“Forgive Us Our Debts, as We Forgive Our Debtors”

“I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” [Matthew 18:32b-33].

I’d wager that at some point in your schooling, you had a classmate who thought that the best way to demonstrate his or her “smarts” to the teacher was not so much to have an effective answer ready for questions related to the assigned reading, but rather to jump ahead a few chapters before class, then raise his or her hand and, when acknowledged by the teacher, ask an intelligent-sounding question (from the upcoming reading) and then quickly supply the answer. The student thinks to himself, “Oh! Aren’t I smart?”

For many years now, I’ve wondered if our good friend, the apostle Peter, might have been doing that sort of thing in a portion of the text that forms the Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday [Matthew 18:21-35, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A]. Most of us are familiar with that dialogue between Peter and our Lord.

Peter comes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

You see, under the rabbinic rules, one must forgive once, twice, even thrice, but not more. In Roman culture, forgiveness was to be avoided; it showed weakness. So Peter’s question–at least this is my argument–didn’t so much seek out an answer as it sought to show Jesus just how far the learned disciple had come in understanding the kingdom of God. Peter may have been thinking, “I’ll take the high standard of the rabbis, double it, and then add one for good measure. After all, seven is one of those perfect numbers.”

Jesus, of course, has to mess everything up for Peter. For, depending upon which ancient manuscript your translation is based–some use one number and others another–Jesus answers, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” [Matthew 18:22, NIV]. As we discussed today in our Carolina Arbors Bible study “Zoom” session, I think one of the points our Lord is making is that if one knows how many times one has forgiven another, one really hasn’t forgiven. As we discussed last week, just as some Christians want to clearly define who is–and who is not–one’s neighbor, in order that the limits of one’s love can be laid out, so here, Peter is interesting in establishing the limits of forgiveness. One must go so far, but not beyond something that is “reasonable.” After all, we must have standards!

Then, to illustrate His point, our Lord wanders off on one of his parables. The quick version–the version with the math already worked out–goes something like this: A servant owes the king a debt of 10,000 talents. It’s an absurdly large debt, since one talent was equal to 130 pounds of silver. Typically, it took a person 15 years to earn just one talent. So Jesus’ point: It would take the servant some 150,000 years to “work it off.” That is literally impossible.

Because it couldn’t be repaid, the king is about to seize and sell everything the servant has, including the servant’s family, even though to do so will pay but a small portion of the total debt. The servant begged for leniency and the miraculous occurs: The entire debt is forgiven.

Then, of course, the parable continues with the servant whose debt has just been forgiven encountering yet another servant. This second servant, however, owes the first servant 100 denarii. A denarii, of course, represented a day’s wages. So, while the size of the second debt is important–about one-third of a year’s labor–it was nothing when compared to the first debt that had just been forgiven.

The first servant refuses to be lenient with the second servant and even has the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt (how he can pay the debt from prison is a question unanswered in the parable). The parable continues as other servants tell the king what has transpired and the situation makes the king angry, of course.

He goes to the first servant, the one whom he has treated so wondrously, and says, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to [the dangling preposition is the king’s, not mine]. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” [Matthew 18:32b-33].

Quite a few scholars argue that this is where the parable initially ends, that Jesus wants the listener to ponder the open-ended question. In some respects it reminds one of the the Lord’s Prayer, with its emphasis on forgiving debts as one has been forgiven by God. These scholars contend the final verses may have been added to to make a point for the first century church some 40 years after Jesus’ death.

To be sure, the last two verses in the parable don’t sound too much like Jesus; the king withdraws the forgiveness of the large indebtedness owed him by the first servant, and throws the servant into prison where he is to be tortured “until he should pay back all he owed” [Matthew 18:34]–an impossible task, as we’ve already learned. The parable–or is it Matthew’s addition to the parable–ends with the somewhat gratuitous statement, “This is how my Heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from the heart” [18:35].

Does Jesus use a big stick to “make us forgive” from our hearts? I don’t think so. Does Jesus require that we forgive and forgive and forgive, from our hearts? Absolutely! In a sermon years ago, Will Willimon told of a couple interviewed by a news reporter near Ground Zero shortly after the September 11 attack. Their daughter had been killed in one of the World Trade Center towers. As sometimes happens with live news, the reporter tries to end with some special thought. The reporter said to the couple, “Well, I know you’ll be able to go to your place of worship this weekend, and there you might find some comfort.”

As Will tells the story, with tears and honesty, the grieving mother said, “No, we won’t be going to our place of worship this weekend because we’re Christians, and we know what Jesus says about forgiveness, and frankly, we’re just not ready yet for that. It will be some time before we’ll want to be with Jesus.”

My faith teaches that Jesus understood the predicament the couple faced, as they mourned the senseless loss of their child, as they pondered a world in which violence seems all too often to be the first reaction by so many to their own perceived wrongs. I think one reason Jesus requires us to forgive is that He loves us so and wants us to be free from the pain of always looking backward. He knows the freedom that comes when we receive forgiveness and he wants us also to understand that there is tremendous freedom experienced in forgiving others.

I recall a story from World War II about two American airmen who had been held captive in a German POW camp. After their release, one of the prisoners turned to the other and asked, “Have you forgiven your captors yet?”

The other snapped back, “I will never, ever do that.”

The first prisoner then responded, “Then they still have you in prison, don’t they?”