What Jesus Taught About Forgiveness--Part II
a sermon based on Matthew 18:21-35
by Rev. Thomas Hall

On New Year’s Eve in 1995, my mother was murdered in her home by a young burglar,” so begins Everett Worthington in his new book. [1] The house had been trashed-every mirror shattered as if “rage spewed forth,” with a baseball bat swinging in all directions.

Soon the family gathered, but rage made sleep impossible. “I’d like to have him alone in a room with a baseball bat for thirty minutes. I’d beat his brains out,” Worthington had heard himself say. To which a brother added, “I’d take two hours, so that it would last a long time.”

Worthington said he roamed the house, storming about, rehearsing scenes of violence and anger, replaying the death in his mind’s eye. Though a Christian and a counseling psychologist who had successfully helped couples and individuals to forgive, Worthington admitted that forgiveness had never entered his mind during those early moments of livid rage.

Most of us could not write such a book, for the limits of our forgiveness have never been stretched so far as was Worthington’s. Yet all of us can contribute personal chapters from our own experiences. All of us have at times reached out hands in love only to pull them back bruised and bleeding. But what we do with those experiences and how we deal with those who hurt us is what we must struggle with.

Dr. Joan Borysenko knows what happens to us if we can’t find a way to forgive-instead of vanishing with time, the memory of the offense weighs on us and grows heavier. She says, “My mother was always telling about our aunt whom she couldn’t stand, and that poor womyn had been dead for thirty years. I thought, who is suffering from this? So my mother continues to live with the stress of unforgiveness.” [2]

Few things that God asks of us are more difficult than the demand to forgive. Yet we cannot escape God’s firm insistence to forgive others. Every Sunday that part of the Lord’s Prayer haunts us-“forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The word, “forgiveness,” is simple enough-a prefix and an infinitive glued together. “Give-ness” is what it means: the act of giving as in offering a gift. But when you add the prefix, it intensifies whatever follows it. So Jesus isn’t just telling us just to give, but to do it with special intensity: to lavish a gift on those who have wronged us. [3]

I prefer to be like Peter who in our gospel lesson this morning comes to Jesus with mathematical calculations for the boundaries around forgiveness. There must be some limit, Peter reasons, beyond which forgiveness is no longer required. Beyond which we no longer need to pray, “forgive those who trespass against us.” So he asks Jesus his question of limitations. “Lord, how often should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Seven times?”

Peter is doing the math. He is actually being generous. Current Jewish thought suggested that forgiveness be extended three times. Three mess ups, maybe, but the fourth time, forget it. So Peter may be more generous than we might be inclined to be. His question reflects charitable calculation.

But Jesus’ response is immediate, uncalculated, and without limit. In essence, Jesus says, “stop counting with your fingers, Peter. A calculator won’t even help you either, for there are no bookkeepers in the Kingdom; stop keeping track of debts or offenses. In God’s kingdom there is only forgiveness.

To make the point clear, Jesus tells the story of a servant who has blown millions. Maybe the guy is like a gambling addict-he gets bucks from a loan shark and heads to Atlantic City. When the hangover wears off, he realizes that he has squandered all of his money and now comes the reckoning. The guy probably grovels and says, “have patience with me and I’ll repay all of the debt.” Who’s he kidding? Repay $1,000,000? What? Does he plan to win the lottery? Well, that’s where the surprise enters the story. In a burst of pity, the king grants amnesty-the guy doesn’t have to pay any of the 1 mil back. What kind of soft-hearted king is this?

This is where the story should end. It’s where we want it to end. Joan Borysenko would have ended the story here. This forgiven guy rides off into the sunset-free and forgiven now to go out to absolve and forgive lesser debts owed him. But unfortunately, it doesn’t here-in story land or in real life. Passing through the hallway on his way out the servant passes a guy who owes him twenty bucks. He grabs the guy by the scruff of the neck and nearly chokes him to death.

“You dirty, rotten scoundrel! Give me that twenty bill right now or you’re dead meat.” But the guy pleads, “have patience with me and I’ll pay it back. I really will!” Heard that speech before? The servant isn’t impressed and has the guy thrown into the slammer. Well, the king finds out and blows his top! “You evil servant! I forgave you $1,000,000 and you jailed your fellow servant for a measly twenty bucks!” So the king hands the servant over to the torturers-those big thugs with black hoods-to “encourage” the servant to pay back every red cent of his loan. This guy doesn’t have enough fingers for these goons to break before he’ll get his debt paid off. So the story ends with jagged edges. A guy howling in some torture chamber because he did not forgive.

Dag Hammarskjold once said, “Like a bee, we distill poison . . . what happens to the bee if it uses its sting is well known.” We now know more about what happens to us when we replace forgiveness with the sting of revenge and anger. For experience tells us that there are at least three reasons why we need, why we must forgive.

First, we will never hurt the one who hurt us by withholding forgiveness. But the act of forgiving can set us free from the chains that bind us to the person who has hurt or offended us.

Second: unforgiveness exacts a hefty property tax. Someone has said that unforgiveness is like carrying a red-hot brick around in your mind with the intention of someday throwing it back at the one who has hurt you. Unforgiveness tires us, burns us. Harry Emerson Fosdick used to tell his Riverside congregation that harboring unforgiveness is like burning down your own house to get rid of the rat. Unforgiveness is self-destructive.

Third: we’ll be healthier if we forgive than if we stew in our own unforgiveness. Evidence is mounting which suggests that unforgiveness produces cardiovascular difficulties and affects the immune system. Philip Yancey tells of a conversation that he once had with an immigrant rabbi. “Before coming to America,” the rabbi said, “I had to forgive Adolf Hitler. “Why?” Yancey asked. “I did not want to bring Hitler inside me to my new country.”

The rabbi got it right.

Everett Worthington got it right. Though it was the toughest thing he had ever done in his life, he released the resentment, hatred, and bitterness of unforgiveness. He forgave the one who killed his mother because he had become weary of struggling against hatred. His emotions drove him to begin the process of forgiveness. In the end, he no longer needed to seek revenge against the one who took his mother’s life. For Worthington, forgiveness meant giving a gift of nonpossessive love that brought him the courage and freedom to begin again.

It takes courage to grant that kind of forgiveness. Chris Carrier nearly died before he made that discovery. As a kid, he was abducted, stabbed in the chest and stomach, shot through the temple and eye, and left for dead in a Florida swamp. Remarkably, he managed to survive.

More remarkably, Chris forgave the man.

But then the acid test. Years later when he heard that the man who had done these things to him was dying, Chris comforted the man during his final days. Chris’s forgiveness had teeth to it-powerful, strong love. Was that cowardice? Not at all! It was courage personified. [4]

Jesus said it right. Not seven times, but seventy times seven. May we-whom ever has blocked our way through hurtful words or actions-may we experience the full freedom that comes when we live in Jesus’ prayer-forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.

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[1]  Everett Worthington, Five Steps to Forgiveness (NY: Crown Publishers, 2001), preface.
[2]  Dr. Joan Borysenko, On the Spiritual Art of Forgiveness ( cassette tape). 
[3] R. Brash, A Book of Forgiveness (Australia: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), page 7.
[4] You can read the Chris Carrier story in Reader’s Digest (May 2000): 101-106.