“Who’s Counting?”
“Who’s Counting?”
Matthew 18:21-35
Matthew 18:21-35
In the name of the Living God and the Risen Christ. Amen.
Matthew’s account of the gospel leaves no prisoners. If you’re feeling self-satisfied, self-justified, self-sanctified, or self-actualized, just read Jesus’ words recorded by the tax-collector turned disciple. You’ll get the spiritual gut-punch you probably need.
“I’m not a murderer like those others”—but have you hated in your heart? “I’ve lived a life of purity”—but have you lusted? “I’m a decent person, kept most of the rules, try to ‘live and let live’”—but Jesus said not the smallest letter of the law can be neglected. “I take care of my own”—but the Lord says love your enemies. Just when we’re getting a little comfortable, maybe looking for the “soft, gentle, accepting Jesus,” his words cut us to the heart: “Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21)
It may be that St. Matthew himself, so sickened at his own life of hypocrisy before Jesus called him, took extra care to confront it in himself and others. He recalls and records our Lord’s teachings which expose human pretention in all its forms—especially religious and pietistic hypocrisy.
And so we find the same here in chapter 18, in Jesus teaching on forgiveness. Peter, like all of us, wants a number. What’s the score? How many times? How much is enough? Peter lives in our tit-for-tat, this-for-that world. “Give me something quantifiable to work with here, Lord, so I know when I can stop being merciful.”
Peter’s number is pretty good, actually. Some prominent rabbis said you should forgive up to three times. But seven times? That’s probably better than I’d go for. But our Lord isn’t going to play the numbers game. There’s no math in mercy. And so seventy-seven times is Jesus’ impossible response (and if you think that’s achievable, some translate it seventy times seven—that’s 490 by my non-math major reckoning).
The point is not the number, but to confront the hardened heart. Those who have been incalculably forgiven by Jesus at the cross are to live lives of incalculable forgiveness towards others.
Forgiveness is messy—I get it. When we did our Wednesday noon study on forgiveness earlier this summer, we discussed how some people are wronged in much deeper and more lasting ways than others. We’ve all been hurt, but some have wounds that may never fully heal this side of eternity. And we talked about the complexity of our broken relationships: you’re in a conflict, and yes, you’ve done something wrong, but they have too, and it’s unlikely they’re ever going to repent. But you’re still called to forgive. And sometimes you need to forgive, even though you might never have an opportunity to speak to that person again… and they might never know of your change of heart. And sometimes we do choose to forgive, but our emotions and behavior lag far behind that choice, and so we feel like we haven’t… or we need to again and again and again. And sometimes it seems we can’t forgive… the wounds are too deep, or the emotional and psychological scars have changed us too much.
Forgiveness is messy. Yet ironically, Jesus speaks a parable about forgiveness which is in fact fairly straightforward. It’s dramatically simple, in fact. One servant owes millions, but is shown abundant, remarkable mercy. Ten thousand talents would have been an enormous sum in those days. Put it this way: a common day-laborer would have had to work 60,000,000 days to pay off that debt! Yet, out of deep compassion, the master’s math-less mercy forgives it all.
But then this same servant turns around and refuses mercy to another, who owes a few hundred bucks. The ratio between the two contrasting debts would be approximately 600,000 to 1. The unforgiving servant refuses to give the slightest, little drop of grace, even while swimming in a vast ocean of it himself. If only life were as simple as this parable! Of course, I would forgive a few hundred bucks if I had just been forgiven tens of millions. And you would, too, right? Right? Well… wouldn’t you?
One commentator summarized this reading by saying: Our Lord “offers in this stunningly powerful parable the framework for forgiveness, proclaiming how forgiveness flows in infinite quantity and quality from the heavenly father to wretched and condemned sinners—and through those sinners out to others.” (Jeff Gibbs, Matthew, p. 934).
So you see at the root of refusing to forgive is the same thing that is at the root of all sin: a lack of faith. If only we believed more fully the gospel and understood how fully abundant God’s grace is to us and realized how free we actually are and saw how much that person who wronged us has been forgiven, it would completely transform the way we viewed others faults against us. The more we understand the gospel of forgiveness for us, the more we understand forgiveness for others.
Forgiveness is messy. The root for the word “to forgive” here is to dismiss, or release something. To quote the gospel according to Disney’s Frozen, to “let it go, let it go.” But who’s really being released? Of course, when we forgive, we release, or let go, the person who’s wronged us. Mindful of our Lord’s grace upon us, and unlike the unmerciful servant in the parable who seizes (holds on) to the other person’s throat, we release the person who has wronged us.
But the spiritual irony here is that, when we release another person by forgiving, we’re actually releasing ourselves, freeing ourselves. And when we keep holding onto the way we’ve been wronged, refusing to “let it go” we’re actually binding ourselves. To use the image of the parable, we’ve got our own selves by the throat when we refuse to forgive.
Forgiveness is messy. Messy enough to bring nails into hands and feet, thorns into a head, lashes onto a back, and death to the Lord of Life. In the cross we see the full consequences of our tit for tat, this for that world. The one who knew no sin became sin for us, the one who had every right for retribution, forged forgiveness for all. The one truly righteous person, cruelly and despicably treated, expended his final, dying breath on words of forgiveness. The God-man made mercy for us, Jesus Christ, kept no record of our wrongs. In Christ’s bloody sacrifice for us, we are given both His power to forgive and His grace when our forgiveness falls short.
At the end of the book of Matthew Jesus carries a cross. That’s the only way through this. None of us is righteous in ourselves. Not one of us can purge enough, pray enough, forgive enough, give enough. But Jesus Christ gives us his righteousness as a gift—he graciously, abundantly, incalculably loves you by keeping every part of the law perfectly, for you, and receiving every drop of the wrath of God in place of you. This then gives us the assurance of eternal life in heaven, where no wrongs will matter, and all will stand restored and reconciled forever.
What then, I ask, are you holding onto? What great wrong against you will matter in eternity? What petty grievances will you want to take with you there, to that place where Christ is all in all?
Who’s counting? Let it go.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen