Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons - September 13th 2026

Kristus a svaty Menas

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 130

Anger, even righteous anger, is never a pleasant experience for those at the receiving end of it. Too often it fragments the harmony of life, shatters the peace we may enjoy and inserts something darker into our horizon. Many of us do have tempers and part of our adult life (at least we hope) is to try and deal with that aspect of our character in order to become gentler, less aggressive persons. The psalm response today lays before us a model of what we understand the Lord God to be: 'The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion'.(Ps103 v 8)

We can only hope that we are able to emulate this all-embracing cosmic act of God's love, but know quite instinctively that for us it will also be a lifetime process of active learning.

There are helps in todays gospel where Jesus' teaching on forgiveness points to that aspect of sharing in God's qualities by being a kind, merciful and compassionate person whose anger is modified by the greater gift of love, and where forgiveness is not a default position but a fundamental requirement of discipleship. That point is driven home in the story of the wicked servant which points us towards a painful realisation that there are consequences for our behaviour and actions. In this particular case a very final one for the wicked behaviour of the servant incapable of pity and forgiveness. Matthew puts it starkly, the wicked servant being told by the Master: 'Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?' Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt'.(Mt 18 :33,34) It is at this point that we, together with the wicked servant, are told a hard truth: 'So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.'(Mt 18:35) The challenge we face is how we manage this, how can we start to change our own inner dynamic?

Contemporary society doesn't help us as much as it ought. On the one hand we have become so attuned to an awareness of societal and institutional wrongs, where we find the unpleasant side of all those systems of anger, bullying, abuse in all its forms, and our need as Christ's people, to be vigilant by safeguarding, protecting, and defending the vulnerable from those who cause harm. This is an absolute necessity especially in the Church, but on the other hand we also face a different set of values, where success and achievement can be perceived in more demanding and selfish ways, where aggressive behaviour and outright mendacity are tolerated, and truth is the loser. We know that in certain circles the meek do not yet inherit the earth!

How do we as Christians behave, what values do we keep? The answer as Jesus teaches us is clear and unchanging: 'Then Peter approaching asked him, "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?"Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times'.(Mt 18:21,22) That's a tough one because we instinctively know the bottom line in forgiveness is not a number but just these two words ,'every time!' I'm afraid that's daunting, and I fail at it often because of anger, but something in that evocation of the Most High we found in the psalm gives me, as I hope you, a concrete help.

The Lord is said to be 'slow to anger', that means in our terms a change in pace, here we are given a lifeline of what we might call conversion for ourselves. I'm reminded, as I carry on with my rather tough physiotherapy after my knee replacement, of the continual mantra to 'keep on with your exercises!' This is an insight into our gospel way, to 'keep on' with our exercises of love, mercy and forgiveness. We deal with anger as with anything difficult in trying again by dogged persistence, picking up when we fall, carrying on, not giving up. Our first reading from Sirach helps us by giving us a sentence for reflection: 'Remember the commandments and do not be angry with your neighbour; remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook faults'.(Sirach 28:7) It's a good start!

Lectio

Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Abba Moses

*A brother at Scetis committed a fault. A council was called to which Abba Moses was invited, but he refused to go to it. Then the priest sent someone to say to him, 'Come, for everyone is waiting for you.' So he got up and went. He took a leaking jug, filled it with water and carried it with him. The others came out to meet him and said to him, 'What is this, Father?' The old man said to them, 'My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another.' When they heard that they said no more to the brother but forgave him.

A Poison Tree

William Blake

1757 -1827

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,--

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree