best understood,
after all they all knew him,
they all knew who He was,
they had all seen him grow.
But it wasn’t quite like that.
The Gospel tells that, in Nazareth,
Jesus had maybe
the most aggressive adversaries,
the most hostile opponents.
There He was not understood,
not even by members of his family.
They could not or they would not
understand Jesus’ grand mission,
and that hurt a lot
the heart of the apostles,
because they came from a society
that valued family,
a society that was used
to living in villages, small towns...
Imagine that.
How do you start a magnificent work
if you are not understood,
even in your own village?
Imagine taking a message,
when not even those
who shared your daily routine
are able to understand you?
And the apostles began to experience
a kind of discouragement
and adopted a strategy,
according to Humberto de Campos,
in chapter 10 of the book:
they got into arguments,
heated arguments,
trying to convince the citizens of Nazareth
that Jesus was the Messiah they waited for,
that His work was a work
that counted on spiritual support,
counted on the Divine Hand to lead the way,
and that they should not oppose
to that work.
But they were not accepted.
The citizens of Nazareth accused Jesus
in an aggressive manner,
some called him a charlatan,
said He was a lazy man,
because He was way over 30 years old
and did not work.
Only walked by the lake, preaching
the message that the Kingdom was close.
Evidently that was unfounded slander,
because ever since his teenage years,
as Humberto de Campos tells us
in chapter 2 of the same book,
Jesus worked every day
in the carpentry of his father Joseph,
taking the lesson of humility,
love of work,
love of simplicity, love of home,
but they didn’t recognize Him.
The adversaries
ignored what was good
and imagined flaws in the figure of Christ.
Others said He explored
popular ignorance,
that He didn’t have the courage
to argue with the intellectuals,
that He preferred the fishermen,
the laundresses, the poor, the ignorant,
accusing Jesus of being a fake,
someone who, if placed
before the great minds of that time,
would be unmasked.
Simon Peter, then, felt those accusations
with greater impact.
He who was a patriarch,
he who accompanied
Jesus’ daily work -
after all,
Jesus stayed at his house,
Jesus was a dear guest -,
could not accept those attacks.
Philip could not either, says Humberto de Campos,
and they argued.
There was a time when they almost
got into a physical fight.
Meaning to defend Jesus,
Philip and Simon Peter
almost got into a fight.
On that day, when they were
anxious, disappointed,
filled with violence, resentment, sorrow,
they looked for Jesus...
And here begins the literary genius
of Humberto de Campos.
Humberto de Campos says that
the apostles came to Jesus
and told him: “‘Master,
they are calling you servant of Satan,
and we reacted right away’, said Peter,
with naïve sincerity.
‘We noticed that you
would never oppose them’,
added Philip,
certain to have rendered
great service to his beloved Master.
‘And that’s why we answered the attack
with the greatest strength of our expressions.’”
That is, they admitted:
“Master, we know that you
will not dispute,
will not fight anyone,
will not dispute with anyone...
We took upon ourselves that tough part of the work,
the blows and the aggression,
and took action with all the strength of our spirit.”
They were proud, telling Jesus
they had indeed argued
and, if it was necessary,
they would get into a fist fight.
So Jesus tells them:
“By any chance, can we gather grapes
from thornbushes?”
Does anyone come near a thornbush
expecting to gather grapes?
And why do we
build up expectations
in relation to our fellowmen?
Why do we sometimes
expect attitudes, words
and kinds of behavior from people
that they are not yet capable
to offer us?
Why do we believe
that people have a certain spiritual stature
that in truth they don’t have?
Chico used to say:
“Respect your fellowmen,
do not test the limits of your fellowmen.”
Do not test the limits.
Because we are still fallible beings,
extremely fragile,
we have very well-defined limits.
To push those limits,
to expect from our fellowmen a behavior
they are not yet capable to have
is like hoping to gather grapes
from a thornbush.
With that sentence, Jesus set the tone,
as if He wanted to teach:
we must know
what to expect from people.
Forgiveness, and here begins the lesson of forgiveness,
is not a rose you toss away,
not a flower you just throw,
forgiveness is a garden you cultivate.
It demands time, care,
strategy and wisdom.
We forgive because we know
the spiritual stature of the person
who offends us.
We forgive
because we know that person
needs time,
needs more lessons,
perhaps more teachings
which will be given by others, not by us.
And then we start to cultivate
in that heart
the plant of forgiveness.
Cultivate.
Here began the lesson:
adjustment of expectations.
No one can efficiently forgive
if they don’t adjust their expectations,
if they don’t measure
the exact stature of the people
who surround us.
The evolutionary step of each one of them,
what good they have to offer us
and what they will need centuries
to overcome.
And Jesus goes on: “I would never
exert myself, in Nazareth,
in a sterile dispute
with my opponents.”
Sterile, time-wasting...
“However, I have tried to teach
that the best reply,
the best answer to an aggression,
the best answer to criticism
is always the answer
of our own work,
of the useful effort that we are capable of.”
And here in this passage we remember
a beautiful quote
from benefactress Joanna de Ângelis
to Divaldo,
when he was very harshly criticized,
and she told him: “Do not answer!
Never answer back,
because if your works
have not been able to convince them,
your words will not either.”
If your effort,
if the result of your work
has not touched your critic,
will your words do that?
If they were not able to see
your work, will they pay attention to your voice?
Useless quarrel. Useless quarrel.
And we must admit,
there are no winners in an argument.
People leave an argument
more convinced of their own opinions
than when they started.
It’s rare, very rare,
I confess I’ve never witnessed
a dispute, an argument
in which someone convinced
the adversary, the opponent.
On the contrary,
each one leaves it even more inflexible,
each one leaves
with an even more fundamentalist stand,
tempers fray,
feelings become more intense,
feelings of hatred,
feelings of disdain,
stronger than before the fight,
and that’s what Jesus tried to say.
That’s what Jesus was trying to say
to Philip and to Peter:
“You are wasting precious time,
wasting energy, and what’s worse:
you’re getting angry,
you’re getting into a zone
of emotional unbalance,
a zone in which we try
to change the world,
to change our fellowmen,
and we begin to forget
our own transformation.”
“What good would do
the long public arguments,
filled with insults and mockery?
At the end of all of them,
we would only have fewer probabilities
for the glorious triumph of love...”
Glorious triumph of love.
“...and more reasons for separation
and odious dissension.”
Discussions, disputes, only increase hatred,
dissension and separation,
and get in the way, or many times hinder
the glorious work of love.
Because true persuasion
is the slow and silent persuasion
of love.
Slow and silent, of love.
Love transforms little by little,
and steadiness, faithfulness to the good,
attracts little by little,
even if it takes centuries,
the respect and admiration
of our adversaries.
That’s why Jesus said:
“If someone forces you to walk one mile with them,
walk with them two miles.”
And Simon Peter says
in the book “Paul and Stephen”:
“Because it’s on the second mile,
the second mile, that the adversary
will have the opportunity to know who you are.”
On the first mile, you are just
fulfilling your duty.
On the first mile, you are just
paying your debt to the Law.
On the second, you are walking
by your own free will.
And when spontaneity begins to reign,
our adversaries calm down
and give themselves the chance to know us
more deeply.
That’s what Jesus told them,
but even so:
“Master, interrupted Philip, almost resentful.”
Why did Philip interrupt?
Because he was filled with sorrow.
He was hurt. Sorrow is emotional.
You may be rationally convinced,
you may have risen above the matter
from a rational point of view,
but emotionally you are handcuffed
to the situation or the person.
Sorrow is a tie, or maybe a chain
that binds us to those who hurt us,
enslaves us, prevents us from moving forward.
It paralyses feeling
and many times overshadows understanding,
because people who are filled with sorrow
will always find explanations
for everything they do.
Resentful, Philip interrupted:
“The truth is that most of those
who saw you preach in Nazareth
speak ill of you.”
He was hurt indeed!
“Master, I don’t want to be a gossip,
but everybody in Nazareth
is badmouthing you.”
And he said that with a pang in his chest.
What does Jesus answer?
Let’s have 3 seconds of silence.
Philip was saying
to the Spiritual Governor of the planet,
the Christ:
“Look, they’re badmouthing you...”
What did Jesus answer?
“But is it not vanity
to demand that everyone
should hold our personality
in high regard?”
Philip, isn’t it vanity
to demand that everyone
should think we are good people?
So people don’t have the right
to think that we are mediocre?
So people don’t have the right
to dislike us?
To say: “I don’t like that guy.”
“I don’t like him
and I don’t like anything he does.
And I don’t like anything he says
and to me, he should not
even be incarnated.”
But don’t they have that right?
Because if they don’t have that right,
if they don’t have that right,
they will have an obligation,
but that obligation will not only be theirs,
it will be ours too,
the obligation to like everyone,
the obligation to appreciate everybody.
Do we have that obligation?
Does the Creator force us to admire
everybody in the world?
Does the Creator force us
to read by everybody else’s book?
Is that possible?
If we don’t have that obligation,
why demand it from our fellowmen?
That’s what Jesus is saying.
“... asked Jesus with energy
and serenity.”
I haven’t got there yet.
When I’m serene,
I don’t have enough energy.
When I have the energy,
I lose my serenity.
Keeping one’s energy and serenity is rare
and every time Jesus used energy,
He used it with serenity,
because His purpose was to educate,
not to attack.
So He answers
with energy and serenity:
“In the illusions that human creatures
invented for their own lives...”
Illusions that human creatures invented
for their own lives.
“...it is not always a good indication
of our conduct
to have all people speak well of us,
indistinctly.
Pleasing everyone
is marching through the wide path
where the lies of convention are.”
It is impossible to please everyone.
“Serving God
is a task that should be above all others,
and sometimes in this divine service
it is natural that we displease
petty human interests.
“Philip, do you know of any emissary of God
that was appreciated in his time?”
In other words, it’s written in the Gospel:
“Do you know any prophet who has been
well-received at his own house?”
The people who grew up with Jesus…
Now, 2.000 years apart,
if we would say to people:
“Who wants to spend childhood, teen years
and adulthood by Jesus’ side?
Enrollments here.”
We’d have a queue
that would be miles long,
but many people shared His daily life,
saw Jesus as a child, saw Him grow,
saw Him become a man,
saw His work blooming,
and didn’t understand a thing.
Didn’t understand a thing.
There were people who chatted
to Bezerra de Menezes face to face,
and didn’t understand a thing.
Even had the nerve to attack Bezerra de Menezes.
It’s not possible to serve God,
to act correctly and please everyone.
Now, there’s a detail here.
Chico, in his wisdom, used to say:
“It’s not possible...
It’s not possible to please everyone,
but we must not displease anyone.”
What does that mean?
We should not have
the pretension to please everyone,
but we should not go out of our way
to displease people for no reason.
We should not go out of our way
to be unpleasant.
Or if the person is
naturally disagreeable,
he or she must try hard
to correct that.
That is, they must do their best
not to displease,
not to offend, not to provoke,
but act in a righteous manner,
act correctly. That reminds me
of something that happened in Belo Horizonte.
We had a great spiritist
in Belo Horizonte called Loreto Flores.
Two spiritist centers
received his name, including the one
where I started, at 15 years old.
Loreto’s story is very beautiful.
When Loreto Flores discarnated,
it stopped the traffic in Belo Horizonte
and Chico said the prayer.
He said it was a spiritual banquet
the moment Loreto discarnated,
such was the greatness of that soul.
Loreto Flores didn’t get married,
he was a man who lived for charity.
His sisters said that people came,
knocked on his door
and he gave away his mattress,
sometimes he slept on the floor,
they had to call his attention:
“Loreto, you can’t do that.”
Someone asked for a warm coat,
he took off his coat and gave it away.
One day he knocked on someone’s door,
he was collecting donations of food.
He said: “Campaign for the poor.
Please donate non-perishable food items.”
The lady looked at him
and spat on his face.
He took out his handkerchief,
wiped his face and said:
“My sister, that is for me.
For the poor,
do you have anything?”
A person who was
absolutely conscious
that it’s impossible to act in the good
without displeasing anyone.
It’s impossible to do the right thing
and not count on gratuitous adversaries.
That was the lesson.
Then Simon Peter starts
his array of questions,
his series of questions, and he says:
"Master,
but in the strongest moments in life,
should we not use
harsh and just words?
Harsh and just words?
He wanted to justify the discussion,
justify what he was saying.
Then Jesus answers like this:
“In every circumstance,
it is naturally convenient
that one only says what is necessary.”
What is necessary,
that is, we should always
say what’s necessary
and sometimes it’s not pleasant,
but it’s just what’s necessary.
We don’t need to add gall to the “no”.
We don’t have to say something
which is already harsh in itself,
with an extra dosage of unnecessary energy.
Limit yourself to what’s necessary.
“However, it is also indispensable
that we should not waste time.
We need to say what’s necessary,
but we must not waste time.
We must not waste time.
This reminds me of a funny story
from Minas Gerais.
A guy from Minas met another guy
and said: “Hey, how’s it going?”
He said: “I’ve been very busy.”
“Really? What have you been doing?”
“I’m teaching English to my dog.”
“Teaching English to your dog?!
Is the dog learning it?”
“I didn’t say the dog’s learning,
but that I’m teaching it.”
So why teach,
if the person is not yet
in the spiritual condition to learn?
Why give lessons
in second-degree equations
to a child
who has just started the first year
of elementary school?
Wouldn’t it be a waste of time?
Jesus had already left
a lesson about that:
“Do not give what is holy to dogs”
and “Do not throw your pearls
to pigs.”
We must balance things.
Because time lost on a heart
that’s not willing to learn,
that’s absolutely impervious,
is precious time that could be used
to take comfort and enlightenment
to a heart that’s open and willing to receive.
So we must have this notion of time,
the right time, the right moment,
so that our action in the good
does not turn into disturbance of the good.
Truth cannot be turned
into an instrument of aggression,
into an instrument that hurts,
because... I remember a beautiful quote
by Mahatma Gandhi.
He said:
"Truth
is strong, resistant like a diamond,
but delicate like the peach tree flower.”
And I had the opportunity
to look up on the internet
a peach tree in bloom,
and it is indeed a beautiful
and very delicate flower.
So truth is...
resistant, it wins over time,
but it’s delicate.
Truth does not need warriors.
It imposes itself with the help of time.
Like Humberto de Campos says:
“God uses time, not violence.”
Never violence.
So the lessons continue and that’s when
Simon steps into delicate ground,
the core of the lesson of forgiveness.
He asks Jesus:
“But in order to forgive should we not wait
for the enemy to repent?”
“And what to do, in case evildoers
should behave as wolves
in sheep’s clothing?”
It’s what everybody says:
“But will I not make a fool of myself?
Will I not be fooled by other people’s cruelty,
if I start to nurture forgiveness?
What’s the limit between forgiveness
and lack of good sense?
How should we deal with that?
Then Jesus answers him:
“Peter, forgiveness does not exclude
the need for vigilance.”
Nobody said
that we must be careless
when we forgive.
Vigilance.
What for? To protect ourselves.
To protect ourselves.
The Master asked us not to be resentful,
asked us to forgive,
but didn’t ask us
to be incautious
and put at risk
the work that’s under our care
or to put ourselves
in the hands of evildoers.
“... forgiveness does not exclude
the need for vigilance,
just as love does not dispense with the truth.”
True love is impossible
without truth.
“Peace is an asset...”
Look! Peace is an asset, it’s a treasure,
much more than a car,
than jewelry, than a watch,
a house, a bank account.
Peace is an asset.
“... that every heart is compelled
to defend...”
We must safeguard our peace,
we must not allow anyone to steal
our peace.
“... so we can do good work in the divine service
that was entrusted to us.”
That is, in order to do our job,
we must keep the peace,
preserve peace and not allow
attacks on our peace.
“If our brother repents
and looks for our fraternal help,
let us support him with the energies
we are able to provide.”
If people repent and look for us,
we should behave towards them
in the very best possible manner.
“But under no circumstance
should you consider finding out
if your brother has repented.”
Don’t worry about that.
“Forget the bad and work for the good.
When I said every man
should reconcile
quickly with his adversary,
I meant to emphasize
that one cannot go to God
with the feeling of hatred
in one’s heart.”
Imagine you’re speaking to God in prayer
feeling hatred. How do you conciliate that?
How do you conciliate a prayer,
a contact with God, with hatred?
Or like some who are capable of...
A scene that deeply shocked me,
what human beings are capable of...
In that area of the Middle East,
over the debris of ignorance
and human cruelty, a woman on her knees
cried like this: “God, oh God,
take revenge upon my enemies.”
Imagine that! You’re addressing God
asking Him to get down to the level of the evildoer,
get down to the level of murderers,
descend to the lowest possible level,
of those who make war
and profit from war,
and get rich that way.
That would be belittling God too much,
that would be demanding from the Creator
to get down from His Omnipotence
of Love and Mercy to become equal
to the most reproachable of human creatures.
That’s what Jesus is saying,
so He says in the lesson:
“If you’re addressing God,
reconcile first... reconcile.”
“We cannot know if our adversary
is willing to reconcile...”
That we can’t know,
because we don’t have control
over the other person’s heart.
“... however, we can guarantee
that nothing will be done without our good will
and if we do not forget the evil done unto us.”
I don’t know if my brother
has acknowledged his mistake,
I don’t know if he is sorry,
I don’t know if he
is willing to mend his ways,
but one thing I know:
without my good will
and if I don’t forget all evil,
there’s no reconciling, not today, not tomorrow.
“If the unhappy brother repents,
let us always be willing to support him
and at all times we must and we should
forget all evil.”
It was then that Simon Peter
asked his famous question:
“Lord, how many times shall my brother sin
against me,
that I forgive him?
Up to seven times?”
And Jesus answers him...
Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 to 22:
“I do not tell you up to seven,
but seventy times seven.”
Why? What parable is that?
Forgive seven times... No.
Seventy times seven.
How should we interpret that enigma?
There is a key
to interpret that verse
and the key is in the word brother.
I’ll read again.
If there’s anyone sleeping...
“And then Peter approached Him and said:
‘Lord, how many times
shall my brother sin against me
and I forgive him?"
Seven times?
Brother. Sin against me.
When Jesus hears the word “brother”,
we start to wonder:
what’s the first story of brothers
in the Bible?
The first story of the Bible
about brothers? I’ll do…
a recap here:
God created everything,
in the symbolic and poetic language
of Genesis, the Book of Moses,
the first one of the Five Books of Moses,
God creates
in 6 days, rests on the 7th.
He created man, created woman.
The vanity,
the illusion of wanting to be bigger than God
made Adam and Eve fall
into the temptation of excluding God
from their lives
and place themselves in the center.
And every time we remove God from the center
and put ourselves in the center,
we create suffering.
Suffering.
Because God ceases to be the reference
and we become the reference ourselves.
There’s a small problem,
God is absolute and perfect,
I am relative and imperfect.
When I remove God from the center,
I let go of the best
to keep what’s more or less.
In my case, more less than more.
When I put myself in the center,
what law rules my ego?
“I am the best.” Pride is born.
“All for me.” Selfishness is born.
And the human soul
creates a citadel of illusion,
places itself in the center of life
and starts to behave
like a predator of divine goods.
It absorbs all gifts,
but it’s incapable to share
with brothers along the way.
It takes a proud and arrogant stand,
forgetting that all human creatures
are children of God, and therefore
all of them have their worth.
That’s what happened in paradise,
in the symbolic narrative.
God was removed from the center
and a human being was put in His place.
And what happens? The first couple,
in the symbolic narrative, has two children,
two brothers, the first brothers of the Bible,
Cain and Abel.
I don’t like to do this,
but I’ll tell you the end of the story:
Abel dies,
murdered by his own brother.
Murdered by his own brother.
The first act of meanness in the Bible
is an act committed by a brother
against other brother, a blood brother.
Leaving perhaps a subtle lesson:
the people with more power to hurt us
are those who live with us.
Because a person who is far away
can hardly hurt us
so deeply
as the one who shares our daily routine.
Brother. And what happens
when Cain kills Abel?
Genesis, chapter 4, verse 13:
“So Cain told the Lord...”
Cain talking to God.
Many people think it was like this:
God came and spoke to him. No.
God is in our conscience.
We talk to God
when our conscience calls us.
“So Cain told the Lord:
‘Greater is my cruelty
than what can be forgiven.’”
It’s Cain confessing: my cruelty
can’t be forgiven.
But is there cruelty that can’t be forgiven,
before the infinite love of God?
Cain is invaded by the feeling of guilt:
“My cruelty is greater than forgiveness.”
Look how interesting, because here
it’s not Cain considering forgiveness,
it’s Cain considering to be forgiven.
“Today you cast me off the face of the Earth
and from your face I shall hide.”
Because every time we hurt the Law of God,
we can’t walk with our heads high.
“And it will come to pass that everyone who finds me
shall kill me.” Why?
Why is Cain saying that?
Because he understood there is
a Law of Cause and Effect
ruling our lives.
Our universe, says Desmond Tutu,
an Anglican Bishop from South Africa
and Nobel Peace Prize winner:
“We live in a moral universe.
The world we live in
is an ethical world.
Here Cain felt
the power of the Law of Cause and Effect.
“Everyone that shall find me, shall kill me.”
Why will they kill me? Because I have killed.
He who kills carries death by his side;
he who wounds carries the wound.
“The Lord, however, told him...”
Here it’s mercy speaking.
“Whoever kills Cain
shall be punished sevenfold.
And the Lord put a mark on Cain
so he would not be hurt
by whoever found him.”
He put a mark on him.
What a profound symbol!
God marked Cain
so that no one would hurt him.
And how many people incarnate
with a mark...
With a mark, the mark of redemption,
the mark of expiation, the mark of trial,
not to be wounded by another person,
so that person will not take their place,
making a similar mistake.
“He who kills Cain
shall be punished sevenfold.”
Well, life goes on.
And how it goes...
“Cain has a son called Enoch,
Enoch has a son called Irad,
Irad has a son called Mehujael,
Mehujael has a son called Methushael,
Methushael has a son called Lamech…”
Lamech.
“Lamech has a son called Noah.”
Why am I reading
every name in here?
Because that’s the ancestry of Adam.
Let’s count? Cain, Enoch, Irad,
Mehujael, Methushael, Lamech, Noah.
Seven generations.
And Noah... I don’t like to tell
the end of the movie, but it’s that guy
who builds the arch,
saves himself from the deluge...
Forgive me, I’ll have to tell
the end of the stories...
Noah.
A cycle that started with Cain
only ends in Noah,
seven generations later.
And who is Lamech?
Lamech is the sixth generation.
Six. What has six got to do with it?
Six? It’s the number of man,
man was created on the sixth day.
And when man forgets God
and becomes so human, so human
that he loses touch
with his divine spark,
he gets into a repetitive cycle,
which is six, six, six.
He becomes a beast, an animal,
such is his violence, such is his hatred,
the intolerance, the sectarianism
he begins to nurture.
And then you look at that brother and say:
“My God! Is he still human
or is he just a monster,
an apocalyptic beast, 666?”
He has lost touch
with his divine essence.
Lamech is the sixth.
What will happen to Lamech?
You know what Lamech will do?
He’ll repeat the story
of his great-great-great-great-grandfather.
He’ll repeat the story of Cain,
only instead of killing one, he kills two,
because evil always multiplies itself.
Evil also multiplies itself.
Evil is a bonfire,
the more wood you put on, the more it burns.
Lamech killed two
and after he killed them,
he came to his wives and said:
“And Lamech told his wives
Adah and Zillah: ‘Hear my voice!
You, wives of Lamech,
hear my saying,
because I killed a grown man for wounding me
and a young man for stepping on me.”
“I killed.”
“Because Cain shall be punished sevenfold,
but Lamech, seventy times seven.”
And here appears for the first time
the expression “70 times 7”.
Cain killed once, 7 punishments.
Lamech, 70 times 7.
So Simon Peter asks Jesus:
“Lord,
how many times shall my brother sin…
shall my brother sin against me
and I forgive him? Seven times?”
It’s as if Jesus told Simon:
“Simon!
Let’s end this Cain story,
which has been going on
for thousands of years already...
Let’s put an end to this story, Simon.
No more 7 times punishment,
70 times 7 punishment.
Let’s replace hatred for forgiveness.”
“I do not tell you up to seven,
but 70 times 7.”
Because “70 times 7”
is an idiomatic expression in Hebrew,
which means
very much, a lot, in the utmost degree.
It’s like when you say: “Buddy,
I called you a million times
and you didn’t answer me.”
But you only called four times...
We say a million phone calls,
but who calls somebody
a million times, right?
And who needs to forgive
499 times the same mistake? Right?
So “70 times 7”
is the superlative of 7. 70 times 7.
In Jesus’ answer to Simon,
He says: “Simon...
I came here to put an end
to the story of human hatred.
Let’s end this story
of brother attacking brother,
brother killing brother...
Sectarianism, hatred, division.
Let’s replace it for forgiveness,
because if we understand
that we’re all human beings,
that we all need each other’s
understanding and forgiveness,
the world will become paradise,
not because it will be filled with angels,
but because all will be forgiven
and there’ll be no more revenge.”
It’s as if Jesus evoked the story
again, to retell that story,
and it was retold. It was...
After all He went through
on the cross,
He addresses God in prayer and says:
“Father, forgive them!
They know not what they do...”
And He ends the glorious lesson of the Gospel
with forgiveness,
teaching them that Jesus does not wait
for us to improvise
and become angels
overnight,
but He waits, at least,
that we have enough strength
to forgive the person who lives with us.
So I ask permission
to read a poem
that was psychographed on April 25, 2013
here in Curitiba, by a friend
from Grupo Eurípedes Barsanulfo,
it’s from the spirit Auta de Souza
and it’s called “Messengers of the Good News”.
And the poem goes like this:
“If almost all of humankind cries
and you hear their lament, their screaming and crying,
go on your meek and holy way.
May your voice be the messenger of Christ.
Do not retreat in the face of criticism or astonishment,
be light in the passing darkness,
take relief to the pain that comes near you
and like Jesus, hand in your own robe.
And stars of the Good News, step by step,
will shine in the sky of every space
of workshops, schools, temples, homes.
But the star of love, your motto and guide
will be the mirror of the souls when one day
seventy times seven you forgive.”
Thank you very much. Good evening to all.