MT 18: 21-35 

Matthew in the Margins…15th S. After Pentecost… Revised 2017

Forgiveness & arithmetic don't make good companions. The unimaginable sum owed by the first servant & the trivial amount by the second, are exaggerations on the part of the Master Story Teller. Jesus knows how to put a point across! But the question remains: do we 'get it' any more than Peter does? Than the first servant in Jesus’ yarn does? Even after what God has done for us in Jesus? Do we know, have we forgotten, or are we just blase about just how much God has forgiven us? In the face of which, anything someone else ‘owes’ us, & asks forgiveness for, fades into insignificance. 

Do you ever despair, as I sometimes do, at what can seem an over-emphasis on sin & confession in our liturgies. Is this simply a hangover from medieval days, or is there something of the ‘sinister’ lurking here? After all, in Jesus we’re forgiven people! Are we still not convinced forgiveness sticks every bit as much as, more, even, than sinning does? Do we need to re-emphasise that we’ve been forgiven & live in a state of forgiven-ness? One symptom of how confusing this can be is an odd practice that once cropped up in our part of the world, i.e. that after confessing our sins, & being assured of God’s forgiveness, we were then launched into the Kyries too! Liturgies need to be a celebration of forgiven-ness rather than a constant, nagging, reminder that in some cases the church doesn’t get today’s parable either!

The forgiving king is one of only three people apart from Jesus (all three are parable figures) of whom the word compassion, 'being moved in your gut' is used. The other two are the Forgiving Father, & the Good Samaritan. It’d be great to be counted along with them, not as parable figures, but real life ones. Little Jesuses so ‘moved in our gut’ at the plight of the hurting & unforgiven that we go in to bat for them whatever it takes.

We can only experience God's Rule where forgiveness is the expected norm, as ‘we forgive those who sin against us’ as Jesus puts it in His prayer. When there’s no forgiveness on our part, we remain alienated from the Forgiving God. Loved, still, but alienated. Trapped by our own not-doing on the flip-side of God’s compassion when there’s no reason for us to stay there!

One last word - by Jesus Himself: Forgiveness is from the heart, from the depth of our being; or it isn't forgiveness at all!