New Math

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times” [Matt. 18:21-22].

As we come to the Gospel reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Matthew 18:21-35 [the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year A], we find that we are in the midst of the fourth of five discourses of Jesus. This week’s reading centers on mercy and forgiveness.

Jesus has been talking about forgiveness. Almost so, almost immediately, Peter—he’s so much like many of us, isn’t he?—wants to know the limits. “Let’s set up the rules. How far must I go?”

Peter’s willing to forgive, but he also wants to know when he can withhold that same forgiveness. Pater knows that in the secular Roman world, forgiveness is a sign of weakness; one should never forgive. He recognizes, however, that at least one interpretation of Jewish law at that time required one Jew to forgive another once, twice, or even thrice — but not four times. Peter, recognizing from earlier discussions with his Lord that the demands of the Kingdom are always greater than what one would expect, suggests to Jesus that forgiveness should be extended seven times. In other words, take the most liberal Jewish standard, double it, and add one for good measure.

I have often wondered if Peter expected to be praised by Jesus for the liberality of his viewpoint. Our reading indicates, of course, that our Lord offered no such praise. Instead, Jesus gives Peter a lesson in “new math.” We are to forgive seventy-seven times, essentially meaning that we are not to keep score at all. We are to forgive and forgive and forgive, and when we have been wronged again by our offender, we are still to forgive, without consideration of how many times we have suffered to forgive.

Parenthetically, some have suggested that Jesus didn’t pull the number seventy-seven from the air. We might recall that after Cain killed Abel, after YHWH banishes Cain to a life of restless wandering “East of Eden” [Genesis 4:14], Cain replies that he will surely be killed. YHWH assures him that such will not be the case, that anyone who kills Cain will “suffer vengeance seven times over” [Genesis 4:15]—a lot of good that would do Cain, of course. Later, Lamech, one of Cain’s descendants, brags to his wife that he has killed a man for injuring him, boasting that “if Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times” [Genesis 4:24]. Some writers have suggested that Jesus is calling upon the New Covenant community to participate in a radical undoing of the curse of Cain and Lamech that has trapped succeeding generations of humanity in endless acts of hatred, violence, and retribution.

There are some who might argue that this sort of “new math” forgiveness makes a mockery of any standards that have been set for behavior. After all, if we are continuously to forgive the offense of another, have we not in fact abrogated the standard we seek to hold up as proper conduct and behavior? Indeed, if we are to continue to forgive, has not the standard been totally lost?

I submit the answer is no. The response of Jesus to Peter is consistent and clear. Jesus’ requirement that we continuously and unceasingly forgive is the only fitting response to the action of God in forgiving us of our sins against God and our fellow men and women. It is the only proper reaction to a brother or sister who has wronged us.

We should not be so surprised by the answer of Jesus to Peter because Jesus has already given an unconventional demand to us when we have been wronged. How many of us, when we have been truly wronged by our neighbor, retreat to our private sanctuary and lick our wounds? And how many of us enjoy donning the cape of the martyr when we have been poorly treated by those around us? Isn’t there something about our nature that delights in the attention we receive when we have been hurt by the actions of another?

We do not have to recall the BactineⓇ commercials from decades ago to realize that as children we enjoyed our mother’s attention to our skinned knee. As we grow older, we do not run to Mother when we have been wronged, but we do often languish in our pain or sorrow nevertheless. Jesus’ first requirement when we have been wronged is a difficult one. We are to cast aside our hurt feelings and approach the person who has wronged us (Matt. 18:15). Jesus places the burden of initiating reconciliation not on the one who has done the wrong, as we might argue and expect it to be, but on the one who has suffered.

To this “burden,” Jesus adds the requirement of privacy. We are not to tell the world how we have been wronged. We are not to spread news of the evil act to those around us, but are instead to seek reconciliation quietly with the person who has done us damage. Even if we are rejected by the wrongdoer, we are not free to gossip about the other’s conduct. We are to take one or two others with us to attempt again to gain a healed and reconciled relationship (See Matt. 18:16). If our brother or sister still does not become reconciled to us we are to bring it before the church (Matt. 18:17). Even here there is an element of privacy, for Jesus does not say that we are to broadcast the situation, but rather we are to hope that the actions of the community of believers may bring about the healing.

At each point in this process the need for healing is central, not our need for sympathy and comfort. When an action causes one of our group harm, it has causes harm to the entire community and the goal of each step in the process detailed by Jesus is the regaining of the equilibrium that existed before the wrong was committed.

Why are we to expend such extraordinary energy to effect reconciliation? Why does Jesus require us to forgive without counting the number of times we have already forgiven? In the face of the action of God in forgiving all our sins, healing our diseases, redeeming our lives from utter despair and from the burdens of our active transgressions against God and our neighbor, how can we respond otherwise? How can we continue to dote on ourselves and refuse to make every effort to communicate forgiveness to those around us when God has already taken our sin and removed it from us as far as East is from West?

The answer to this question is, of course, very simple: we can’t. The answer of Jesus to Peter, therefore, does not make a mockery of “our” standards. To the contrary, this sort of action, on the part of the wounded, takes quite seriously not only the violation, but the violator. It jettisons the old math of carefully counting the cost of forgiveness. In its stead, it places a new mathematical formula, a formula that takes forgiveness out of the “countable” category and places it into the realm of the incalculable. New math has no limits when it comes to mercy and forgiveness. Moreover, Jesus teaches us that it is actually God’s compassion and mercy that makes all other forgiveness possible anyway.