In Matthew 18:21 we read, “Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” It is an excellent question, one that I have been asked, and one that I have asked myself. “How many times do I have to forgive them?” Notice the slight twist of the tone. Peter’s how many times “shall I forgive” quickly turns into how many times do I “have to forgive”. You see, forgiveness for us is a chore and a burden; It’s a thing we are reluctant to do and it’s not a secret why. People are horrible. They really are. They lie, cheat, and manipulate. They mock, ridicule, and insult. They disappoint, betray, and abandon. And that’s a rather sanitized list of the things people do to each other. People are the worst. They do horrible horrible things. Sometimes they do those horrible horrible things to you. Sometimes they do those horrible horrible things to you again and again and again. Sometimes they do those horrible horrible things to you so often that you can’t help but wonder, “How many times do I have to forgive them?” I have asked myself the same question on more than one occasion.
How many times do I have to forgive someone when they sin against me? There has to be a limit, right? I mean you can’t just keep on forgiving someone over and over and over again. You will start to look like a fool. People will talk about how gullible you are, and you will start to get a reputation as someone who can be walked all over. Plus, it can’t be good for the person who is doing all the sinning. If we keep on forgiving them when they sin against us, aren’t we just enabling them; aren’t we teaching them that they can get away with it? There has to be a point when we say enough is enough, right! There has to be a limit. There has to be a point when we say, “I can forgive you no more.”
Peter had a suggestion for what that limit could be. Peter suggested that we could forgive people “up to seven times”. Seven times seemed like an incredibly generous amount to Peter, after all the Rabbis taught that you only had to forgive a person three times. Seven times seems incredibly generous amount to us as well. When it comes to forgiveness, we tend to follow the rules of major league baseball, three strikes and you are out.
Offering to forgive a person seven times seemed like an incredibly generous amount to Peter, but in our gospel lesson for today Jesus tells us to be even more generous. Jesus tells us we are to forgive a person who sins against us 22…not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Jesus tells Peter, ‘whatever limit for forgiveness you can conceive of multiply that number by 10, no multiply it by 11’. Jesus turns Peter’s incredibly generous amount into a ridiculously generous amount.
Sensing the disciples’ resistance to ridiculous generosity when it comes to forgiveness, and anticipating our resistance to the same, Jesus illustrates His lesson with a story. Jesus says, “23 the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.” Of course, Jesus is telling this story to illustrate a lesson and we shouldn’t take the details literally, but to understand the illustration better I did a little math to figure out what the servant owed the king. The value of a talent is vague, but typically determined as the equivalent to 6,000 day’s wage. In Johns Creek the average person makes about $178 a day. That means if the servant lived in Johns Creek, he would owe the king about 10 billion dollars.
The servant’s debt is what we might call an astronomical amount. But his is not the only astronomical debt that is owed. Have you ever tried to calculate the amount of debt you owe your King? How many sins do you imagine that you have committed in your lifetime? I mean all the sins, not just the really obvious ones, but also the secret sins you keep hidden away in your heart. How big do you imagine your debt to be? Let's go ahead and be very generous with ourselves. Since I am speaking with such fine Christian people let's just pick a conservative number. How about 5? What do you think, is 5 sins a day a safe estimate? That should cover sinful thoughts, sinful words, and sinful actions, plus allow us one bonus sin and account for one sin of pride for being so arrogant as to think we only sin 5 times a day. 5 sins a day means 35 sins per week, 140 sin a month, and 1,820 sins a year. Now here is where our calculations get astronomical. Scripture tells us the value of one sin is equivalent to an eternity in hell. So, according to our arrogantly conservative estimate, each year we accumulate 1,820 eternities in hell. I think it is safe to say that our debt is as astronomical as the servant in Jesus’ story.
Despite his astronomical debt, the servant in the story pleads with the king, 26… ‘Be patient with me,’ …‘and I will pay back everything.’ Yeah right! There is no way the servant was going to pay off his 10-billion-dollar debt. However, despite the absurdity of the statement, Jesus tells us “27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.” Notice the king did not reduce the debt to a more manageable number, the king did not agree to a settlement or payment plan, the king canceled the debt; he tore it up and threw it away.
Your King has done the same for you. Though we have accumulated an astronomical debt that we could never pay, in Micah 7:19 we are told that our King has tread our sins underfoot and “hurled our iniquities into the depths of the sea”. In Psalm 103:12 we are told, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has our King removed our transgressions from us.” In John 19:30 we are told our King paid our debt of sin in full and then “bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” Your King has not reduced your debt. Your King has not set up a payment plan for you. Like the king in the story, your king has canceled your debt.
So far, we like Jesus’ story. We like hearing about how ridiculously generous the king was with the servant and, by application, how ridiculously generous our God is with us. We would now like to hear how the servant in Jesus’ story lived happily ever after, but sadly that is not the case. Jesus tells us after the servant had been forgiven his ten-billion-dollar debt he happened upon a fellow servant who owed him “a hundred denarii”. A denarius is equivalent to a day’s wage. So again, if this servant were living in Johns Creek, he would owe his fellow servant about $18,000. It’s not chump change but it is a fraction of a fraction what the first servant owed the king. You would think, after having been forgiven ten billion dollars the servant would be eager to forgive $18,000, but you would be wrong. Jesus tells us the servant grabbed his fellow servant by the throat and demanded him to, “‘Pay back what you owe me!’… 29 With nearly identical words that the first servant used the fellow servant begged, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ but the words had a drastically different effect. Instead of forgiving the debt owed him the first servant threw his fellow servant “into prison until he could pay the debt.” The servant determined there was a limit; he determined there was a point when he had to say enough is enough; he determined there was a point when he could forgive no more.
Maybe you are just about at that point yourself. Maybe you are ready to cry out, “Jesus, you don’t understand how often I have been insulted!” “Is it as often as you use my name as a four-letter filth word?”, Jesus asks. “But Jesus, you don’t understand how often I have been offended!” “Is it as often as you make excuses why you can’t spend time with me in worship?”, Jesus asks. “But Jesus, you don’t know how often I have been mistreated.” “Is it as often as you treat the things of this world like a mistress?”, Jesus asks. “Jesus you don’t understand! I’m just about at my limit. I am not sure how much more I can forgive!”
The servant in the story determined that he had reached the limit of his forgiveness. In reply the king “called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”
Jesus tells us the king in the story judges the first servant as “wicked” and turns “him over to the jailers to be tortured.” But it is what Jesus says next that ought to scare the hell out of us. Jesus spells out the application of His story when He says to Peter, to His disciples, to you, and to me, “35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Jesus tells us, the moment we put limitations on forgiveness and refuse to forgive someone when they sin against us, is the moment we reject the forgiveness that God offers to us; it is the moment we identify ourselves as wicked servants who deserves to be handed over to the jailers to be tortured. Let me be painfully clear, through this story Jesus is telling us, if we don’t forgive, we will not be forgiven; Jesus is telling us, if we don’t forgive, we will go to hell.
As I said, the application of Jesus’ story is enough to scare the hell out of us which is exactly why Jesus tells it to us. Jesus wants hell to be scared out of us; He wants us to hear this story of the unmerciful servant and repent for all the times we have refused to forgive someone who has sinned against us. Jesus wants us to hear this story and gain a greater appreciation for the astronomical debt of sin we have been forgiven. Jesus wants us to hear this story and go show our appreciation for our forgiveness by forgiving others when they sin against us again and again and again, not 3 times or 7 or 77 times but by forgiving others as often as we have been forgiven. Jesus tells us this story to answer Peter’s question, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” “Every time.”, Jesus says, every time. Amen