Paying Forward Forgiveness

Last Sunday, this Sunday, next Sunday. Jesus gives us three different lessons in forgiveness and they all followed on the heels of his first prediction of his passion for recall a month ago in the Sunday mass. Jesus finally informed the Apostles who left everything to follow Him, where he was leading them, and it was to the cross at Calvary, where he would give his life for us, for our sins, that we might be forgiven for.

He might have the chance to live again and forever in a world that far surpasses this one. But as far as Jesus was concerned, his cross was the means by which we could be forgiven. But that was only half of his message. The other half was that we who have been forgiven should become forgiving that what we receive as a gift we should give as a gift.

It's in that context, then, these ongoing lessons about the need to be reconciled not only with God, but also with our fellow man that Peter comes and asks Jesus the question that commences our gospel today in the eighth chapter of Matthew, when he said Jesus, how often must I forgive my brother when he wrongs me? Peter offers to guess an answer to his own question.

He said, How about seven times? And as far as Peter is concerned, it's pretty generous and he feels pretty confident in his answer. Jewish life before, during and after Jesus life commanded that if you and another have a grievance, you are obliged to make three attempts to reconcile that grievance. Jesus himself referred to that same thing at the beginning of this chapter.

We heard it last Sunday when he said, If you and your brother have a problem, go to him privately before you tell everyone else. If that fails, bring two witnesses to referee your compromise. If even that fails, take it to the whole community. But even then, if they refuse, you treat them as you were the Gentile, the tax collector, which means love them anyway.

Don't hate just because someone is hating you. We have to love because we have been loved. We have to forgive because we have been forgiven. With that in mind, then these three attempts bound by the law to reconcile with one's brother. Peter has suggested in his mind something far more generous. He's taken the three times he's obliged to try to reconcile.

Multiply two by two, added one. That's his gas of seven. He feels it's more than generous. But as is often the case, Jesus treats the rock like a pebble. And he said, Peter, not 70 times, but 70 times, seven times. Now, in math, that's 490. Jesus is not saying, keep a ledger and keep clicking off all of their offenses.

Hoping and hoping and hoping that we get to 490. Once you compress the eject button and blast them out of your life. It was a play on words. Peter said seven. Jesus said seven times seven. It means without limit. God has a limit. This love and forgiveness for us because He loves us with reckless abandon. Reckless abandon. He always will.

 

With that in mind, we turn our attention to the parable of the King, who is settling his accounts. And this only says the debtor owes the King a quote unquote, huge amount. Other translations said it was 10,000 talents. That was a weight measure in Jesus time, but also a currency. Let's say for the sake of argument, it's $10 million.

He's penniless. He goes $10 million. He cannot afford to pay that debt, not even a fraction of it. So he begs the king's forgiveness and the king gives up freely because he knows he'll never see that money anyway. He just says it's a bad debt. Let's write it off. That man who just had this huge amounts, an intense sum of money forgiven, who is no longer going to prison, his wife is no longer going to be sold.

He should be grateful and he should pay forward what he cannot repay. And instead he who owed 10 million and then has it all written off, finds somebody who owes him 20 bucks and then he wants to strangle him and have him thrown into the prison. The king has no use for that, nor does Jesus. And that is why the man whose debt was just forgiven, who refused to forgive someone else a much smaller sum, finds himself tortured, not just thrown in the prison, but given to the torturers.

He's going to be beaten within inches of his life to teach him a lesson he should give to others what was so freely given to him. And therein lies the lesson for all of us. We do not earn God's forgiveness. We do not deserve God's forgiveness. We cannot repay God's forgiveness. We can pay it forward. Following the example of He who owes us nothing but has given us everything, we can pay forward the mercy that has been shown to us for forgiving other people, even if they continue to wrong us for giving them seven times, seven times, and then some, because that's how much God is willing to love and forgive us.