Seventy-Seven Times.

17th Sunday after Pentecost
September 11, 2005
Matthew 18:21-35

^18:21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" ²²Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. ²³"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. ²⁵Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. ²⁶"The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. ²⁸"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. ²⁹"His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ ³⁰"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. ³²"Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. ³⁵"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (NIV).

Last week Jesus gave us a difficult command. If another believer sins against you, you must go to him or her alone, not hoping to have a big argument, but to with the intent to resolve the problem and be reconciled. The other needs to repent and you need to forgive. Then it’s over. Only if that doesn’t work do you tell others and get them to help you. As a last resort you bring the matter before the Church. If all that fails then you can write him off and consider him an unbeliever.

Peter now poses an obvious question. How many time must I let someone sin against me? How many times must I reconcile with this brother before I write him off and consider him a pagan? Is seven times enough? I think that most of us would agree that forgiving and making up with someone seven times is more than enough. Often we call it quits after the first or second time someone offends us! Certainly three strikes and you’re out!

But Jesus gives us another difficult command. Not seven times but 77 times, or possibly seventy times seven, thus 490 times, depending on how we translate the Greek words. In either case the point is the same. You’re not going to keep a record and count up either 77 times or 490 times. Therefore, as often as your brother or sister repents, you must forgive.

Let’s be honest. This seems to us absurd and we immediately begin to think of all kinds of reasons why we should not keep on forgiving someone over and over. Our first objection will surely be that a person who keeps offending us and asking for forgiveness is not sincere. If he were sincere he would stop sinning! An insincere person does not deserve to be forgiven. That’s hypocrisy!

Our second objection is an unspoken, underlying assumption. In our minds, a forgiven sin doesn’t mean that the slate is wiped clean. We still count something against that other person and keep at least a mental tally of his or her offences. If a sin counts for one strike against him, then when he repents and I forgive, it becomes say, half a strike! In other words, forgiven sins will not add up to the cut off point as quickly as unforgiven sins, but they still add up! At some point, the latest offence is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Now surely we are right to think this way, are we not? Jesus must have been exaggerating. But he wasn’t! He was very serious and fully recognized how we think. So he told the story to teach us. "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. "The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.

We must understand two things here. First, our sins against God constitute a debt that we cannot pay. In his example, Jesus says the man owes 10,000 talents. That is an enormous sum of money, about 100 times the yearly tax that all of Galilee paid to the Roman government. We would have to think of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars today. The exact amount however, doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it was an enormous debt that he could not pay.

Furthermore, the king had the legal right to sell this man, his wife and children and their every earthly possession to recoup part of the debt. And don’t you think that such a thing was a fairy tale. It happened all the time! It still does is a more concealed way. If for example, you default on a loan, you will loose your house or car or whatever. You will have to declare bankruptcy, a miserable situation from which you might never recover.

This enormous debt represents the debt each of us has with God. He created perfect people and demands perfection. Each time we disobey God’s commandments we incur a debt. We owe something for our sin, something to make up for it. Unfortunately, God’s law demands our life in payment for sin. God doesn’t accept money. Even if he did, we wouldn’t have enough because every day we think, say and do things that offend and anger God.

That is a terrible picture. We cannot tolerate the thought that we have a debt with God that we cannot pay. Here’s how Luther described our situation.

"Before the king drew him to account, he had no conscience, does not feel the debt, and would have gone right along, made more debt, and cared nothing about it. But now that the king reckons with him, he begins to feel the debt. So it is with us. The greater part does not concern itself about sin, goes on securely, fears not the wrath of God. Such people cannot come to the forgiveness of sin, for they do not come to realize that they have sins. They say, indeed, with the mouth that they have sin; but if they were serious about it they would speak far otherwise. This servant, too, says, before the king reckons with him, so much I owe to my lord, namely ten thousand talents; but he goes ahead and laughs. But now that the reckoning is held, and his lord orders him, his wife, his children, and everything to be sold, now he feels it. So, too, we feel in earnest when our sins are revealed in the heart, when the record of our debts is held before us, then the laughter stops. Then we exclaim: I am the most miserable man, there is none as unfortunate as I on the earth! Such knowledge makes a real humble man, works contrition, so that one can come to the forgiveness of sins."

The second thing we have to understand is that God’s forgiveness wipes the slate clean. As the king forgave the servant who owed him millions of dollars, so God forgives us. Like this debtor, God gives us complete amnesty. The king does not reason that the man has repeatedly borrowed and wasted his money and so must be punished. Likewise God does not count up all our forgiven sins and reason that we passed the limit a long time ago. Nor does he consider that we’re not sincere in our repentance. He does not say, "If you were sincerely sorry for your sins you would not keep on sinning every day. You would not be lazy; you would not be jealous and curse or fight; you would not lust or covet. But you do. So you must not be sincere!"

See what would become of us if God used our reasons for not forgiving others? If he applied the standard of sincerity to us that we want to apply to others, we’d be through. If he counted forgiven sins against us like we do against others, even if he were inhumanly patient, we would have long ago reached the limit of his patience.

But God doesn’t do that. He does not shove our lack of sincerity in our face or count the number of times he has already forgiven us. Instead he gave Christ to die for us in our place and pay for our sin. He doesn’t require you to be as sincere as you require others to be. He required that of Jesus. And when he forgives he truly wipes your slate clean because he dumped your slate on Jesus. And if Jesus hadn’t done that for you, you would still have a debt with God that you could never pay.

So shouldn’t that change the way we deal with others? "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. "His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. "Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

Who does not recognize the unmerciful servant as an evil, wicked man? His brother owed him a trifling sum compared to what he had just been forgiven. A denarius was the daily wage of a labourer. So say $75 today. This man owed then perhaps $750. Yet when his brother makes the same plea for patience that he made to the king, this wicked man grabs his brother around the throat like Homer Simpson does to Bart! He just escaped being sold into slavery. He was forgiven a debt about the size of the US deficit, and all he can do is strangle a brother? He can’t forgive a debt that now has no importance?

"Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?" asked the king. Literally, wasn’t it necessary that you have mercy on your fellow servant? We may not be able to give a scientific reason for it, but we all recognize that it was necessary. When you receive some great gift, get some great break in life, it must affect the way you behave toward others. If not, we’ll all say you’re evil.

When God wipes our slate clean, forgives us every sin, past, present and future, and gives us the Holy Spirit because of Christ, it has to change us! If it doesn’t, something is wrong! God has the right to look for the fruit of faith. Finding none, or even the opposite, he can assume that there is no faith and judge accordingly. The king in Jesus’ story calls the servant wicked based on his total lack of mercy. The fact that the man and his family had just escaped doom had no effect. Another’s cry for mercy, like his own, didn’t touch his heart. It’s a monstrosity! The only conclusion is that the mercy shown to him was not received as mercy. He thought he pulled one over on the king! He was too cool! The king had to be angry and punish him.

This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. Jesus wants us to be just as appalled as the other servants. And if we’re not, something is wrong with us. We’re just like the wicked servant!

We must not be stingy with our forgiveness, with our use of the authority to forgive and retain sin. We must do as God does to us. We must forgive and wipe the slate clean! Forgiven sins do not become half strikes that add up slower. Nor must we doubt the sincerity of another’s repentance just because he or she sins again. We too sin daily yet no doubt consider ourselves sincere! We must forgive from the heart as Jesus says. The heart is the seat of feelings, desires, and passions, of thought and understanding and of the will. The heart is that place where God dwells and directs our behaviour. So in truth and sincerity, by an act of will and of gratitude to God, we must forgive others when they repent; every time they repent! That’s what God does for us on an infinitely greater scale. We can do no less for each other.

This is no minor matter. Jesus said the same thing when he taught us to pray the Lord’s Prayer. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Does this mean that forgiveness is not free after all? No, it just means that forgiveness is real and effects real change in us. If God sees that you or I have no mercy, no forgiveness, no reconciliation, it can only mean one thing, that we have known neither our own debt of sin nor God’s mercy. We must be condemned and excluded from the kingdom.

Does Jesus mean to scare us when he says, This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart? Yes he does! He wants to scare us right out of hell. He wants to destroy our selfish, unforgiving nature and focus us firmly on his great mercy so that we will forget about the trifling debts others owe us. He wants us not to be sin-counters, always counting the sins of others, but grace-givers, always forgiving as we are forgiven.

"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. God never stops forgiving you when you repent. So always forgive the one who sins against you and repents.