Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
Listen to audio version:
Readings: Genesis 50: 15-21 and Matthew 18: 21-35
“How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” “Not seven times, but seventy times seven”
From St. Matthew’s gospel, following on from last week’s passage about correcting disputes and sins within the church community. We said how odd it was that the word ‘church’ appears here, well before the Church as we know it had been established. Scholars believe that these references to ‘church’ may have been added later, as new congregations found it hard to live up to the exemplary standards Jesus set, and they needed some guidance. So maybe these words here are put into the mouth of Jesus, to give extra authority to the text.
All that aside, the message from Jesus is clear: go on forgiving. As ever, the grace and depth of Jesus’ teaching takes the Jewish law to a different level. The Jewish teaching was quite simple; if someone sins, forgive them, once, twice, three times, but after that enough is enough; a sinner must be made to face the consequences. But Jesus says – forgive seventy times seven. In commenting on today’s passage, Jane Williams says, “It is very annoying to think that God may have different standards of judgment from ours.” As we live through the 25th-anniversary of 9/11, how could one forgive those responsible for the enormity of that atrocity?
We have two examples of forgiveness – and non-forgiveness – in today’s readings. From the Old Testament we read the closure of the story of Joseph and his brothers. You’ll remember, probably from your childhood, the account of Joseph’s brothers betraying him and selling him to the Egyptians. In fact, they only just stopped short of killing him. And why? It seems they were jealous that their father Jacob favoured Joseph above them – giving him the coat of many colours, and all that. The hate they displayed towards their brother was out of all proportion, and, years later, they realise that and regret it. By the time we reach chapter 50 of Genesis, all that is long past. Joseph and his brothers are reconciled, but they cannot quite believe in his forgiveness. Maybe – they thought – he is feigning this goodwill as long as their father Jacob is alive; but when he dies, will Joseph then turn against them?
But, in fact, they had no need to fear. Joseph saw that in God’s providence his captivity by the Egyptians turned out to be a good thing, as he became influential and rescued the people from famine through his astute management. Joseph was able to see the bigger picture, and the outpouring of God’s goodwill despite a bad set of circumstances. When we are tempted to cling onto bitterness or despair after adversity or failure, may we be able to look for good things that have come about, and to ask whether there was any fault on your part, my part. Church ministers know only too well how often they go to meet a family in advance of a funeral, and discover a rift where a brother or sister hasn’t been spoken to for years because of some falling-out.
Christians should be able to do better. That’s not to say that we won’t have family differences or arguments within the church or home, but we should have the grace to behave responsibly with charity. And, as the expression goes, “Life’s too short for that.”
Let’s look at the gospel story. The king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves had one who owed him 10,000 talents. By any standards, this was a huge amount. We know that at the time King Herod only had an annual income of 900 talents, so 10,000 was an enormous debt.
The parable is told is such a way that, of course, we feel aggrieved at the slave for insisting that his fellow-slaves paid back all that they owed, while he got off scot-free. But maybe that slave, being forgiven, thought that he would get all his business sorted out, and thus prevent himself from getting into debt again. Surely his master would approve of that? But the king’s context was a bigger one. He was not just thinking about one slave and his money worries, but about the whole society of people he ruled, whom he wished to govern by example. He wanted the slave to see forgiveness in action and to learn how to do it, so that more than one life could be put straight.
But Joseph, in the Old Testament, and this slave in the New, find out that what they initially thought was just about God and themselves, turns out to have a knock-on effect for many others. So whilst there is an individual element to Christian obedience, the point is not just to get our own life straight, but to enable God’s mercy and power to be shown through our interaction with others.
The slave who didn’t forgive his fellow-slave missed the point here, and in the story Jesus had the king call the slave back and revoke the pardon he had given, and treated him as the slave had treated the fellow-slave. It rather goes against the teaching Jesus has just given about forgiving seventy times seven. But, as with many of Jesus’ parables, we must resist the urge to squeeze meanings out of every detail of the story. The parable exaggerates, as many a good tale does.
In the Lord’s Prayer, day by day, we say ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The first clause goes hand-in-hand with the second. It would surely be impossible to ask for God’s forgiveness while still harbouring hurt through what somebody has done to us. People often say “I can forgive but I can’t forget.” I wonder what that actually means. The gospel teaches us, first, that forgiveness is possible; and then that a forgiving nature begins with a forgiving behaviour.
So often we feel that people owe us an apology – some compensation for hurt or harm done. This is what we are called to let go of. We live in an age of litigation and blame, where people are afraid to do anything for fear of prosecution. And when anything happens these days, it seems, from crumbling school buildings, water shortages, collapsed air-traffic control systems to dirty beaches, the cry goes up ‘Who is to blame?’ Contemplate a world where the demand for justice is secondary to forgiveness. That would be a world where righteousness prevails, a world we are all called on to pursue and establish.
Today’s readings also have something to say about forgiving oneself. Peter asked the question ‘How many times should I forgive?’. Perhaps behind that question was his refusal to believe that he himself could be repeatedly forgiven. He once cried out ‘Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ It is one of the wonderful ironies of scripture that the keys of the Kingdom should be given to someone as unsure as Peter is about whether he himself deserves to be let in. We said earlier that a forgiving nature begins with forgiving behaviour, but it is also true in the kindly dispensation of God that as I forgive, I find that I am forgiven.
John Pridmore writes that the circle of forgiving and being forgiven is generated by love. Neither the love nor the forgiveness is a soft option or an expression of weakness.
I was touched by a radio programme I heard some months ago about the process of ‘restorative justice.’ In 2011 Jacob Dunne killed 28-year old James Hodgkinson with a single punch outside a bar in Nottingham. Jacob pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 30 months in a young offender’s institution. James’ mother, Joan, was outraged that the term was so short. “People were getting more for stealing a television.” But the restorative justice programme gave her and ex-husband David the opportunity to write to Jacob while he was still serving his sentence. They wanted him to explain why he threw the fatal punch that took their son’s life. Those letters led to a nervous face-to-face meeting after Jacob was released. “I was expecting an evil-looking person to appear,” she recalled, “but a vulnerable young man walked into the room.” Jacob was shocked that Joan cared enough to ask him what he was going to do with the rest of his life. “I didn’t want this revolving door of him going in and out of prison, getting worse and worse, and maybe other families going through what we’re going through.” Joan told Jacob she forgave him, and offered to give him a reference. Eventually Jacob went to University, got a First in Criminology, and published a book called ‘Right from Wrong: My story of Guilt and Redemption.’ And James’ father David found that taking an interest in Jacob and helping him to rebuild his life has enabled him to lose his anger and bitterness.
So forgiveness is beneficial for everyone, and even in the most adverse circumstances.