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Forgiveness by the Numbers
a sermon based on Matthew 18:21-35
by Richard Gehring

            Over the past number of years, the prison population in the United States has skyrocketed.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of people being held in prison or local jails increased from just over half a million individuals in 1980 to more than 2.2 million in  2006–more than quadrupling over that 26-year period.  When you add the number who were under parole or probation, the number jumps to more than 7.2 million.  That's one out of every 31 adults in this country that were under some sort of correctional supervision in 2006.  With this burgeoning population, it is little wonder that expenditures on corrections have ballooned from about $10 billion in 1982 to more than $60 billion in 2005.

            Probably the most obvious example of our nation’s desire to get rid of criminals is the growing number of prisoners on death row.  There are now more than 3200 inmates living on death row in this country—and have been at least that many every year since 1996.  And while the number of actual executions has decreased steadily over the past few years, the U.S. in 2007 was still one of the top five nations in the world in carrying out the death sentence—five nations that are responsible for nearly 90 percent of all instances of capital punishment worldwide.

            Now, I don’t expect you to remember all these numbers.  But you clearly get a  picture of a nation that is not in a very forgiving mood.  If someone does something illegal, we expect them to be punished for it.  We want them locked up where they can’t do any harm to the general population; and we want them kept there for a long time.  We want the really serious offenders put to death so they can never repeat their crimes.  And, even though we complain loudly about how high taxes are, we are willing to spend big bucks to make sure that these things happen.

            In our New Testament text for today, however, Jesus has a few other numbers that he throws around in regard to dealing with those who may have done us wrong.  This passage, which follows immediately on the heels of Jesus’ words regarding church discipline and conflict resolution, opens with Peter asking Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 

            Actually,  Peter is being quite generous here.  The rabbis of the time had determined that forgiveness should be extended to a person for three transgressions.  But the fourth time someone committed the same sin against you, you were free to take revenge on them.  Peter is offering to more do than double what the law would require him to do.

            But Jesus still finds Peter's answer very inadequate.  He responds that seven is not nearly a high enough number.  Jesus tells his disciples to forgive not just seven times, but either 77 or 70 times seven times, depending on the translation.  The exact number, of course, is irrelevant.  For Jesus isn't concerned here with establishing a new, rigid standard.  He isn't worried about actually counting the number of times a person sins against him at all.  His whole point is that forgiveness is not about keeping track of somebody's wrongs.  It's about going beyond the law, way beyond the law, and responding in love and mercy rather than according to a set of rules.

            Then, to illustrate his point, Jesus tells the story of the unforgiving servant.  Here, a servant has somehow fallen into a debt of an absolutely unimaginable size:  10,000 talents.  Now, a talent was the largest unit of money in use at the time. The average worker back then would have had to work more than 15 years in order to earn the equivalent of a single talent.  Thus, 10,000 talents in Jesus' time would equate to literally billions of dollars by today's standards. 

            In other words, if that servant had begun working on the day that Jesus told this story and continued to work until today, turning every cent of his wages back over to his employer, he would have been able to pay a little over 130 talents.  That still leaves nearly 9870 talents to pay back–roughly 148,000 years worth of wages.  Clearly, it is impossible for the servant to ever come even close to paying off this enormous debt.  The king who is owed this astronomical sum therefore decides to sell servant and his family into slavery, and to auction off all the servant’s possessions.  He couldn’t begin to recoup his losses in such a sale since even the highest-price slaves only brought one talent, and most cost about one-tenth of that.  But he would make a little money out of the deal and, what’s possibly more important, he would punish this irresponsible servant who had allowed himself to somehow pile up such a humongous debt.

            The servant then goes to his master and begs for patience and mercy.  He promises to pay back the sum he owes, even though he must know that it would be impossible to do so.  Seeing the anguish and sincerity of this servant, the master is moved compassion.  He goes beyond even what the servant requests.  Instead of simply giving the man more time to pay a debt which both of them know he cannot ever repay, the master cancels the entire outstanding debt.  It is a truly remarkable and unprecedented display of generosity and grace.

            Then, as soon as this servant is forgiven the immense debt that he owed, he runs into a second servant that owes him money.  And instead of showing the same mercy and forgiveness that he was shown, the first servant harshly demands re-payment of the debt owed to him.  When the second servant pleads for more time, the first refuses to offer him any compassion and instead has his fellow servant jailed until the debt is paid.

            Now, our reading of the story is often skewed by the fact that we fail to understand just how much money is involved here.  In fact, a footnote to the New International Version indicates that a hundred denarii is equal to "a few dollars."  But a denarius was the typical pay for a day's labor.  So 100 denarii was the equivalent of nearly four months' wages.  In modern terms, that amounts to several thousand dollars.  Now, if someone owed us that much, we certainly would not consider it an insignificant amount.

            Still, a few thousand is a very small sum in comparison to several billion.  And when the master who forgave the first servant hears about what has happened, he is enraged.  He orders the unforgiving servant to be arrested and tortured until he could pay up.  And, since it is virtually impossible for him to pay, the implication is that he will stay in prison until he dies.

            And with this brief and somewhat shocking parable Jesus drives home a very simple yet important moral:  God has forgiven us for far more than we could ever repay--more than we can even imagine.  Therefore, in return, we are expected to extend that same forgiveness to one another.  Regardless of the precise number, 77 times or 70 time seven times, a debt of billions or of a few thousand, forgiveness is a necessary part of our Christian life.

            But in spite of this very straightforward message, we still seem to struggle a great deal with forgiveness.  Why is that?  Why is it that so many of our relationships are marred by grudges and petty differences?  There are probably a variety of reasons for our failure to forgive one another, but there are two that I think are central to learning the art of forgiveness.

            First of all, I think we have often failed to understand what forgiveness really is.  We have this idea that forgiveness simply means one person saying "I'm sorry" and the other person saying "That's OK.  I forgive you."  And then it's all over.   There's nothing wrong with teaching that sort of behavior to our children.  I’ve certainly tried to teach my own children to say “I’m sorry” when they mistreat one another.  But at some point we've got to grow beyond that starting point.

            Forgiveness is about much more than just saying "I'm sorry" and acting like the offense never happened.  Forgiveness is about mending broken relationships.  It's about healing unhealthy relationships.  It's about reconciliation and redemption and restoration and renewal.

            Forgiveness is rarely a single act.  It is more often a process.  In fact, immediately prior to Peter's question about how many times he should forgive, Jesus has just outlined a very detailed process for forgiveness and reconciliation within the church.  And nowhere in that process or in the parable of the unforgiving servant does Jesus suggest that forgiveness means that we don't hold one another accountable for our actions.

            In fact, he implies just the opposite.  When we offer forgiveness, we do so in the hope that it will be a step in building up a relationship.  The master in the parable forgives the servant because he cares about him.  He is moved by the man's predicament and has compassion.  And it is precisely because he cares about the servant that he is so angry when the servant himself fails to show forgiveness.  It is because the servant has violated his trust and shown no regard for their relationship that the master reverses his earlier decision.

            Likewise, when we forgive one another, that forgiveness is supposed to be the basis for building a new or renewed relationship.  Forgiveness is not saying the offense never happened. It did.  Forgiveness is not saying that everything is okay.  Everything is not okay.  Forgiveness is not saying we no longer feel the pain of the offense. We do.  Forgiveness is saying "I still feel the pain, but I am willing to let go of your involvement in my pain."  Forgiveness is an attitude of faith whereby we are able to turn over to God the business of how the other guy is doing.  Forgiveness is saying, "I'm okay, and I am willing to let God deal with whether you are okay, and I am willing to let go of my need to be the instrument of correction and rebuke in your life."

            Building a relationship is a lot more difficult than letting someone else say "I'm sorry" and then replying "OK, I forgive you."  And it's a lot harder than bearing a grudge or seeking revenge.  But, in the long run, forgiveness is a lot more rewarding than those options.  For, through the process of forgiveness, one not only gets rid of an enemy, one also gains a friend.

            A second reason, then, for our failure to forgive others is the fact that we are often unable to accept forgiveness ourselves.  To be forgiven requires at least two important steps.  It means, first of all, repenting of what we have done.  And, secondly, it means accepting the fact that we can be forgiven.  Neither of those are very easy things to do.

            As I've already noted, repentance is a lot more than saying "I'm sorry."  Repentance means admitting that we have done something wrong.  It means seeking to make restitution for the wrong we have committed.  And it means committing ourselves to changing our behavior and attitudes.  In short, repentance means coming to terms with the seriousness of our transgression.

            There is a temptation when we do something wrong to downplay how important it is--to deny or minimize the impact that it may have had on others around us and our relationships with them.  Many times it may seem that someone else is making too big of a deal out of something that we have done.  We need to be willing, though, to work with them in asking for and seeking forgiveness. What is important is not necessarily the transgression itself.  What is important is the effect that we allow it to have on our relationship.  And if it is not dealt with in a constructive way, even the smallest offense, which may seem very insignificant to the one who committed it, can become a major stumbling block that destroys a relationship.

            It takes some effort to appreciate just how sinful we each are.   Then, once we reach a point where we are able to admit, at least to ourselves, how much we are in need of forgiveness, it can be even more difficult to accept the fact that we are or even can be forgiven.  Many of us, when we finally come to terns with our own sinfulness, get stuck in a quagmire of guilt and shame.  If we really take seriously just how unrighteous we are, we also realize how difficult it is for us to be forgiven.  And we very often jump to the conclusion that we are, in fact, unforgivable.

            But the Bible assure us that we are forgiven.  God has forgiven us and wants to be reconciled with us.  And in order to do that we need to accept the incredible forgiveness that has been offered to us.  We need to recognize that, no matter how evil we may think we are, God has the power to forgive and renew us.  But that forgiveness can be a very difficult thing to accept.

            Frankly, I believe that this is exactly the problem that the unforgiving servant had.  He had not really come to terms with the fact that the master had forgiven his enormous debt.  He had not really accepted that such an immense debt could even be forgiven.  And I think that's why he was unable to forgive his fellow servant.  Still plagued by the guilt he felt at not paying off the huge debt he owed to his master, he couldn't allow his fellow servant to seemingly get off scot free the way he had.  He couldn't forgive, because he couldn't accept that he had been forgiven. 

            And I am convinced that many of us are in the same place.  We may know in our heads that God has forgiven us, but we haven't really experienced that forgiveness in our hearts and in our lives.  And because of our failure to do that, the lingering guilt and resentment take their toll on our relationships with others.  In order to have healthy relationship we must learn to forgive.  And in order to understand forgiveness we need to have experienced forgiveness ourselves.

            I began this morning with a set of numbers that demonstrate our nation’s appetite for revenge for those who commit crimes.  I’d like to close with a story that illustrates how it is indeed possible to forgive someone who has caused us the most egregious harm imaginable.  It is a story not of numbers, but of mercy–a story of relationship rather than revenge.  The story comes from the book Dead Man Walking, the amazing story of Sister Helen Prejean’s work with both death row inmates and the families of their victims.  Prejean writes, “Lloyd LeBlanc . . . would have been content with imprisonment for Patrick Sonnier [the killer of his son, David]. He went to the execution, he says, not for revenge, but hoping for an apology.

            Patrick Sonnier didn't disappoint him. Before sitting in the electric chair, he said, "Mr. LeBlanc, I want to ask your forgiveness for what me and Eddie done," and Lloyd LeBlanc nodded his head, signaling a forgiveness he had already given. He says that when he arrived with sheriff's deputies there in the cane field to identify his son, he knelt by his boy -- "lying down there with his two little eyes sticking out like bullets" -- and prayed the Our Father. And when he came to the words: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," he had not halted or equivocated, and he said, "Whoever did this, I forgive them."

            But he acknowledges that it's a struggle to overcome the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up, especially as he remembers David's birthday year by year and loses him all over again: David at 20, David at 25, David getting married, David standing at the back door with his little ones clustered around his knees, grown-up David, a man like himself, whom he will never know. Forgiveness is never going to be easy. Each day it must be prayed for and struggled for and won.”  May God grant us the same grace to forgive, the same perseverance to struggle, and the same humility to be forgiven that Lloyd LeBlanc displayed.