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. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
(Matthew 18:21-35)
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A couple of weeks ago on Labour Day weekend, Lynn and Hannah and I worshipped at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Oshawa. Hannah had been asked to be the guest musician for them that Sunday and it was a chance to check out a different church. It was a Presbyterian Church, of course, so the service wasn't a great deal different from a typical United Church service - but there was one moment that threw me off ever so slightly. It was when we were reciting the Lord's Prayer, and I started to say the words "and forgive us our trespasses ..." and at that moment I realized that something was wrong. I wasn't in sync with the rest of the congregation anymore. I had to stop and listen for a moment, and then I realized what was wrong. I was saying "trespasses" and the rest of the congregation were saying "debts." "Forgive us our trespasses" as opposed to "forgive us our debts." As I thought about it later, it seemed to me that the difference had something to do with how we understand forgiveness. What are we forgiving? Perhaps even how are we supposed to forgive. It also struck me as important that this came into my mind as I was reflecting on The Lord's Prayer. Aside from our sacraments (Baptism and Holy Communion) if there's anything that's a "ritual" in the universal Christian church, it's probably reciting the Lord's Prayer. Its just a part of our lives of faith. If you look at the structure of the Lord's Prayer, you find that it begins with an acknowledgement of the qualities of God, and it ends with an acknowledgement of our own need, but pretty much right in the middle, there's what you might call a "bridge" about forgiveness that helps us transition from one to the other. "Forgive us ... as we forgive" are the central words of this universal prayer that's known even to people who've never set foot in a church in their lives. In just a few words, the most familiar prayer of Christian faith reminds us that (1) God is forgiving, (2) we are in need of God's forgiveness, and (3) we need to be forgiving of others. So, forgiveness is central to our faith as Christians. But is it "trespasses" or "debts" that are being forgiven. I think it's important to reflect on this, because if forgiveness is central to our faith, then it's important for us to really understand the concept.
"Trespasses" suggests that we need to be forgiven for going places that we shouldn't be going - and that we need to offer forgiveness for the same thing; "debts" on the other hand, suggests that we've been let off the hook for something that we owe, and that we need to let others off the hook for what they owe to us as well. In most United Churches I've been familiar with over the years, "trespasses" is the word used, and while I challenge church traditions very cautiously, of course, I have to say that this traditional version of the Lord's Prayer that we use week after week (and some of us perhaps on a daily basis) is wrong. The word in the New Testament literally means "something that's owed." It means a debt, in other words, and not really a trespass. That puts the whole idea of "forgiveness" into what you might call economic terms rather than strictly moral terms. Jesus seems to be saying that real forgiveness is about not holding someone in debt to you. And that seems to be the emphasis of the parable we read today.
In this parable, Jesus is speaking in terms of forgiveness, and for lack of a better way of putting it he uses a couple of business exchanges as illustrations that he hopes will help his disciples (including us) to understand what this Christian "business" of forgiveness is all about. As I said, "debt" is really the proper word for "forgiveness" that's used in The Lord's Prayer, so it's not a surprise that Jesus uses debt as an analogy in this parable. Debt is something that almost everyone of every era can relate to. One of the best examples we have today is pay day loan companies. You suddenly need $500 that you don't have, so you go to a payday loan company and borrow $500. The company charges you interest, meaning that you have to pay back more than what you got out of your next paycheque, meaning that you're in debt and you need another payday loan, which results in more interest and more debt. And on and on it goes! Did you know that the Criminal Code of Canada allows interest rates of up to 60%! So you end up working not to put anything aside or even to pay your day to day expenses - you work to pay back the payday loan company. Debt is a burdensome thing, and so many people who are in debt can never get out of debt. They just constantly owe their creditor. They can't live their life in freedom, or even with any hope for freedom. This parable uses a 1st century version of what's still an every day problem to make a spiritual point.
In the parable, the debt is huge: "ten thousand talents." If you think that at least "ten thousand" puts a limit on the amount owed, think again. In the ancient Greek culture to which the Gospels were written, the highest possible number was 10,000. There was no higher number than 10,000. In the modern world, it's like a child trying to imagine the biggest possible number and you hear something like "a million, billion, trillion, jillion, kazillion times." So the point of the parable is that "the sky's the limit" with this debt. The man in the parable cannot pay it off; he has no hope of paying it off. He's constantly in bondage to the king, and in this part of the parable the response to the unpayable debt is an unimaginable forgiveness. The traditional rule of the rabbis was to forgive someone three times, so when Peter asks about offering forgiveness seven times, he's being surprisingly generous - going above and beyond the call of duty. What more could be expected? But Jesus expected more! Jesus makes the amount of forgiveness to be offered essentially the same as the amount of the unimaginable debt. "Seventy seven times," he says. The number isn't all that important. What matters is the point Jesus is making. "Seventy seven" is as symbolic as "ten thousand talents" or "a million, billion, trillion, jillion, kazillion times." So much traditional Christian language and so many of our hymns speak of the huge debt we owe God - and that all totally misses the point. The debt we owed God was so huge that it was unimaginable - and equally unimaginable is that we don't owe it a anymore. We simply can't comprehend the amount of forgiveness God has given us. Nelson Mandela (in my opinion perhaps the greatest man of our times) once said that "... forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon." It's a powerful weapon not because it does harm to others, but because it sets us free no matter what others may do or demand.
In the parable, the debt is huge. The forgiveness granted is huge. And - maybe most important - the forgiveness demanded from us in the light of the parable is huge. And that's the point of the second part of the parable - how do those who are forgiven respond to their forgiveness? The first man owed the king an unimaginable debt, but the second man owed the first man "a hundred denarii." From what I've read that would be the equivalent today of about 16 cents. The point of the parable is that real forgiveness is about not holding people in your debt. You'd think that the man who had just been forgiven an unimaginable debt could overlook 16 cents. But no. He demanded the 16 cents. He threw the second man in jail for refusing to pay the debt. But who, in the end, paid the biggest price? It was the man who wouldn't forgive - he ended up being handed over to jailers by the king to be tortured. Understand the parable - God is not the jailer. God isn't torturing anyone. I think that the unforgiving man is being tortured by unforgiveness itself. Unforgiveness places a burden on us - it eats away at our soul and it saps our life of joy. It makes us bitter and angry. It isolates us. God won't prevent that from happening. It's our choice if we refuse to forgive and God will turn us over to our unforgiving attitudes. But God wants us to live in freedom, and so God solves the problem of unpaid debt by simply cancelling the debt and choosing not to hold us in bondage. God sets the example for us in other words and asks us to live in the same way. Think about what that would mean to you in everyday terms: consider the mortgage covered; consider the car paid off; consider the credit cards wiped clean; consider the line of credit balance suddenly at zero. Consider the freedom you would have if you literally had no debts to anyone. None. Zero. Nada. That's what God does for us. We owe God everything, and yet we owe God nothing - because God has forgiven the debt. God doesn't hold us in debt because being indebted to God would take away our freedom as children of God. We offer forgiveness for the same reason - so that people are free from their burdens to us and able to live full lives as children of God. Forgiveness takes away indebtedness, and taking away indebtedness gives freedom. That's what God does for us. That's what forgiveness is all about. Forgiveness is freedom that we receive from God and freedom that we offer to others.
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