'Peter came and said to Jesus, “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
I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of person that generally just likes to be told what to do. It’s easier that way, wouldn’t you agree? As long as I know the rules, know what I should do, there won’t be any problems. Ever. Right?
But sometimes the rules get muddy. In the movie Office Space the character of Joanna is required to wear 15 pieces of flair for her job at Chatchki’s Restaurant. She begrudgingly does what she is told and wears 15 buttons along her suspenders, but then her boss scolds her for not being like Bryan, who wears 37 pieces—we all know a Bryan at work, don’t we? Why not just make the required number 37? Why punish her for following the rule—it’s buttons on suspenders, for crying out loud!
And then there are cases where the spirit of the rule gets lost. This is what Jesus addresses over and over again in the Gospels. It is not that he is against the rules prescribed in the Torah and Talmud—far from it—but what Jesus sees again and again is people who follow the rules only because they have to, only doing the bare minimum so as to stay in God’s good graces.
The question presented to Jesus in this reading from Matthew’s Gospel is how many times a person must forgive someone who asks them for forgiveness. According to the Talmud the answer is seven, and no more. That is the expectation, which is why Peter asks if that’s correct—likely expecting Jesus to give him a pat on the back for remembering or applauding how merciful he is to forgive that many times. But what he really wants to know is, “What’s the minimum number of times I can forgive a person and still be right with God?” Which is why Jesus gives him the answer that he does: ἕως ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.
The literal translation is “until 70 times seven.” Our New Revised Standard Version sadly translates this to 77 times, which is a lot, but it misses the point. The number 7 in Hebrew is the number associated with God, and the number 70 is associated with perfection.
To forgive 70 times seven does not mean that Jesus is making the minimum number for forgiving a person 490—which is what 70 x 7 is—but it is Jesus’ way of telling Peter that forgiveness is not a commodity to be reckoned on a calculator. The number of times we should forgive is a number tied directly into the very heart of God, which means it is limitless, and to use the language of numbers when contemplating forgiveness, as if it’s about doing the least amount and still getting rewarded by God, is inappropriate and theologically inaccurate.
In short, it’s not about 77 times or 490 times. The number is meant to sound so astronomically high that nobody could ever hope to achieve it. The use of absurdly high numbers is something Jesus incorporates a lot into his teachings, including in the parable that he offers in response to Peter’s question. In the parable a servant owes his master 10,000 talents. To give you some perspective, that is the equivalent of a day’s worth of wages for 150,000 years! It’s more than the annual budget of the entire Roman province where these folks lived. Let that sink in.
There is literally no way this man will ever pay off such a debt. And that is the point. When he pleads with his master for mercy it is granted. But when that same servant runs into another who owes him 100 danarii, which was about a day’s wage, he shows no such mercy. Of course, when the forgiving master finds out what has happened he punishes the servant that was unwilling to forgive his neighbor.
There is a great deal that Jesus has to teach us through this parable. Peter, like many of us, just wants to know what is the rule for forgiveness that he should follow. But Jesus understands that this kind of mindset can cause us to forget the spirit of such a rule, to be concerned only with doing what is expected of us and nothing more, taking the relational component out of the rule entirely. The 77 times—or until 70 times seven—is a reflection of God’s unending, boundless forgiveness for us, which is reflected in the astronomical debt that the master forgives in the parable.
This is how we are to think of forgiveness, not as something quantifiable, but as an invitation into the vulnerable power of God. Are we willing to let our sense of forgiveness reflect God’s? Are we actively working to be in relationship with others the way God is in relationship with us?
This teaching illustrates how relationships often work: we go to God for forgiveness and God grants it to us—we know this because the priest tells us so each Sunday—but we seldom show the same level of mercy to each other. There is an intrinsic notion of ‘pay it forward’ when it comes to God’s forgiveness for us, which we rarely reflect because we’re concerned with what is fair or what we or others deserve. But forgiveness is about restoring relationships, both to God and one another.
Still, we cannot ignore the very real fact that the same ones that remind us of God’s forgiveness often encourage us to keep forgiving those who continuously abuse us. We all know we should forgive others, yes, but what does Jesus’ message mean for the woman who keeps forgiving the spouse who continuously beats her, or the person who keeps coming back to the church community that won’t honor the full expression of their identity? Well, they should just try to forgive and forget, we often hear, but this places the onus of forgiveness on the victim, which does not affect any real change; in fact, it often aggravates the situation and heaps a load of guilt on those who are already hurting.
It must be noted here that while the teaching in the Torah and Talmud is that one should forgive a person who has wronged them up to seven times, they are only meant to do so if that person asks for forgiveness and is genuinely contrite about it. Non-apologies, which we often see today? Not allowed. According to this rule the victim is never expected to flippantly forgive a person who keeps hurting them without remorse. Jesus understood this; remember last week when we were reminded that if a person shows no remorse then they are to be treated, in Jesus’ words, “as a tax collector or a Gentile,” that is, as someone we are to still love and commit into God’s care, albeit from afar.
Jesus’ call to us that we are to keep forgiving well beyond seven times is not a condoning of hurtful behavior or an encouragement for people to remain in abusive relationships, and certainly not a condemnation of the original rule. Instead, Jesus is trying to get us to see that to forgive is to make a conscious choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be. It represents a choice to leave behind our resentment and desire for retribution, however fair such punishment may seem. The behavior remains condemned and there are still consequences, but forgiveness means the original wound’s power to hold us trapped behind a wall of shame and fear is broken. We are only ever able to do this because human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness, which is the point of the parable.
This teaching from Jesus does encourage us to keep forgiving the person who comes back to us again and again with a contrite heart, but there is also a lesson here for us to keep coming back and seeking forgiveness ourselves, to do the hard, self-reflective work of seeing how we as both individuals and communities have profited from being unmerciful—just as the first servant in the parable profited off his neighbor.
It’s not about reaching a magic number, doing the bare minimum just so we can say we’re following the rules, or forgiving and forgetting. It’s about restoring our relationship with God and one another. Right now, brothers and sisters, our country, our world is in need of such restoration. But restoring relationships is messy, tough work, which takes time and effort, which is why both seeking forgiveness and asking for it is a spiritual practice. We have to do it day after day. Our relationships with one another are rooted in our relationship with God, and, as a certain prayer reminds us, it is by seeking forgiveness of our trespasses that we may forgive those who trespass against us.
