Free to Forgive

In today’s gospel, Peter asks, “When a sister or brother wrongs me, how many times must I forgive? Seven times?”

Peter probably thinks he is being generous.

Seven is a biblical number.

It is a number of completeness.

After all, creation took place in seven days—including a day of rest!

Seven times must have sounded like a lot of forgiveness to Peter’s ears.

He probably thought Jesus would say, “Yes, Peter. Seven is plenty.

Seven times would fulfill your duty to forgive.”

But instead, Jesus says, “No, not seven times; I tell you seventy times seven.”

490 times.

I imagine that set Peter back on his heels.

He thought he was being generous by saying seven times and Jesus comes back with this ludicrous response.

But it wasn’t ludicrous.

It was Jesus’ way of saying that forgiveness is not about keeping score.

We are to forgive as we have been forgiven—over and over again.

But all this forgiveness can come at a cost.

If we aren't careful, Jesus' command to forgive can become a burden.

Forgiving an abuser can feel like a terrible burden for the person who has been abused.

Forgiving a betrayal can seem like more than a person can bear.

But the point is holding a grudge, being angry, or hating a person—those are the real burdens.

In telling us to forgive, Jesus isn’t giving us a burden.

He is telling us how to give up a burden—how to release the grudge or the anger or the hatred.

That is the good news at the center of this parable.

Forgiveness is a gift that frees us from carrying a burden we were never meant to carry.

I had an uncle who I was very close to growing up.

He was a hard worker, a church goer, and a family man.

I had a very idealized view of who he was.

I kind of thought of him as Mike Brady, the father of the Brady Bunch.

Then, at a family party, I heard him say that he believed that AIDS was a punishment sent from God for gay people.

As a young gay man who was all too aware of the devastation to the community around me, I was taken aback.

I was not in a position to challenge him.

And it changed our relationship forever.

The man who I looked at like Mike Brady became judgmental and hateful in my eyes.

Of course, I was not mature enough to realize that I was being just as judgmental as he was.

I didn’t realize that the disdain he bore for gay people was a burden—a burden that limited his ability to love.

And a burden that limited his ability to share the love a God—a characteristic that I had admired in him so greatly up to that point.

By the time I reached the level of maturity that would have allowed me to share what I am sharing with you now, it was too late.

He had passed away and the opportunity for forgiveness had passed.

So, I still carry that burden—that missed opportunity to forgive.

In The Inclusive Bible translation that we use, it says a royal official owed the king tens of millions of dollars.

In other translations, it says a servant owed ten thousand talents.

Of course, I have heard this parable many times, as I’m sure you have.

But it wasn’t until I was researching this discrepancy that I really grasped the meaning of the parable.

You see, ten thousand talents is a ridiculous amount of money—$6 billion in current value, by some estimates.

It is not a realistic debt.

It is not the kind of debt you could pay back if you just worked harder.

It is not something that could be offset by giving up your daily latte on the way to work.

Or the avocado toast.

Or your premium cable channels.

It is an impossible debt.

But the official still says, “I beg you, your highness, be patient with me and I will pay you back in full!”

But he can’t—there’s no possible way.

And then comes the first twist of the parable.

The king has pity on the official.

And he forgives the debt.

No payment plan.

No “I'll forgive half if you promise to work harder.”

No conditions.

The debt is simply canceled.

The official is simply free.

That is how grace works.

We know we can’t simply try harder and make ourselves worthy of God.

We can’t do enough good deeds, say enough prayers, attend enough church, donate enough money, or become sufficiently righteous people, to finally clear the red ink from the ledger.

But we want to believe that we can be our own saviors.

We want to prove that we are good enough.

But you and I both know, the harder we try, the more we discover that we cannot.

We cannot save ourselves.

We cannot make ourselves right before God.

God doesn't say:

“Work harder.”

God says:

“The debt is canceled.”

That is grace.

God forgives us—not because of anything we have done but because of who God is.

It is not about what we do for God.

It is about what God has already done for us.

The parable continues: the official walks out of the king's presence and he meets a colleague who owes him money.

A much smaller amount.

The official seizes and throttles his colleague.

He demands payment.

The official has just been released from an impossible debt.

But instead of acting like someone who has received a great gift, he is hard-hearted.

The man begs for patience, using the same words the first official used.

But the first official refuses.

He throws him into debtor’s prison.

And here is the second twist.

The man had received grace.

The king forgave his debt.

But he didn’t know how to live as someone who has received grace.

He had been released from the burden of debt.

But he immediately transfers that burden to someone else.

And isn't that sometimes what we do?

We receive grace from God and we forget.

We create our own little systems of debt.

We keep score.

“He hurt me.”

“She owes me an apology.”

“They owe me an explanation.”

To be clear, sometimes people really do owe us something.

Forgiveness does not require historical amnesia.

We must remember slavery.

We must remember Indigenous genocide.

We must remember the suffering of immigrants and refugees.

Remembering is not the enemy of forgiveness.

Sometimes justice requires accountability.

Sometimes a wrong needs to be called out.

Sometimes restitution needs to happen.

Sometimes boundaries need to be established.

Forgiveness does not mean pretending that evil isn't evil.

It does not mean saying that abuse wasn't abuse.

It does not mean allowing someone to keep harming us.

It does not mean that reconciliation is always possible.

Because forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation.

Reconciliation requires two people.

Forgiveness can begin with one.

We can forgive someone who never apologizes.

We can forgive someone who never changes.

We can forgive someone we will never see again.

Because forgiveness is not necessarily about restoring the relationship.

Forgiveness is about restoring us.

And that is the important takeaway for us today.

Resentment can become a burden.

Anger can become a burden.

Hatred can become a burden.

The desire for payback can become a burden.

We are culturally conditioned to think that giving up our anger is weakness.

We are culturally conditioned to believe that our anger gives us power over the person who hurt us.

But the opposite is often the truth.

That person may not remember what they did.

They may even have moved on.

But we carry it.

We replay the conversation.

We imagine what we should have said.

The person who hurt us doesn't carry the burden.

We do.

Forgiveness does not make what happened okay.

Forgiveness says: “I refuse to allow what you did to become the thing that controls the rest of my life.”

That frees us.

Peter asks, “how many times must I forgive?”

He wants a limit.

Instead, Jesus invites him to a different way of living.

Because grace is not transactional.

It is not: “I forgive you seven times, and then I'm done.”

Grace is an attitude we assume because we are forgiven.

We don't forgive because people have earned it.

We forgive because we know what it feels like to receive something we did not earn.

Every week we pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

The order is important.

“Forgive us” comes first.

And then, “as we forgive.”

Our forgiveness of others flows from God's forgiveness of us.

It’s not a negotiation.

We are not saying, “God, if I forgive enough people, then maybe you'll forgive me.”

No.

God has already forgiven us.

And because we are forgiven people, we can be forgiving people.

We don't forgive in order to earn grace.

We forgive because grace has already found us.

Peter asks, “how many times must I forgive?”

Jesus says, “Stop counting.”

Stop keeping the ledger.

Stop imagining that grace is something you can earn and that forgiveness is something you have to ration.

Instead, remember you had a debt you could never pay and God erased it.

You were bound and God set you free.

We are a beloved child of God.

Called by name.

And claimed as God’s own.

And because we are people who have been forgiven, we can begin to become people who forgive.

Not perfectly.

But faithfully.

Until we finally realize that forgiveness is not about what we give to others.

It is about what God gives to us.

And what God gives us is freedom.

The freedom to stop carrying the burdens of the past.

The freedom to stop living by the ledger.

The freedom to stop allowing someone else's sin to determine our future.

The freedom to live as beloved children of God.

You are free, my friends.

Free to remember.

Free to seek justice.

Free to set boundaries.

Free to tell the truth.

And, by the grace of God, free to forgive.

Because you have first been forgiven.

May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and mind on Christ Jesus. Amen.