Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus has a much different way for us today. Our Lord Jesus calls us to trust His forgiveness so that we will also forgive one another.
Just before our Gospel reading, Jesus teaches us to go to our sinning brother, tell him his fault, and seek to gain him back in forgiveness. Peter was listening carefully and catching on. His newfound insight led him to ask a question: “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Now Peter was actually being gracious and generous. Jewish rabbis at the time said the going rate for forgiving someone was three times. After that, a person ought to know better. So Peter was being very gracious. He doubled the going rate and added one more forgiving act for good measure. After all, “seven” is the Biblical number of completeness.
Our sinful flesh always wants to put limits on the forgiveness we dish out. We also ask Peter’s question: “How often shall I forgive?” We might even phrase it this way: “How often do I have to forgive?” Too often there’s no sweeter sound to our sin-clogged ears than, “Don’t get mad; get even.” After all, we don’t want to appear weak or soft on crime, and we certainly don’t want to be “taken advantage of.”
To be sure, forgiveness is very laudable, in the right situation. I still remember when Pope John Paul II forgave the man who tried to assassinate him. He was applauded for his graciousness. But then again, John Paul was considered a “man of God.” He’s supposed to be more forgiving than most. We also hear talk of forgiveness after school shootings. But then again, the evil shooters might take their own lives, and we don’t have to look them in the eye anymore. Still, we, with Peter, like to ask, “Isn’t there a limit to my forgiveness?”
Jesus answered Peter: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” It doesn’t matter how you do the math—is it 77 times, or 490 times?—Jesus is teaching us to live and practice unlimited forgiveness. His parable gives the reason. A certain king forgives a servant, but the servant cannot forgive his fellow servant.
Let’s consider the enormous, infinite debt of your own sins. Augustus Toplady wrote a hymn you know:
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure:
Cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r” (LSB 761:1).
How much guilt and power does your infinite debt of sin hold? Mr. Toplady did some calculating. In 1775 he was “inspired” by the national debt. (Yes, there was one back then too!) Toplady wanted to show how a sinner’s debt can never be repaid. Since we are sinners who sin in all we do, he said, “Let’s say people sin once every second.” Yes, you heard right: one sin per second.
That adds up to 3600 sins per hour and 86,400 sins per day. Each year it adds up to 31,536,000 sins. When you can first drive a car, at age 16, you carry a debt load of 504,576,000 sins. When you’re 30 years old, enjoying family times with your children, you’re lugging around 946,080,000 sins. When you’re 50 years old, the children are grown, the house is empty (hopefully!), and your conscience is overloaded with 1,576,800,000 sins. And when you reach 80, getting ready for life’s end, you’ll have have to wrestle with 2,522,880,000 sins. Wow!
What’s the point? Your debt of sin is infinite. It just keeps piling up. You cannot even begin to pay it back, no matter how many times you promise to do better.
But here’s the good news. There is forgiveness for your infinite debt of sins. As God told His Old Testament people: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her… that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins” (Is. 40:1-2).
Double forgiveness! For all sins! Jesus has more forgiveness than you’ve got sins for. No matter what your sin-debt is, Jesus paid it. Jesus forgives it. Jesus blots it out—“not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death.” The king in Jesus’ parable absorbed the loss of the servant’s “gazillion” dollar debt. In the same way, Jesus, your King and Savior, has absorbed the debt of your sin and that of your neighbor. He did not demand justice. He did not hold a grudge. He simply absorbed it, paid it Himself, and forgives. Unlimited forgiveness.
This is what your Baptism tells you. Your infinite debt is washed away. This same infinite mercy of God drives you to your pastor to confess your particular sins and hear the words of Jesus’ forgiveness. And when you eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood, you receive even more infinite forgiveness from Jesus.
Now we can consider the debt of our neighbor’s sins. In Jesus’ parable this debt does seem large—a paycheck for three month’s work. But compared to a massive debt of billions of dollars, that’s just a drop in the ocean. This is the way to view your neighbor’s sins against you. Yes, your fellow Christians sin against you, disappoint you, anger you, even offend you. But what is that debt compared to how you have sinned against God? No contest. It’s a mere speck in your brother’s eye compared to the 2 x 8 plank sticking out of your own eye.
St. Paul said it well: “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Col. 3:12-14).
It really is a matter of faith toward God as well as love for your neighbor. If you cannot forgive your brother or sister, then you really have not trusted God when He reveals your infinite debt of sin. It also means that you don’t trust God’s forgiveness that comes through His beloved Son. You see, God also gives that same forgiveness to your neighbor. If God forgives him or her, why can’t you?
But God does forgive your neighbor. So the best thing you can do for your neighbor who sins against you—a loved one, a friend, a co-worker, a brother or sister at church—is to give your forgiveness too. That’s how your neighbor can see God’s forgiveness in action.
You see, the Church is the Body of Christ. As Christ forgives each of us, we also get to forgive one other. Jesus doesn’t want His body members to harm each other by not forgiving. No, He wants the same forgiveness that He gives to flow through His whole Body. When you trust and rely on Jesus’ forgiveness for you, you can also freely forgive each other and trust that Jesus has forgiven your neighbor as much as He has forgiven you.
Keep this in your mind and heart as you come to the Lord’s Table. Jesus places His forgiveness into your mouths in the same Body and Blood that carried your infinite debt of sins to the Cross. He unites you to Himself and restores you to His image as one who forgives. Your hands and mouths that receive Christ’s Body and Blood may also speak and show His forgiveness to others. Amen.
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