Seventy times Seven

One of my fondest childhood memories is riding in my uncle's jeep with my cousins, singing the VeggieTales theme song at the top of our lungs. My family takes VeggieTales very seriously. I'm talking marathons, seriously. We own the first fourteen videos on VHS and numerous other newer releases on DVD. But those fourteen, I know them like the back of my hand. They made Bible lessons fun and exciting. Plus, Silly Songs with Larry taught me water buffaloes were a thing and that cucumbers don't need hairbrushes. Very valuable lessons. But, back to the Bible. From 'love your neighbor' to 'have a happy heart', VeggieTales was one of my first and most formative interactions with the Christian moral ethic. Its lessons, given in the guise of chatty vegetables, continue to inspire, challenge, and transform me, most lately with my understanding of forgiveness.


In the second episode, God Wants Me to Forgive Them!?! (yep, that's really the punctuation), Junior Asparagus is struggling to forgive the Grapes of Wrath for making fun of his name and repeatedly laughing at him. Bob and Larry, the hosts of the show, inform Junior that Jesus calls all of us to forgive not just once, not just seven times, but seventy times seven. The problem is, no one actually knows what seventy times seven equals. Here, Junior's nemesis, the teasing Rosie Grape (confession: I had to look up her name), awes everyone with her brilliant math abilities when she informs them, in an adorable hillbilly accent, that 70 times 7 is 490.

Alright, part of me definitely remembers this scene because it was pretty big multiplication for a grape to know. I mean, 490!?! I wanted to be that good at math when I grew up. But it was more than that. This exchange stuck with me, and is probably one of the only lines from scripture I extracted from all the lessons in VeggieTales. This episode comes to mind every time I hear that gospel passage proclaimed. I chuckle and desperately wish the priest would read it with that same hillbilly accent. So it was this past Sunday, yet, the exchange between Jesus and Peter, this instruction of 490 times, struck a new chord with me, despite the words being etched in my mind.

Lately, I have been struggling to forgive another and to forgive myself, caught in a cycle of resolution and irresolution. Just when I think I've forgiven and moved on, I very sharply experience anger or accusation or guilt again. I try to shut down this cycle, telling myself "You have forgiven already! It's okay! Move on!" But clearly, I am unresolved. Clearly, forgiving once is not going to cut it.

Throughout all of this, I just kept hearing Rosie Grape's voice saying "four hundred and ninety," but it took hearing it at mass this past Sunday to realize I had been limiting the scope of forgiveness. I had always interpreted 490 times to mean forgiving the person each time they committed a new offense.  I had never really ruminated on forgiving them again and again for a singular offense committed only once. This is what I had been struggling with, and here it was, so clearly before my eyes and buried so deep in my brain and soul. We need to forgive 490 times because the hurt and offense takes on 490 forms and phases that won't all always resolve with one utterance of the phrase, "I forgive you." Nor do they need to.

Forgiveness comes in stages. Like grief, forgiveness truly isn't linear. It's messy - a see-saw, merry-go-round, and monkey bars all rolled into one. Sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes nauseating, sometimes swinging, sometimes stuck in the middle. Forgiveness is not about wiping your hands clean of the offense and instantly moving on. Rather, forgiveness is an opportunity to open oneself to vulnerability and humility.

Our culture glorifies a person's ability to "be the bigger person" and "move on." So often lately I have tried to be that strong person, but I have realized that expectation is not always realistic. Sometimes I am not the bigger person. I am small and weak. I hurt, and I sometimes wish hurt on others. Yet, while before I felt utterly broken and helpless by this realization, now, understanding the gospel in a new light, I feel truly humbled and empowered. Jesus understands forgiveness is hard; He knows it takes more than one or two or even seven tries. And how fitting that he tells this to Peter, who again and again has little faith and denies the Lord. How Peter must have felt towards himself! I think I know the feeling.

Thankfully for Peter, he understood Jesus' mercy. He understood failing wasn't the end. He understood that forgiveness is a choice we have to keep making, seventy times seven times, and probably more. Most importantly, he realized forgiveness is not just for others. It's for ourselves. We so often can be our harshest critics. Even in Catholicism, after the the priest has given absolution in the confessional, we can continue to punish ourselves for our imperfections and failings. This is not what God desires for us. He desires peace and joy.

Forgiveness is not a competition; lowest score doesn't win. Rather, its fruits can only multiply; so be brave in your vulnerability! Be like Peter. Choose forgiveness. Choose it daily, for yourself and for others. Choose it four hundred ninety times.

And go watch VeggieTales right now.