A Forgiving Heart Does Not Keep Score
In Sunday’s Gospel, Peter asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive a brother who sins against him. Jesus tell him to forget the math. Why?
Gospel (Read Mt 18:21-35)
In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus instructed the apostles on how to handle problems that would arise in His Church when brother sinned against brother. Today, Peter asks the question that cuts to the heart of what makes Jesus’ teaching so difficult: How many times do I have to forgive a brother who keeps sinning against me? What an honest question! Peter wants to put a limit on forgiveness, because as we well know, nothing makes us angrier, more frustrated, or more disgusted than having someone wrong us over and over with the same offense. Whatever we have in the way of patience, compassion, or tolerance gets completely spent on the repeat offenders in our lives. As Peter listens to Jesus describe the long, drawn-out process of correcting a sinner (read Mt 18:15-20), he wants to make sure that the sinner doesn’t get treated too leniently. Seven “second” chances seem like enough, seven being the number that represented fullness to the Jews. Was he prepared for the answer?
“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” Did Peter’s heart sink? “Seventy-seven times” was Jesus’ way of saying, “Don’t bother counting.” What? How contrary to human nature this is! So many objections rise up in us: “Not fair! What am I, a doormat? How can this be good for anyone?” Jesus knows how foreign this kind of forgiveness is to us, so He illustrates why it is necessary in the kingdom of Heaven He is building on earth, His Church, with a parable.
A king was settling debts owed to him by his servants. The first debtor to appear before him was one who owed him “a huge amount.” More accurately, the amount was “ten thousand talents,” representing about 2700 yearsworth of work. It was a debt that could never be repaid in the servant’s whole lifetime, so the king requires his whole life from him: “his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.” The servant’s debt was so large that he would have to forfeit everything, with no hope of ever being free from it.
Realizing his predicament, the servant falls down before the king, paying him respect, and asks for patience (interestingly, not for mercy). He also makes a rash promise: “I will pay you back in full.” This response from the servant, both his seeming humility and desire to set things right, if only the king will be patient, moved the king to compassion. He “let him go” and “forgave him the loan.” It wasn’t reduced to a manageable size, nor was the servant jailed briefly to teach him a lesson. In an amazing act of mercy, not patience, the king wiped everything away. The servant had a fresh start in life, completely free from indebtedness.
As we read on, we can see for ourselves how inappropriately outrageous it was for this servant to attack a fellow servant who owed him much less than the debt he’d been forgiven. The “smaller amount” was about three months wages, easily repaid if the fellow servant got the patience he requested. The forgiven servant refused and put his fellow servant in prison for repayment. News of this got back to the king, and the forgiven servant had to forfeit all he had received through the king’s mercy. Jesus ends this story with a solemn warning: “So will My Heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
