You may recall that last Sunday's gospel reading focused on conflict in the church. Within those earlier verses from Matthew, Jesus lays out a process by which members of the body can hold one another accountable. Jesus' approach is not so much one of confrontation as it is one of clarification. He urges that anyone who has been hurt go directly to one who has done the hurting and name the wrongdoing in hopes that the guilty party will alter his or her behavior accordingly. In the case of stubbornness or denial, Jesus details additional steps to be taken by members of the community in order that healing might eventually happen. These steps Jesus prescribes may not be easy ones to take, especially when one is hurting, but clearly his way of dealing with sin holds open the doors to peace and reconciliation.

Seeing this, in today's gospel reading, Peter is compelled to ask an important follow-up question. "Lord," he says, "if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?" It could be that Peter is anticipating this question arising in the future, or maybe he already has a repeat offender in mind. Whatever the case, Peter wants to know, just how far do we have to take this concept of forgiveness? Is there a point at which it becomes reasonable to abandon hope of reconciliation?

Peter's question is a good one. It is a question we all ask at some point in our lives, whether because certain people afflict pain on us repeatedly, or because the pain caused by a single act of sin runs especially deep. Do I really have to forgive that person? Of course this question arises in a variety of ways. Must I speak well of the member of the youth group who set fire to my son's car? Isn't there someplace else I can sit in bible study, someplace besides next to that woman? OrYou can't possibly expect me to be friendly toward that person who starts senseless and viscious rumors everytime he thinks the church is moving in the wrong direction?

Surely, we figure, there must be a point at which we can draw a firm and final line dividing the right from the wrong. Surely the God who cares about our well-being would want us to preserve bit remnants of our sanity, our dignity, our power. Surely a compassionate God would back our decision to banish from our midst those who seem to delight in being difficult. At least then we could get on to other, more important church business.

Despite our desire for retribution, most Christians would probably agree, in theory if not in practice, that God wants us to be generous in forgiving those who have sinned against us. In response to his own question, 'How many times must I forgive?' Peter tosses out the number seven, a number he likely thought generous. Peter would have been familiar with rabbinic laws that allowed a person of faith to extend forgiveness as many as three times to the same person. Here Peter has more than doubled that number.

But Jesus responds to Peter by letting him know that even the disciple's best guess does not come close to capturing the character of God's kingdom. Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times." (v. 22, as it reads in the NRSV anyway; some translations read, "seventy times seven".) Jesus' answer here amounts to more than a really big number. As one interpreter put it, Jesus is actually using "the Jewish phrase for mathematical infinity."^*

What's interesting is that this far-reaching phrase is found only one other time in the bible. Turn to chapter four of Genesis, and you'll find this expression "seventy times seven", or "seventy-seven fold", comes up in the stories of Cain and Lamech. The difference is, in this case, the phrase is used in the context of vengeance visited on those who commit murder.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus revisits this tradition of retributive justice. As he instructs his disciples, Jesus puts the brakes on the cycle of sin and vengeance. Here Jesus links sin not with eternal punishment, but with unlimited forgiveness. And of course we know this is not the first, nor will it be the last time Jesus gestures in this direction.

In this particular instance, Jesus uses a parable to drive home the point that God's mercy trumps vengeance. He tells the story of a man whose debt to his king was 10,000 talents. One talent was the equivalent of 15 years wages, so this man's total debt amounted to 150,000 years' wages, a sum that would have been impossible for any one person to work off. This man was literally indebted for life!! And yet, when this indebted slave falls to his knees and begs for more time to pay off his debt, the king decides to give him a break. Even more surprising is that, rather than extend the term of payment or negotiate a lower interest rate, this ruler altogether erases the massive debt. Having been released from a lifelong burden of obligation, the former debtor can now enjoy a future free from fear and worry.

What does this former debtor do with his newfound freedom though? He seeks out a fellow slave who owes him 100 denarii (roughly the equivalent of three months' wages), a measley sum compared to the debt he's been forgiven. And when this fellow slave fails to pay his debt, the one who has just been forgiven throws the second slave in jail. Upon hearing about the first slave's hypocrisy, the king reverses his prior decision to eliminate the debt, and likewise, throws this first slave in prison. It seems the king has no patience for those who have no patience for others. The one thing this king cannot seem to forgive is the failure to extend forgiveness to others.

While the passages found in today's gospel leaves many questions unanswered, it also reminds us that in God's kingdom, forgiveness is not just icing on the cake. Forgiveness goes to the core of who God is. As members of the God's family, we are both a forgiven people and a forgiving people. The primary business of the church is, in fact, forgiveness. However, that is not to say that this is easy business.

Forgiveness is a process, often a complicated and difficult process. Forgiveness does not mean wrecklessly excusing wrongs, or ignoring the wounds they cause. Forgiveness is rather an unwavering commitment to honesty and healing. Forgiveness means naming the wrong, and choosing to remember it differently. Forgiveness requires a willingness to risk being hurt again in the future. Forgiveness is choosing to pursue relationship rather than to run from it. When we forgive, we release the hold that hurts have on us and we let go of the guilt that we harbor for having hurt another because we trust, above all else, in the future that God has opened to us.

There will no doubt be times when we fall short of forgiveness. Sometimes we succumb to our anger and hurt. Sometimes we allow our woundedness to define our relationships with ourselves and each other and God. But with each new day, God grants us another chance to release the pain of the past. Today God gives us another chance to live into the freedom of the future.

Already Jesus has already stripped the wounds of this world of their power. The cycle of sin and pain cannot determine the history of humankind, because God's love has already issued the final verdict in your lives and in mine. In a short while we will celebrate this surprising verdict as God once again calls us together in table fellowship with the Lord who makes all things new. As we take the bread of new beginnings and drink the cup of divine forgiveness, let us taste the future God has opened up for us by way of the cross.

 

 

^* Tambi Brown Swiney, Lectionary Homiletics, vol. XIX, no. 5, p. 61