+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There is a fascinating issue in source criticism regarding today’s Gospel. (I know that may not be an exciting way to start a sermon; you know me!) The issue is that many early manuscripts simply have a slightly different text and it’s difficult to know which one most accurately kept what Jesus originally said. Regarding how many times one ought to forgive a brother, Jesus may have told Peter “seventy times seven”, as we heard in our translation (the Revised Standard Version) or else he might have said “seventy seven” as he does in the New Revised Standard Version.
Some of you know that several years ago I switched us from the newer back to the older translation, because I find it to be generally more faithful and accurate. Well, in my humble opinion, I think the newer translation is actually better in this instance, and not because I’d rather forgive someone seventy seven times as opposed to four hundred ninety times when I need to. I do not, in fact, believe this is really about keeping score—quite the opposite, as you’ll see in a moment. I suspect (and this is not a theory original to me), that Jesus was here referencing something in the Book of Genesis, which at least some of his listeners must have picked up on.
You may remember the story of the first time a man was said to sin against another. Adam and Eve sinned against God, but it was their son Cain who first wronged another human being by killing his brother Abel. God punishes Cain by making him a wanderer, but he also promises to protect him, the mark of Cain not being a curse but a sign that whoever would harm him would receive a seven-fold retribution.
You may not remember that immediately after the story of Cain Genesis gives us a peculiar story about his great-great-grandson Lamech. Lamech, we learn is harmed by somebody (we don’t know who, nor do we know the circumstances) and Lamech kills him. He then recites to his wives this poem:
Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, hearken to what I say;
I have slain a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.
I think it is probable that Jesus, in saying that one is to forgive one’s brother seventy-seven times, is making a reference to this story.
I don’t think that the point here is not literally “you must say ‘I forgive you’ exactly seventy-seven times” in some sort of onerous, precise accounting of mercy, and then on trespass seventy-eight you get to destroy your enemy. Rather, I believe this is meant to show us that Christ has replaced a whole system of justification with a new one, that an ethic based on retribution has been replaced by one based on reconciliation.
I talked about this a lot in last week’s sermon, so I won’t repeat myself point by point. It should suffice to say that while our fallen nature and the very culture in which we find ourselves today push us to take vengeance on those whom we believe wrong us, but the Gospel way calls us to try our level best to maintain fellowship by being as gracious and forgiving as we can reasonably (and perhaps sometimes, unreasonably) be, that we might gain brothers and sisters rather than picking sides and demanding satisfaction. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” after all.
Jesus follows this command with a parable. I saw that in sermons I preached previously on this text (which pops up once every three years) I did some math to figure out as close as I could the relative size of the debts in the story. Long story short, they are, I believe, intentionally outrageous. The slave is owed about a third of a year’s wages, so not insignificant. But the debt he was forgiven is the equivalent of literal billions.
Why such an absurd approach then, from the slave who was forgiven? Wouldn’t we behave better? When it comes to the accounting of what others owe us and what we owe others maybe and maybe not. But any lack of will to forgive on our part is precisely the same as the wicked servant, because the debt we owed to God was worth even more than billions in gold. Thanks to sin, we owed him our very lives, and yet he forgave us that debt without a second thought.
I am loathe to stray into anything that smacks of “works righteousness” or to assume that God would place any conditions on his infinite love, grace, and mercy. That being the case, there is a particular phrase that I always wrestle with in a prayer I say at least a couple times every day. I’ve not managed to figure out how to deal with it, and I will probably continue to wrestle with it for the rest of my life, which is okay. The phrase is “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That sounds conditional. The Greek scholars in the house might counter that the relation between the words “ὡς” and “καί” may be either relative or comparative. I’ll grant you that, while still saying that I don’t want to gamble my soul over a grammatical question with even odds. So, I guess I better try to be as gracious as I can be, even if I have to forgive someone seventy-seven or seventy times seven times.
I think, though, conditional or unconditional forgiveness of trespasses aside, the most salutary and liberating words in the English language are “I forgive you.” Those words free us from all those petty resentments that separate us from each other and, ultimately, from God himself. Actually practicing forgiveness, beyond just saying the words, may be the work of a lifetime, but it is good work, and it is worth it.
+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.