Spiritual Sunday (reprinted from Sept. 14, 2014)
It has always been the case, and continues so today, that zealots pervert spiritually uplifting moments in sacred scripture to fit their own egotistical purposes. Wuthering Heights gives us a great example of this occurring.
Today’s New Testament reading shows us Jesus using numbers to teach his disciples the power of forgiveness. Actually, there are two different numbers in two different versions of Matthew 18:21-22. Emily Bronte would of course have been working with the King James Version but here they both are:
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18:21-22, King James Version)
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22, New International Version)
Needless to say, Jesus has neither 77 nor 490 in mind when he responds to Peter. Rather, he is poetically making the point that Peter has to think big when it comes to forgiveness, just as Jesus himself will do on the cross. Leave it up to judgmental fundamentalists, however, to focus on sin #491. Here’s the first of Lockwood’s two nightmares when he’s sleeping in Catherine’s childhood room at Wuthering Heights:
I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print. I saw a red ornamented title—‘Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.’ And while I was, half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don’t remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.
I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim’s staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text—‘Seventy Times Seven;’ and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the ‘First of the Seventy-First,’ and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated…
[I]n my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the ‘First of the Seventy-First.’ At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.
‘Sir,’ I exclaimed, ‘sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!’
‘Thou art the Man!’ cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. ‘Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!’
With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim’s staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defense, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man’s hand was against his neighbor; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez’s part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes!
Like many hell-fire fundamentalists, including the old servant Joseph, Jabez has no interest in forgiveness. He relishes too much the satisfaction he gets from pointing out to the world its many sins. If Jesus specifically mentions that 490 sins can be forgiven, then Jabez will single out the 491st.
Lockwood is spending the night with people whose lives have been ravaged by the failure to forgive. Heathcliff forgives no one and all must pay: Hindley, Hareton, Edgar, Isabel, Linton, young Catherine. Heathcliff can’t even forgive Catherine since, as he sees it, she has done away with herself:
‘Let me alone. Let me alone,’ sobbed Catherine. ‘If I’ve done wrong, I’m dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won’t upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!’
‘It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,’ he answered. ‘Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?
The world of Catherine’s adult life is one where there is no healing grace. Come to think of it, there actually was one sin that Jesus found to be unforgivable and that was the sin against the Holy Spirit. Those who are without compassion, who cannot experience God’s healing forgiveness or forgive others, have condemned themselves to eternal torment. In Lockwood’s dream, the entire congregation, along with Lockwood himself, turn the wrathful eye of judgment upon one another and are locked in hellish combat.
The self-righteous Jabezes of the world are those that Jesus most had in mind when he called for forgiveness. My but they are a vocal lot!
