Pentecost 16 – 2026
Matthew 18:21-35
Marian Free
In the name of God who has compassion for God’s children, remembers that we are but dust, and removes our transgressions – as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103). Amen.
Recently a young man was murdered in Logan. In what was apparently a planned attack, he was set upon by six others during a party. All seven boys were members of the local Sudanese community. The victim, Jon, was the son of an Anglican priest. In the midst of their pain and grief, the Jon’s parents were able to reach out to the parents of the other boys insisting that their friendship not be destroyed by the event. Jon’s grieving parents could see that anger and vengefulness had no place in their healing process and would not help the parents of the other boys who were no doubt hurting and confused. Instead of holding on to their pain as a badge of anguish and pain, they were able to see the suffering of the other parents, and to have compassion for all the boys involved.
It is interesting isn’t it, that Jon’s parents could be so gracious when other people hold onto big and to petty hurts and seem to take pleasure in nurturing their feelings of having been wronged, indeed make what they perceive as an unforgiveable wrong something that sets them apart from the world – special badly done by people. The consequences of holding grudges and of withholding forgiveness can be enormous. Those who hold on to their sense of being an injured party tend to become bitter and self-centred. They allow the wound to fester, and they become self-absorbed and self-righteous believing that in order for things to be put right the offender needs to experience their pain. Their lives become smaller, drawn in on themselves, and they can be eaten up by their obsession with what has happened and with what they think should happen to the one who has hurt them.
Jon’s parents exemplify what it means to forgive in the context of the Christian faith. Sadly this has often been misunderstood.
When Jesus says Peter must forgive seventy times seven, he does not mean that an offender can simply repeat the same behaviour over and over without facing the consequences of their actions. This is made clear in the verses that precede Peter’s question. Bad behaviour has to be addressed – especially within the believing community. Forgiveness without accountability is meaningless. In the past, the church has not always made this connection. As a consequence, child sexual abuse was not properly addressed, and women were sent home to abusive husbands with the instruction that they should forgive the violence perpetrated against them.
Peter’s question and the parable that Jesus tells about forgiveness cannot be separated from the chapter as a whole. Here Jesus addresses the believing community, instructing them how to live together. In order to fully understand what Jesus is saying about forgiveness, we have to look at what comes before and to understand that Jesus is very clear that the vulnerable are not to come to harm. In language that is harsh to the extreme Jesus condemns any behaviour that causes another to stumble, and he gives instruction about dealing with conflict in the community. In the same chapter, he tells the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who abandons the sheep who have remained with the flock and goes off on a wild good chase after the one who has gone astray. Causing harm is excluded, but so too is excluding the one who has caused harm.
God’s concern with the vulnerable and the lost, does not replace God’s desire for responsibility and accountability. The two go hand in hand. Compassion and understanding are extended to even the worst offenders but that does not mean that their offenses are simply overlooked. The sinner must take responsibility for the sin, must acknowledge the debt, before God can overlook the sin and forgive the debt.
All of which brings us to the parable. We have to understand that slavery covered a wide variety of situations. There were slaves, like Joseph many centuries before, who had a great deal of responsibility and authority over the assets of their owners. Other slaves carried out menial tasks, had no power and very little income. According to the parable, the king (slave-owner) has decided to “settle his accounts”. In the process he discovers that one slave owes a vast amount of money – the equivalent of twenty years’ wages an amount that can never be repaid. The only way to recoup the debt (or a portion of the debt) is to sell the slave, his family and all that he owns. However, when the slave begs for mercy, the king does the unthinkable – he forgives the debt – all $2,000,000 of it!
Why then does this same slave then demand that another slave pay him a mere $2,300 – $3,500? He doesn’t need it to repay his debt – that slate has been completely wiped clean. It seems that the richer of the two slaves has deluded himself into thinking that because the debt has been forgiven that he had done nothing wrong, that he was, after all, right to use the money. From this position of self-righteousness, he assumes that he is in a position to judge others. Because he didn’t see himself to be in the wrong, he has not accepted accountability and has been completely unable to grasp the significance of his being forgiven. Because he has no idea of the enormity of his offense or of the generosity of the king, he has remained unchanged – self-righteous and judgmental, unable to see himself for who he is – greedy and self-serving. (The result being that now he must face the consequences of his actions.)
In the gospels accountability and forgiveness go hand in hand. When we accept how far we fall short of the glory of God and how gracious God has been in overlooking our debts, it is almost impossible not to extend that same compassion and forgiveness to others. If we are blind to our own faults and believe that we deserve to have our slates swiped clean while others must pay their debts to the full, we have demonstrated that like the slave who owed 10,000 talents we have not understood what it means to belong to the kingdom of God.
