Matthew 18:21-35
As you may know, there are many
different English translations of the Bible.
For instance, there are some that use more modern language to make the
Bible more accessible. The differences
between these different translations can be very subtle. Then there are weird
differences. For instance, in today’s
reading, Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive someone. He suggests seven, which he probably
perceives as a fairly generous allotment.
I certainly would. Jesus’s answer is: “Not 7 times, but, I tell you, 77
times.” However, there are other
translations where Jesus answers, “Not 7 times, but, I tell you, 70 times 7.” That is 490 times for those of you who are
not math people. That is significantly
larger than 77 times. People have gone
back and forth between those two numbers for centuries. Most people don’t worry
too much about the specific number, because whether it is 77 or 490…it’s a big
number. Once you have forgiven someone
77 times, what’s another 413 times?
Yet
I find it interesting that different translations are determined to have the
correct number, whether it be 490 or 77. Some people even feel the need to
argue about it. In our culture, numbers, scores, scales, percentages---all of
those things are important. We put a lot
of value in numbers, whether it is a test score, the Dow Jones, salaries, the
price of gas, the temperature, the number of people who are at church on any
given Sunday, our weight, etc. Joshua
goes to the pediatrician every 3 months.
They weigh him, measure is height and the size of his head. Then they tell us how he stacks up compared
to other children his age. When my
husband takes Joshua and I am not there, he always forgets to write down the
percentages, which makes me crazy. It’s
important that I know how the size of his head compares to other children his
age. Numbers are important—maybe more so
than they should be.
It was no different in Jesus’
time. Numbers mattered to people. That
was why Peter was asking such a ridiculous question… “How many times should I
forgive someone Jesus? How about 7 times?”
Jesus was smart and he knew that Peter was trying to pin him down. He would have none of it, so he decided to
play along. 77, how does that sound
Peter? Or 490? What Jesus knew—and
probably what Peter knew as well-- was that the number doesn’t matter because
asking Jesus to assign a number to forgiveness is crazy. It would be like asking someone to rate how
much they love you on a scale on 1 to 10.
There are some places in our lives where numbers are useless. In some ways, they even get in the way because
they distract us from things that matter.
Forgiveness is hard, even if you are
trying to forgive one person once. It’s
not as clear cut as Peter wanted it to be.
When I read this text, my first thought was, “Not forgiveness again. I’m
sick of talking about forgiveness.” It’s not that I don’t like forgiveness. I
think it’s great. There is only so much
you can say about forgiveness. It seems
like almost every sermon comes down to this: You should forgive. It’s good
for you. It’s good for the person you are forgiving. God forgives you, so you
should forgive others. If that is
true, then why is it so hard?
I
have read stories about people forgiving others for horrible crimes and
atrocities. The people who forgive
typically talk about what it can do for the other person. Being forgiven can break the cycle of
sin. It provides an opportunity to start
again. It also provides a healing salve for the relationship and the people
involved. In these stories, the people
who forgave the sin said it was good for them. It freed them. When I hear these stories, I always envision
a moment when someone just lets go and suddenly feels lighter and freer. I have tried that. I have even written it down. I forgive so and so. I say it out loud. Then nothing happens. I don’t feel a weight lifted off of me. I don’t feel transformed. There are certainly sometimes when it is
easier to forgive someone, especially when they apologize and seem contrite. I find that having a conversation with someone
and understanding what went behind their actions to be helpful. But it’s the
other kind of sins that are harder to forgive, the ones that people won’t even
admit are sins, the ones that keep being committed over and over again.
That’s what I think Jesus was
getting at when he threw that unimaginable number out to Peter. Forgiveness isn’t a one and done thing. We can’t just wipe the slate clean and move
on. Forgiveness (for humans) is a
process that takes time. It’s like a wound
that heals slowly. At first you have the
wound and it looks ugly. It also hurts
constantly. Then the wound turns into a
bright red scar. It looks bad, but not
quite as bad as before. It doesn’t hurt
all the time. The scar gets lighter every day and every year. Sometimes it even disappears. There are also times when the scar remains
because the wound was too deep. It’s
better, but it’s still there. That is the way forgiveness works. It starts the process of healing for you and
hopefully the person you are forgiving.
There
are some sins that are easier to forgive and some that are much harder. We can and should try to forgive and heal…we might
try our whole lives and that scar never quite goes away. We might never get to
the point where we experience that feeling of being lighter and freer. Yet that does not mean that we should not try
to forgive. It might even be a matter of
admitting that we cannot forgive and turning it over to God….saying, “God, I
can’t do this so I am handing it off to you.”
Often times when I preach about
forgiveness, or loving our enemies, someone will say something to the effect
of: “What about the mass murderers…or
the people who participate in human trafficking?” I don’t know the answer to
that. I really don’t. However, I think
that often times, we go to those drastic examples because it’s easier than
thinking about the smaller and more personal sins that are less dramatic, but still
hurtful. For now, let’s not worry about forgiving
the mass murderers, the terrorists or the people selling children into slavery. I am not asking you to forgive them and
frankly I don’t think God is too worried about that either. God will judge
those people. God is more concerned
about those things that keep us awake at night, the things that just get stuck
in our heads as endless loops. Sometimes
those are the things that we need to be forgiven for and occasionally things we
need to forgive. It is those things that
keep us from fully loving others, ourselves and most importantly God.
Sometimes the hardest sins to
forgive are ones that we have committed.
Sure, we have asked forgiveness and we know that God technically
forgives all sins…but do we really believe that? Remember who Jesus was talking
to in this Gospel reading. Jesus was
talking to Peter, the disciple who denied him and abandoned him before his
crucifixion. Jesus forgave him. Whatever sin we have committed, God can
forgive us. What we have to do is
believe that God can and will forgive our sins, even the ones we commit 77
times.
