Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Matthew 18:21-35
I knew something was wrong on September 11th, 2001, when my middle school gym class was ending, and for the first and only time, Coach Dukes rolled in the cart with the TV. The bell rang, and five minutes later, we were in math class, glued to the TV up in the corner for the rest of the morning. After lunch, our history teacher said we needed to turn off the news, to which we said, “This is history!”
I remember during the period changes in the hallway, some boy said, “We’re gonna kick Saddam’s ___!”
I remember that afternoon playing tennis with my friend Nathan in an empty park while the sun went down.
This past Friday, as I was looking at all the coverage, my buddy sent me an old internet discussion from that morning. There was no social media back then, just message boards, and this one had 25 posts per page. By the second page, someone had guessed Osama bin Laden was involved. By page three, someone wondered if we were going to war.
Sometimes history is inevitable. That day felt “realer than real.”
But our gospel reading today involves some unreal parables and some unreal numbers. “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive?” This question appears only in Matthew. Depending on the translation, Jesus says “Seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven,” but as most of us who are familiar with this passage probably have heard, this is not a literal math answer, but a theological figure of speech.
Seven, of course, is a holy number, intrinsically connected to creation, the Sabbath, a weekly rhythm of life in God. Jesus often used the Sabbath to demonstrate that the Law should be received as a gift, a grace. The Jubilee year, where all debt was forgiven, happened after even cycles of Sabbath years: seven times seven years.
But that is only part of the symbolic texture. We don’t know precisely what Jesus meant by this unreal number, “seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven,” but we know another time a similar number is used in Genesis, when one of Cain’s descendents says if Cain gets “sevenfold” vengeance, then I, Lamech, will get “seventy-sevenfold” vengeance. Like he’s saying, “Oh, vengeance will be so much mine, it will be beyond what you can imagine!”
So when Jesus flips that around to Peter, he is saying, “Your vengeance must not be seventy-sevenfold. Instead, your forgiveness must be beyond what you can imagine.”
But doesn’t that just turn you into a doormat? Why are we supposed to be so forgiving?
So Jesus uses another unreal scenario: here’s what the kingdom of heaven is like. It’s like a king who is owed money. One guy owes him ten thousand talents. Sound like a lot? Yeah, something between $6 and $100 billion dollars. Like seventy times seven, it’s not real. It’s like a bajillion. It’s a number the guy couldn’t pay back. But the king does. And so the servant is forgiven of an absurd debt, forgiven beyond what is real.
And here the story gets more gruesome and, unfortunately, realer. For the very same man, who had been given the impossible mercy, is owed a very realistic number—a hundred denarii, or for us, maybe about ten grand. That’s a real number. It’s real enough to ask for it when you need it, and real enough for most of us to notice it when it’s gone. But what about a guy who had just been gifted $100 bajillion whatever dollars?
Well, he does notice it. And like a member of the Soprano family, he chokes the man who owes him, then has him thrown in debtors’ prison. What is realer than violent hypocrisy?
Hey, maybe he forgot all he had been forgiven. That was last week. But the other servants didn’t forget, and they tell the king. And the king really didn’t forget. I mean, even a king doesn’t forget $100 bajillion dollars. And the king says, “Okay, if that’s how you treat my other servants, nevermind. You pay your debt.” And he’s handed over to the guards of the debtors’ prison known for their torture until he could pay a bajillion dollars. And so, Christ says, will be your fate if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.
This might sound intense, because it is. It may be hard to hear Jesus being harsh, even if it’s because we are harsh to our neighbor. It might also be hard if we see ourselves in the mirror Jesus holds up to us. Not just the amount that we owe God, having messed up more often than we can remember, but it is hard to know the standard he sets is forgiving your brother or your sister from your heart. “You mean I have to mean it?”
That just seems unrealistic. Bitter hatred doesn’t just go away. Like twenty-five years ago, the violence of human history can feel inevitable. Some think the Civil War was destined to happen from the original framing of the Constitution, that it made a clash over slavery just a matter of time. And if you think of the worst conflicts you have ever been in, you could probably trace, and you probably have traced, the reasons why it was inevitable. Your worst fights were two people on a collision course. It probably doesn’t make it a bit less painful, only more tragic.
Not only do conflict and war feel inevitable, but they feel eternal. Never-ending. Even Kansas and Missouri are still hashing out a football rivalry that goes back to the Civil War.
These inevitable, eternal conflicts are realer than real. Every bitter conflict comes about for real reasons and real issues that we can’t ignore. That’s why forgiveness can never be about pretending the issues didn’t matter, the pain wasn’t real, the hurt wasn’t profound, and in some cases, we say “what you did to me was unforgivable” and mean it because it is so beyond the pale of humanity that the only word for it is “evil.”
I mostly don’t like to remember anything from seminary. But one thing I recall is that forgiveness defies cheap answers. There may be no harder topic than forgiveness when it comes to honoring justice and dignity for everyone involved, because forgiveness can only happen in an unjust world. The world is not a clean, simple ledger. Unlike the parable Jesus gives us, it’s not always about $10,000 dollars, or even $100 bajillion, where at least we’re still talking about money, where forgiving is a matter of settling up the math. But how do you pay someone back for their childhood that was taken from them? When you rob someone’s dignity, what is the cost? When someone messed up your future, what do they owe you? When they took from you innocence, or your joy for life, or your compassionate heart that used to easily give people the benefit of the doubt but you can’t anymore, where does that show up on the balance sheet? What about a life?
When we’re talking about forgiveness, platitudes fail, because if we’re talking about it, our ideals have already broken down and something has gone wrong. Forgiveness is not affirming an unjust status quo or ignoring injustice or kicking the can down the road. Forgiveness is not about denying what is real.
In the Christian community—in this place where we hope to give each other a taste of the kingdom—forgiveness is something else. Forgiveness interrupts what is inevitable, eternal, and real. Forgiveness interrupts what is real by helping us remember that God created us from his very being in grace and continues to give us grace upon grace with his love that is actually realer than real. And because forgiveness can sometimes interrupt what’s real—even if we have to go back to reality—it can create moments and opportunities for something truly transcendent.
I don’t mean forgiveness is this false place of fake enlightenment. But I also don’t mean that we can ignore Jesus when he tells us to forgive our brother and sister for the harm they did to us from our heart. When I hear that, I already know I owe God again.
When that happens, sometimes I need to remember that I’m not Jesus. And the best thing I can do today is not be the savior I’m trying to be more like and never will be. If you’re like me, you might have to say to the person who hurt you, “Because I’m not Jesus, I’m going to ask Christ to forgive you when I can’t.”
Can we do that from our heart? From your heart, in your very
being, “Christ, I can’t forgive them. Please forgive me that I can’t. And please forgive them for me.”
We have been talking about enemy love and forgiveness for a few weeks now. Still not solved. But in Sunday school last week, it came up that we have a helpful symbol for what Jesus is saying in this parable. Remember the mercy that you have received from God—vertical, top to bottom. And when you remember that, extend it out horizontally. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
And if you can’t do that, let Jesus forgive for you. Again. Don’t imagine that forgiveness is not the standard when it’s too hard to forgive. And don’t deny the pain that makes it too hard to forgive. Don’t forget what’s real. But Sabbath after Sabbath, grace upon grace, try letting the love of God interrupt what’s real. Amen.
