Sometimes the people who need grace the most are the least aware of it. It’s a perspective of what the other guy deserves, and it sits in a place of pride. “I’m not like that,” or “Those people do those kinds of things,” or “ok, I’ll be the bigger person in this and let them get by this time.” All statements veil an internal need that is denied.

When is Enough Enough

Peter: God-fearing, Messiah-follower, the outspoken one with all the answers that found himself in bad places more than once was like that. Maybe it was that lost sheep story that got him thinking. What do you do with those who get lost looking for something better? And what do you do when it happens more than once? The story may have a moral of being loved so much a shepherd will do what it takes not to let even one get away. That’s a nice illustration if you’re the Son of God, but what about the rest of us? How much of this kind of thing can a person take?

So Peter asks, “How often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” Now that’s being generous. Rabbis said forgive three times and after that you can be done with them. Peter doubles it and throws in one for good measure. Seven was known as a complete and whole number, whole if not outright holy. Peter certainly had heard enough of Jesus’ teachings on love, so this sounds as if it might work. Besides, who could blame a person after she or he had been violated in some way seven times? Anyone would say, enough is enough.

Jesus says it’s not. “Seventy times seven.”

Uh, are you kidding me? You’re saying 490? Wait a minute, this is going to take some explaining.

God’s Kind of Enough

Jesus knows it. People can’t fathom the largeness of such things. It means allowing oneself to sink into an unknown, unrecognized, unheard of perception of how to live with others, and in this case, others who hurt you over and over. Yes, it pushes into a place where most of us don’t really want to go, seemingly sacrificing self to be taken for a sucker and abused for doing the right thing.

Dear God, why do you make these things so hard!

So Jesus does what Jesus does. He gives Peter a story, a way to wrap his mind around this thing called forgiveness. But characteristically, it comes from like no other book you’ll ever read.

Find Yourself in the Story

A king decides some accounts need to be brought up to date. Accountants call it reconciling the statements. As it was, there was a man who owed him not just a lot of money, but lots and lots and lots of money. We’re talking like so much, there was no way on earth he could ever pay it back. Stupid money, to be sure.

Ok, let’s take a look at this. Who would ever do this kind of lending without holding at least some kind of collateral? This king must have had some kind of reason. Jesus doesn’t say exactly, but certainly this too generous king must have seen something in the man that said he was worth it. A good marketing plan, high accolades from others in the business, other paths of success? Or maybe he had a smile and personality that just made you see this was a guy who would do well and carefully use these funds gifted to him at the time? No matter, on some level though there must have been an element of trust that the money would be returned having accomplished the purpose for which it was given.

As it was, the guy defaulted on the entire loan. The king was justifiably furious, and not only was he ready to sell whatever assets the guy had, but even the man and his whole family into slavery. If this sickens you, you understand why the man fell at the king’s feet and begged for patience with the promise of repayment. You may not understand why the king pitied him, let him go, and forgave the entire debt. But the king did forgive him, even though there was no way this guy could ever, ever repay the debt.

Well, Jesus, there you go again. You tell your stories with impossible endings, impossible because you have exaggerated the situation so much, no sane person would live there. So this is what you mean when you say forgive 490 times? Just forget what people have done and let them go over a few tears? This is going to take some more explaining.

No Mercy

Jesus obliges and takes the story further. The man leaves the king freed from the most miserable of consequences, freed from any worry that this would come back to haunt him or his family, freed even from losing likely a considerable amount of assets and wealth still available from the generous allowance the king had. Yet, the jerk does something almost as equally incomprehensible as the king had done in letting him go after accumulating such a huge debt.

He finds someone who owed him money, actually around one day’s wage, and has this poor soul jailed until this meager amount was repaid.

Huh? Besides the fact if the little guy was in jail he couldn’t work to get the money to repay it, had the man who had just been forgiven by the king lost his mind? He couldn’t find it in himself to at least work with the guy who owed him such a small amount by comparison to what the king had forgiven him?

That’s right, and when the king hears about it, he is furious again. The guy who had not a smidgen of mercy for another person who had done the same thing for which he’d been forgiven was sent to prison until every penny he owed the king was repaid. (Yep, like never would that ever happen.)

So what gives here? Why couldn’t the man act with the same mercy, forgiveness, and grace with which the king blessed him, especially when this poor soul who owed the guy so little? Where’s the disconnect in all of this?

Dodging the Consequence

Looking back at Jesus’ story, what seems to be absent is what is missing in the forgiven man. Sure, he threw himself at the king’s feet begging that the king’s judgement would not fall on him and his family. We can all relate to that. While we are free to make our choices, once chosen, consequences make choices upon us. The more negative the possible consequence, hopefully the more positive the choice. Yet, there is within humankind a weird kind of desire to make our choice and avoid the consequence. Remorse, regret, sorrow, or repentance for how the choice has impacted others isn’t a factor. Instead, people fear the negative consequence over admitting that harm has been done. Such was the man who begged for mercy from the king and walked away scot-free.

So did forgiving the man help him?

Well, he did get away with it for a short while. But he didn’t change. He inflicted a measure of pain upon another that he deserved first. Is he the one then that will have to be forgiven 490 times?

Not the Cheap Kind

It’s been said that grace and the forgiveness it entails is not cheap. The cheap kind will let someone go without ensuring some kind of change and transformation in the one who is forgiven. Real grace that extends forgiveness sometimes must be as penetrating as nails deep in flesh, as only Jesus would know.

Sometimes that means persons must hear a No, Not ever again, It’s over. A couple in a garden learned this the hard way. Having done the very one thing they were not asked to do, they met their consequence, separation from their Creator in never being as close as they once had been. Forgiveness was extended, and the flimsy way they tried to hide their nakedness was replaced by animal skins, that is, lush fur that covered and protected from the elements. They needed that protection, for they also were banished from the only place they had known. No, they could not go back to the garden.   Not ever again would they walk its path of light and beauty. It’s over, and they must leave it forever. Forgiveness that teaches and heals does not excuse the consequence that accompanies the hurtful action.

Severe Mercy

It’s not an easy lesson for most of us. We want forgiveness to restore us to the way things used to be and not banish us from the gardens we think we deserve instead of sending us to prisons, real or figurative. Yet, that is the severe mercy that Jesus was teaching Peter, hoping and praying that Peter would someday get it right, that his question was not for someone else’s need, but for his own.

Peter would require this lesson. Jesus was telling him he could never get so far gone and down that he would be beyond God’s mercy, forgiveness, grace and love. As many times as it took, Jesus was saying, Peter would be forgiven. When his heart knew the path of repentance, sorrow and grief that changes one from the worst he or she could be, forgiveness would be there for him, and for us, again and again. By this realization, restoration would be complete, not by a denial or avoidance of consequence, but in the giving of this grace to others.

Thus, by learning and living in the ridiculous number of times we need to be forgiven, we learn also to forgive.

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12

Matthew 18:21-35

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