Sermon text: Matthew 18:21–35
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. Amen.
Forgiveness doesn’t count. Now, don’t get me wrong — I don’t mean that it doesn’t matter, or that it’s not important. Forgiveness counts for a lot in that respect. In fact, it accounts for virtually everything. We would be lost eternally without forgiveness. But when I say forgiveness doesn’t count, I mean it the way Jesus teaches it, which is to say: forgiveness doesn’t keep score. Forgiveness doesn’t count. It doesn’t keep score. It doesn’t keep track of how many times it has to forgive, or how much sin it has to cover with mercy. That’s the way it is with God toward us, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be with each other. God forgives — He forgives freely, fully, completely. Therefore we are to forgive one another in the very same way: freely, fully, and completely, not counting or keeping track of score.
That’s the connection Jesus draws for us in today’s parable, the parable of the unforgiving servant. Our text is the Gospel of Matthew, the 18th chapter. What sets up the parable is that Peter comes to Jesus with a question. As we heard last week in the first part of Matthew 18, Jesus has been teaching His disciples about life in the church — the church He was going to establish at Pentecost. Jesus has been teaching about the life of the church for some time now: how one brother should deal with another brother who sins against him, and how we are to gain that brother back. So that prompts a question from Peter. “Lord,” he says, “how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Peter is trying to quantify forgiveness. He wants to keep score, and he thinks he’s sounding generous and magnanimous, suggesting what seems to him to be an awful lot of times to forgive — seven times. “Aren’t I being merciful?” He’s thinking, “I’m willing to go up to seven whole times in forgiving someone who wrongs me.” But Jesus ups the ante. He says back to Peter, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” That makes Peter’s seven times look pretty minuscule. After all, seventy times seven equals 490 times that Peter will have to forgive the same person who keeps wronging him time and time again. He’s going to need a much bigger scorecard than he anticipated.
But if I keep the record carefully, and I keep track of every infraction, then I guess I can bet that on the 491st time that bozo is going to wrong me once again, I don’t have to forgive. Peter thinks it works like this: 488, forgive; 489, forgive; 490, forgive; ah, 491 — I can finally get even. My patience has paid off. That’s how he’s thinking. That’s how an awful lot of people think. It’s wrong. Of course, we understand what Jesus is saying with such a ridiculously high number. Jesus is saying, in fact: don’t keep score at all. Not seventy times seven, not seventy times, not seven times. Don’t keep track of how often you forgive — just forgive. Whether it’s the first time or the 491st time, forgiveness doesn’t count.
To drive home the point, Jesus goes on to tell the story of what we commonly call the parable of the unforgiving servant. You know the story — I’ll paraphrase it a bit. There’s a servant who owes the king a whole bunch of money. Bazillions and bazillions of dollars. By the way — and this is a real piece of trivia — a “bazillion” was a real measurement in the ancient world. A bazillion is the size of a grain of seed. Did I say that right, Randy? Yeah — I can’t say it wrong.
There’s a servant who owes his king a whole bunch of money — bazillions and bazillions. This guy had a debt so big neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to bail it out. But Jesus ups the ante. He says back to Peter, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Seventy times seven — that’s 490 times that Peter will have to forgive the same guy for doing wrong against him. That’s a lot. He’s going to need, as I said, a bigger scorecard. But if he keeps the record carefully enough, and he can keep track of every infraction, then I guess that on the 491st time the bozo does him wrong, he won’t have to forgive him. But that’s not how it works.
To drive the point home, Jesus tells the parable, and you know the story. The king is going to foreclose on the guy — the servant, the first servant — and call his debt due. The servant is hauled in, called on the carpet before the king, and he’s told, “Pay up.” But the guy is shaking in his boots, because he has no way to pay such an enormous debt. He knows what the king could do to him if he forecloses — throw him into debtors’ prison. But the king doesn’t do that. He doesn’t toss the guy into debtors’ prison and throw away the key, leaving him there to rot. He could have done that, by rights — he’s the king, after all. But he chose not to. Instead, he has pity on the first servant. The master has mercy on his servant, forgives him his huge debt, and releases him free and clear, completely.
So now the servant is free to do whatever he wants to do. One would think he’s learned his lesson about mercy and forgiveness — but apparently not, because the first thing he wants to do is go out, find a fellow servant who owes him a few bucks, and have him thrown into debtors’ prison, demanding payment from him for the small amount he is owed compared to what the first servant owed the king. We’re talking chump change here. But this servant, who had been forgiven such a huge amount by his master, will not show even a small fraction of the mercy he received to his fellow servant. He grabs him and starts to choke the poor fellow and says, “Pay me what you owe me.” He issues the demand. He shows no pity toward the man who owes him a few bucks, and that guy is thrown into prison. The unmerciful servant has obviously not learned how forgiveness works in this new kingdom. He shows that he really does not want to operate on the basis of mercy, but on the old accounting system — the scorekeeping system, the payback system, the system of revenge. Sadly, he has rejected the laws and the ways of his own king.
The king finds out, and says to the man, “If that’s how it’s going to be with you, then so be it with you. Go to jail. Don’t pass go. Don’t collect $200.” And then Jesus puts the punchline — the warning — into the parable. He tells us, “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” The meaning is plain and clear. Forgiveness is the way it works in the kingdom of heaven. If you want to operate on some other basis — if you’re intent on keeping score and paying back, after the way your heavenly Father has dealt with you — you yourself would be in a heap of trouble. That’s not how your heavenly Father has dealt with you, so why do you act that way toward your fellow forgiven sinner? God has forgiven that other person just as He has forgiven you, so why do you act as if you are greater than God?
Listen carefully to this sentence: to not forgive is really to set yourself up as an idol. To not forgive means you think that you’re greater than God Himself, who forgave that person — but you think you ought not to have to forgive. But who are you, O son of man, not to forgive someone that God has already forgiven?
I’m reminded of a college friend of mine who was engaged to a young lady on campus. She came to him one night and confessed a sin. She thought it would destroy the relationship. He showed up at my dorm later that night, weeping, and told me what had happened. And I said, “So what did you do?” And he said, “God forgave her. I can do no less.” And they got married — happily married, still married to this day. He understood the principle. Who are you, O sinner, not to forgive someone whom God has already forgiven?
You see, unforgiveness is a matter of idolatry and ingratitude. It is to reject the ways of the kingdom of heaven. So we all ought to pray from time to time for all our unforgiveness: “Forgive us, O Lord. Give us a new and merciful heart, reflecting the mercy You have shown toward us. Help us to realize that You have forgiven that other person who may very well have wronged us. But scorekeeping is not the way it is with You, O Lord. Help us to forgive even as we have been forgiven.”
Jesus teaches the importance of forgiveness over and over again in the Gospels. It obviously is an important matter in His sight, because He teaches it so often in the Gospel lessons. Mercy toward sinners, love toward one another — these are the major themes in Jesus’s teaching about His church and its work in the world. The matter is so important that Jesus even puts it into the prayer He has given us to pray daily: “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” You see, every time we ask God’s forgiveness — and we sin much and daily — we’re reminded to extend that same forgiveness toward those who have also done wrong against us. I’m not the only person God has forgiven. Christ died for that other person, too.
Now we’re getting someplace. Forgiveness has to do with everything, and it has everything to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who died for sinners. He not only died for me and for you — He also died for that brother who sinned against you, that person you don’t like because he did you wrong and you’re still harboring feelings. But then sometimes it turns out I’m the jerk — or you’re the jerk — who’s done something wrong to somebody. Now magnify that offense by bazillions and bazillions, and you might come closer to the measure of the offense you and I have committed toward God, thumbing our nose at God, who created us and who loves us. So we’re all in the same boat. We all would be up a creek without a paddle if not for the unfathomable mercy of our King and Master, who has shown grace toward every one of us.
Forgiveness is the way of the kingdom of heaven. There is no other way. Whether in a congregation or in a household, we need forgiveness in order to live together as a family. The more time you spend together, the closer you are, the more opportunities we have to hurt one another. So we need to be able to forgive one another in order to live in harmony. Lord, help us to forgive as You forgive us each day, fully and freely, for Christ’s sake alone.
This would be just moral lecturing if it were not for the inexhaustible mercy God has shown us in His Son, Jesus Christ. If I want to forgive you — our brothers and sisters here in the church, or in the family at home — I’m not just going to lecture on the importance of forgiving. Just telling you that you ought to do what you know you should do — “forgive” — is worthless. Note here, I want to point out that all of that forgiveness flows from Christ and the cross. See the great mercy God has shown you in sending His Son to take away all your sins — all of them, the enormous debt, the bazillions and bazillions — and dying for them in your place, paying the unpayable debt you owe. For His holy blood is of infinite value, because He is the eternal Son of God. At the foot of the cross is where we learn where true forgiveness is. In Holy Baptism, God washed away all of your sins and made you His child, to reflect His care. In Holy Absolution, time and time again, God continues to forgive you. In Holy Communion, you receive Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness is where it’s at. It’s the standard operating procedure of the kingdom of God. And with this forgiveness you also receive what it leads to, namely the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. For where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.
In his sermon on the unforgiving servant, Martin Luther sums up the point of the parable like this: “Should we then bite and scratch each other like dogs and cats? No. But we should heartily forgive and ask, ‘Why should I accuse my brother? If God is merciful unto me, and for His sake His Son Jesus Christ forgives me such a great debt, why should I make such a fuss about a penny or two? I will call it square. I will forgive and forget, and thank God that He has forgiven me and made me a partaker of His grace.'”
God does not count your trespasses against you. Forgiveness does not count. It does not count or keep score or keep track. It doesn’t measure how big the debt is that you’re forgiving. Forgiveness just does that — it forgives. It’s its own nature. It’s like that with God toward us. God has forgiven our whole huge mountain of debt — all of it — because of what Christ did for us on the cross. And God keeps on forgiving us, time and time again, way past 490 times when we sin against Him. Forgiveness doesn’t count.
And forgiveness is our way of life — literally. Because of God’s forgiveness toward us, we have life: a new life, eternal life. And in this life we share — we then forgive one another. That’s how the kingdom of God works. Forgiveness never counts. For 1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” And so you have confessed your sins — and so you are forgiven. Never mind the number. You’re simply just forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.