Sirach 27:30 – 28:7; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35; Psalm 103
September 17, 2023
Tatiana Friesen
Forgiveness
Before I get going, I just want to give a heads up. Forgiveness is very often weaponized. I’m sure many in this room have felt pressured, or even forced, into forgiving harm done to them, and that has made healing even harder than it already was. As a society, we suck at understanding what forgiveness is. As the church, we have a lot of unpacking to do when it comes to forgiveness. I’m going to try to do some of that here, but I’m going to do an imperfect job and I invite you to take my thoughts with a big grain of salt, and do your own thinking and reading and talk to people about it. And I strongly recommend the book “On Repentance And Repair” by Rabbi Dayna Ruttenberg, which I’m happy to lend out.
Last week, Jesus was giving the disciples instructions for addressing interpersonal grievances: talk to the person one-on-one; try again with a couple of witnesses; get the whole community involved; if the harmdoer still won’t repent, there should be consequences.
After this teaching, Peter came and said to Jesus, “how often should I forgive my sibling if they sin against me? As many as seven times?”
Jewish teaching at the time officially required three rounds of forgiveness. Also, seven is a symbolic number of completion or perfection. So Peter, observing that Jesus generally tends towards generosity, raises the standard from what he was presumably taught, and even suggests completion.
Jesus said, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Some versions translate this as seventy times seven (490), but either way, we’re basically multiplying completion times completion. It’s ridiculous generosity, or perhaps a fundamental challenge to the question Peter is asking. I’ll get back to that.
“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.
A better word here would be servant, or perhaps officer, as will become more clear. I’ll be saying “servant.”
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.
A totally normal thing to do, under these circumstances. Note the numbers again: At a rate of one denarius per day, which was standard for common labourers, ten thousand talents in a literal sense means over 164,000 years’ wages. Slaves do not rack up that sort of debt; how would they get the chance? Either literally or symbolically, this is an astronomical amount of money. There is an interpretation of this story that says this servant is a tax collector, or rather, a person to whom tax collectors report. I find that compelling, so I’ll use it for now.
So the servant fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
Totally understandable.
The lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Not normal.
The king has just decided to not extract tax revenue from a person whose whole job was to collect that revenue from lower-ranking tax collectors. This is how such a person funded their reign. This is like a CRA collections officer failing to do their job to the tune of enormous boatloads of money and the government saying “ah...never mind, it’s fine.” But more extreme.
Jesus goes on:
“But that same servant came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’
Again, one hundred denarii equals one hundred days of common labour. Less than a year. Very possible to run up that debt as an average person.
Then his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
Totally normal.
But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.
Normal?...sure. He was operating according to social expectation, not to mention out of habit. This guy’s job was collecting payments from others. Ostensibly for the king, although he probably also took a cut for himself. He walks out of this interview with his boss, relieved that he’s not on the hook for his own huge debt, and goes right back to life as normal.
“When his fellow servants 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 servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
It seems to me that this bit functions to reinforce the message that “normal” is being broken down. The servant was perhaps surprised earlier to find his debt erased, but what’s happening here is more like his job description is cancelled. This king is giving up income. He has decided to not require his servant to extract wealth from others anymore, or at least to exercise mercy when the funds are not available. The servant isn’t getting it.
Let’s talk about power dynamics.
I found myself googling “forgiveness” a lot this week, and watching a lot of TED Talks, and everyone over there was telling stories of losing family members to violence, or suffering abuse themselves, or some other deep personal trauma, and learning to forgive the harmdoer; a disproportionate number of the people telling these stories were women. And the sheer volume of such stories tells another story of who is expected to do the work of forgiveness. It’s quite often those who are already vulnerable. And it’s quite often before they’ve had time to heal or receive amends.
According to today’s parable, who is in a position to forgive? A king who is owed a lot of money, and his servant, owed a smaller amount of money. What these characters have in common is power over another. When they say “I forgive your debt,” they engage in redistributive justice. This story is talking about someone who is relatively well-resourced lifting an obligation from someone with less. So, how does this relate to other interpersonal issues?
Perhaps the act of forgiveness is itself an act of power. In those TED Talks, many of the stories said the same thing: that forgiveness only became possible after the one harmed had gotten to a certain point of healing. Their capacity to forgive was the final step of healing, not the first. It came out of the power they found in themselves over time and with support.
The question Peter asks Jesus is about the account one keeps of past forgivenesses. Think about that a moment. How many times should I wipe a slate clean? Where is it that I’m keeping track of how many times I’ve wiped it? It is, in fact, a silly question. But perhaps he needed to ask it so Jesus could tell this story.