Matthew 18:21–35 21Then Peter came up and asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?”
22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you as many as seventy-seven times. 23For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24When he began to settle them, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Because the man was not able to pay the debt, his master ordered that he be sold, along with his wife, children, and all that he owned to repay the debt.
26“Then the servant fell down on his knees in front of him, saying, ‘Master, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything!’ 27The master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt.
28“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began choking him, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’
29“So his fellow servant fell down and begged him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!’ 30But he refused. Instead he went off and threw the man into prison until he could pay back what he owed.
31“When his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were very distressed. They went and reported to their master everything that had taken place.
32“Then his master called him in and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt when you begged me to. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?’ 34His master was angry and handed him over to the jailers until he could pay back everything he owed.
35“This is what my heavenly Father will also do to you unless each one of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
“Forgive our sins as we forgive,” You taught us, Lord, to pray, But you alone can grant us grace To live the words we say. Amen. (CW 493:1)
I was speaking with my dad earlier this week about his farm. Since I am the executor of my parents’ will, I wanted to see how much they thought their 53 acres, farmhouse, barns, sheds and farm machinery are worth.
We came up with a total of 1.25 million dollars.
My dad said he will never sell the farm. My mom heard 1.25 million dollars and called out, “I’ll sell!”
My two sisters and I already own our own homes. We don’t need the farm after my parents are called home to heaven. My daughter Miriam is interested in buying the property and running the farm after she graduates with her agricultural engineering degree. But there’s no way she will be able to afford that price tag. So my dad has talked about selling it to her for $1.
That’s a pretty big discount!
But it isn’t as big of a discount as we find in the story Jesus uses with Peter.
Perhaps Peter was having trouble with his younger brother. Maybe Andrew was getting on Peter’s nerves! So Peter asked Jesus, Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?”
Peter is trying to quantify forgiveness. He wants to keep score. He may think he’s sounding generous and magnanimous suggesting what seems to him like a lot of times for the same offense. Seven times!
Jesus replies, “Not seven times, but I tell you as many as seventy-seven times.” By picking such a ridiculously high number Jesus is saying, “Don’t keep score at all. Not seven times or seventy-seven times Don’t keep track of how often you forgive your brother. Just forgive, whether it’s the first time or the seventy-seventh time. Forgiveness doesn’t count.”
To drive home the point, Jesus goes on to tell the story we often refer to as The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. Since we heard the parable in our Gospel lesson, I’ll paraphrase the story.
A servant owes his king a bazillion dollars. I think that’s the actual ancient term for this amount of money. A bazillion dollars. This was a big debt. We aren’t told what the servant did to cause this huge debt. But it was massive. He could never pay it back in his lifetime. Not even in multiple lifetimes.
Now the king is going to foreclose on the guy. The servant is hauled before the king and told to pay up. The guy is shaking in his boots because he knows what the king can do to him and his family for failure to pay the debt.
What does the king do? “The master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt.” The king did this even though the last words his servant spoke to him were a blatant lie. “Master, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything!” The king forgiving the bazillion dollar debt was a pure act of mercy.
Now the servant is free. He has learned a powerful lesson about mercy and forgiveness. … Or has he? Apparently not because the first thing he does with his newfound freedom is hunt down a fellow servant who owes him a few thousand dollars. An infinitesimally small debt in comparison.
The unmerciful servant is unwilling to expend the same pure actions of mercy to his buddy. He grabs his friend by the neck and begins choking him and yelling in his face, “Pay me what you owe!”
The servant uses almost the same words, “Be patient with me and I’ll pay you back.” But they have no effect. The unmerciful servant has no pity on the man who owes him a few measly bucks. He throws the guy in prison.
The unmerciful servant has obviously not learned how forgiveness works in this kingdom. He shows that he does not really want to operate on the basis of grace. He prefers the old way of accounting and scorekeeping and payback and revenge. Sadly, he has rejected the way of his king.
The king finds out and says to his servant, “You wicked servant! I forgave you that huge debt but you would not show the same mercy to your friend who owed you a much smaller debt. Go to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.”
Jesus ties all this together for Peter as he throws in the punchline to the meaning of the parable: “This is what my heavenly Father will also do to you unless each one of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
The meaning of the parable is clear. We often want to hold people in our debt for their offenses against us.
When a child slams the door and storms out of the house.
When a parent is being unreasonable.
When a neighbor is rude.
When a coworker drops the ball on an assignment.
When a classmate gossips about you.
Pick your person. Pick your offense. I’m sure there are plenty to choose from.
These are legitimate offenses. We have been sinned against. The hurts are real. The pain is substantial. The wounds are open and raw.
For all that we demand our 100 denarii!
We all have our ways of collecting on our debts – usually more subtly than choking. Perhaps it is being passive aggressive while delivering the bill. Or nobly deferring the payment … until the time we are sinned against. Then we feel vindicated in exploding, exacting a balloon payment with interest for the original offense. Or maybe our mercy is “out of stock” the next time they need it.
These are the payments our world demands. These are the debts our sinful nature desires to collect.
Jesus is teaching us this is not how it works in God’s Kingdom. Forgiveness is the capital of God’s Kingdom. If you want to operate with some other collateral, then you are in a heap of trouble. Because that’s not how your heavenly Father deals with you.
You have created a debt that far exceeds a bazillion dollars. You know exactly how you created that debt. With your inborn sinful nature. Your sins of thoughts, words, actions and inactions. You have created a debt you cannot pay off in this lifetime. You cannot pay off this debt in an eternity of lifetimes. You will be thrown into the flaming prion of hell, created for the devil and his demons.
The King has already come to settle his account with you. But God settled this account in a way that is totally different than we would ever imagine. The King came to settle accounts by taking on yourself the penalty for your offenses and paying your debt off to his heavenly Father. Jesus is the Suffering Servant who paid your debts, not with gold or silver but with his holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death. He paid for our crimes against our heavenly Father, our offenses against those around us, our lack of mercy to those who have offended us. He suffered the hellish prison when his heavenly Father forsook him on the cross. His death was payment for everything humanity owed God. His resurrection was his heavenly Father’s receipt that accepted his Son’s payment.
Through Jesus all our accounts are settled. Our debts are paid. Our prison term is commuted. The King has had pity on you, released you and forgiven the debt you could never begin to pay. You are a free servant in your Father’s Kingdom.
God, then, is clearly not someone who stops forgiving you after you have committed the same sin seven or seventy-seven times. Rather as the prophet Jeremiah says, “By the mercies of the Lord we are not consumed, for his compassions do not fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22,23). And as St. John teaches, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Because the King has been merciful to you, you now go out to be merciful to those around you. The debts others owe you are real. But they are also really small compared to your debt to God. You forgive as you have been forgiven. You have been shown mercy to show mercy to others.
You hunt down your friends who have offended you. Instead of choking payment out of them, you love them, hug them, cry with them, talk to them, lead them to repentance and then forgive them.
If your sins are not too great to be forgiven by God, then no one’s sins against you are too great to be forgiven by you.
Jesus paid for your sins against your brother. And Jesus has paid for your brother’s sins against you.
Forgiveness is not an excuse for your brother to keep sinning against you. Just as Jesus’ forgiveness is not an excuse for you to keep sinning against Jesus. Forgiveness does not encourage sinners to continue in sin. Forgiveness does the opposite. It frees people from sin. It frees people to live in Christ’s forgiveness. It frees people to live extending Christ’s forgiveness to others.
I seriously doubt that my parents will sell their farm to their granddaughter for a dollar. But if they did, it would be a huge debt removed that she would never forget. She would live on her grandparents’ farm with gratefulness, telling everyone why fantastic, loving, gracious grandparents she has. She would tell everyone she meets about the huge, canceled doubt.
How much more for you? Tell everyone about your canceled debt. Let everyone know what Jesus has done for you. Proclaim the fantastic, loving, generous, gracious King you serve. You had a debt you could never pay. But it was canceled. Forgotten. Forgiven. Now you are loved to love. Served to serve. Forgiven to forgive. Amen.
Lord, cleanse the depths within our souls And bid resentment cease; Then, bound to all in bonds of love Our lives will spread your peace. Amen. (CW 493:4)