Sermon on extravagant forgiveness, Matthew 18:21–35, by Rev Harry Newton
A sermon delivered at Sumner Redcliffs Anglican Church on the parable of the unforgiving servant and what it means to forgive as we have been forgiven.
Summary
Rev Harry Newton of Sumner Redcliffs Anglican Church preaches on Matthew 18:21–35, the parable of the unforgiving servant, following on from the previous week's sermon by Finn Chirnside on church conflict resolution. Newton opens with a public safety announcement — that forgiveness teaching must never be used to compel anyone to remain in an unsafe situation. He then traces Peter's question about how many times to forgive, unpacking the Jewish background of the number 77 and its deliberate echo of Lamech's boast of vengeance in Genesis. The sermon culminates in an honest grappling with the parable's harsh final verse — that God will not forgive those who refuse to forgive — and Newton draws on Desmond Tutu's reflections on unforgiveness as a form of captivity to argue that forgiveness, while demanded, is also a path to personal liberation.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Public Safety Announcement
Rev Harry Newton: Today we're speaking about forgiveness. We're speaking about the extravagant forgiveness that we receive from God through Jesus, and we're speaking about the extravagant forgiveness those of us who follow him are called to extend to others. But before we crack into it, a bit of a PSA, a bit of a public service announcement. If you or someone you love are in a dangerous or unsafe situation, it is not unchristian to seek help. It's not unchristian to seek safety. You do not need to allow others to treat you unsafely, and if anyone tries to use this scripture or any other to compel you to stay in a hostile, unsafe environment, ignore them and speak to someone. It can be me, it can be your GP, it can be a mate — someone. Cool? We will never be a church that allows others to be mistreated under the guise of devotion. 100%. Now, every single person here this morning, regardless of your spiritual orientation, is beloved by God and deserves to live in safety with dignity. Cool? All right, PSA done.
Picking Up from Last Week — Finn Chirnside on Church Conflict
Rev Harry Newton: If you were here last week, you might recall how Finn took us on a deep dive into the teachings of Jesus, which is flippantly referred to as the HR section of the gospel. I say flippantly because I think I'm the only person I've ever heard refer to it that way. It's all about: if someone in your church community treats you badly or does you wrong, go to them one-on-one, have a yarn. Go to this person, talk to them directly, don't gossip, don't throw shade online, be honest. And as Finn reminded us, be open-minded in case you inadvertently played a part in the drama, because as my mum likes to say, it takes two to tango. And Jesus says, if they listen to you, you have regained that one. Excellent.
But I hear you ask, what happens if they don't listen? Well, luckily for us, Jesus has a bit more on that. If they will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church. And if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. And as Finn unpacked for us last week, treating someone as a Gentile or a tax collector is quite complex, but ultimately is rooted in love, because of the way Jesus himself treated them.
Peter's Question — How Many Times Must I Forgive?
Rev Harry Newton: Now, that brings us to today, because our reading today is straight on after that reading. Jesus finishes this pretty heavy-hitting teaching, and Peter, who's the de facto leader of Jesus' disciples, comes with a question. He says, "Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?"
Now, part of what's going on here is that Jesus has spoken about forgiveness quite a few times at this point in the Jesus story. Most notably, when he's been teaching his followers how to pray, he told them to forgive others as they themselves are being forgiven. But he also spoke indirectly about it in something called the Sermon on the Mount. You may have heard of it — it is the most famous sermon in the history of the planet, probably the most influential. And Jesus told his followers to, quote, "not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." His point being: be forgiving. Don't seek revenge. Repay evil with kindness.
This morning at the nine o'clock, Paul Hammond — who many of you will know, he used to be a minister in this parish — came to me and told me a story of two men he knew who hated each other. One was a Christian, one wasn't, and everyone sort of always hoped they wouldn't come to blows on the main street. One day they were walking past each other, and one guy walked up and biffed the other one in the head. So the other one just turned and offered the other cheek. So the guy biffed him again. And then someone said, "Why did you do that?" And he said, "That's what Jesus told me to do, and I regret it." I thought it was a great story. But Jesus' point is: do not repay evil with evil. Repay evil with kindness. And Jesus underscores this over and over again through Scripture, including in our reading this morning.
So the principle here is clear, right? Forgiveness is important to Jesus. There's no ambiguity on behalf of Jesus. But from his listeners' perspective, while the principle might be clear, the practice needs a bit more clarification. Because what's to stop, as we might call him, a toxic, manipulative person from coming into a church environment and exploiting this sort of open-ended forgiveness and generosity? That's how predators thrive in churches. Churches have had a history of allowing predators to thrive in those spaces and not be challenged. Now, there are lots of small reasons why, but one of the reasons is that churches always try to be open and forgiving and accepting. So hence Peter's question: "Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?"
Now, we might think that he's being a little bit pedantic about the number seven. But from an ancient Jewish perspective, he's actually pushing the bounds of what would be considered generous. Because our author this morning, Matthew, was a Jew writing for Jewish Christians. So there's a lot that goes on in his account underneath the surface that he doesn't bother to unpack for us, because he doesn't know that we're 21st century Kiwis. He's writing for his audience. He assumes they know what's going on here.
For example, we know that in first and second century rabbinic teaching, a limit of three acts of forgiveness towards a fellow Jew was considered sufficient. So: someone rips you off in business, turn the other cheek. They do it again, have a firm word, turn the other cheek. They do it a third time, have a firm word, turn the other cheek. They do it a fourth time — cut them off. Cancel them. They're anathema to the Lord. That's kind of how it was taught. So for Peter to suggest forgiving someone as many as seven times could have already been considered pretty much over the top.
And I don't think he's going out there saying, "Right, guys, get out your journals, get out your phones, we're going to start listing for every person in your life, like an Excel spreadsheet, how many times this person offended you — when you get to number eight, you can discard them." He's actually sort of saying, "Jesus, where's the line? How many times should I forgive someone? Up to seven times?"
Jesus' Answer — 77 Times, and the Echo of Lamech
Rev Harry Newton: And so Jesus replies, "I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times." As was mentioned earlier, sometimes it says 77 times seven, or 70 times seven, depending on the translation you read. That's an idiom from old times that's hung over from the original King James English translation. The original Greek just puts 77 times.
Now, again, there's something going on here that we sometimes miss, given we are not first century Jews. Everyone know where the book of Genesis is? Very first book in the Bible. In it, there's a bloke called Cain. He's not a good dude. He's the first son born to Adam and Eve, the prototype human beings. And does anyone know what he's most well known for? Yeah — killing his brother. He kills his brother Abel. Now, Cain in the story is confronted and judged by God for his horrific actions. But God also places a mark of protection on Cain, so that no one would kill him in revenge. It's even thought that in ancient times, his people, his clan, went on to wear special marks on their foreheads to show that they belonged to the tribe of Cain, so that the protection of Cain extended to them. Interesting, eh?
Now, fast forward a few generations, and Cain has a descendant whose name is Lamech. Now, Lamech kills a young man over a very minor issue, and then he brags about it. He boasts that if God would avenge his ancestor Cain seven times for an offence done against them, then he deserves vengeance 77 times over.
Now, first century Jews knew these stories off by heart. They literally knew them by rote. So when Jesus responds with the same words as Lamech — "not seven times, but 77 times" — Jesus is making a point that his followers would have grasped immediately: that his followers must be as extravagant in their forgiveness as Lamech was in his vengeance. So there are layers of meaning going on here.
Now, this is very clearly the language of hyperbole. It's not calculation. Jesus is not saying that you must go off and keep an Excel spreadsheet. Or if you're going to do the 70 times 7, I think that's approximately 490 times you're supposed to forgive someone — so when you hit 491, you can jog on, mate. It just gets confusing. He's making it clear that anyone who's concerned about the exact number of times we should be striving to forgive someone has missed the point. Because the benchmark for forgiving others within the church isn't provided by a rule. It's provided by the unimaginable scale of God's forgiveness to us.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
Rev Harry Newton: Which is why Jesus goes on to share the parable we heard. Super quick recap. He begins by comparing God to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his slaves. The first slave comes in and he owes approximately 10,000 bags of gold. That's a lot of money — approximately 20 years worth of wages. He's unable to pay his debt. He pleads for mercy. And the king, we're told, takes pity on him. He releases the man and forgives him.
Now what does the guy do? He's leaving the room, bumps into his colleague who owes him 100 denarii — approximately three or four months worth of wages. Now that is, to be fair, a substantial amount of money for your average person, particularly someone like these guys. It's actually a fair amount of money. But comparative to what he'd been forgiven, it was approximately 0.000167%. That's an infinitesimally small amount of money comparative to what he'd just been forgiven.
Now the first slave has his second slave thrown into prison and doesn't show him mercy, despite pleas from the latter. The other slaves are really upset. They notify the king. The king confronts the original slave and says, "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, the king hands the man over to torturers until he can pay down all his debt. And then Jesus rounds off the parable by saying to the disciples, "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
Heavy stuff, right?
The Jewish Financial Metaphor of Sin as Debt
Rev Harry Newton: What's going on here? Remember, Jesus is a first century Jew speaking to other first century Jews, and the story has been recounted to us by Matthew, who's there, and who himself is a first century Jew writing for a congregation made up of first century Jewish Christians. That's really important to remember. So this story is very first century Judaic in terms of how it's told rhetorically. And the rhetoric that Jesus uses reflects a financial metaphor that was, we're told by scholars, quite common in ancient Judaism — this idea of sin, or spiritual malpractice, or spiritual errors, or baggage, or doing wrong against others, being understood as a form of debt that individuals accumulate before God.
I think an awareness of that metaphor helps us understand what's going on in the text. In the parable, the slave owes, as I said, about 20 years worth of annual wages. To put that in comparison, in New Zealand that's approximately the equivalent of $1.62 million. Now, the slave obviously isn't a CEO or a lawyer who owns a firm. He doesn't have assets he can liquidate and pay off the debt. This is the equivalent of the person who cleans the forecourt at the mall — someone on minimum wage who doesn't get paid breaks. This person barely keeps up with the cost of inflation, and then he's been told he has to pay $1.62 million. And that's not even taking into account interest and inflation and all that kind of stuff. It's laughable.
So he gets on his knees and he begs for mercy, saying, "I will pay you back everything." And that's obviously impossible — it's unrealistic — but he's desperate. And therein lies the point. Jesus' parable is alluding to the fact that we humans are unable to earn our forgiveness and stand before God on our own terms. In the same way the man was in colossal debt, we too are in a form of colossal sin debt. And our only hope is forgiveness given to us not on our merit or effort, but through grace.
And I know I bang on about grace all the time, but it's important. Grace means God's unmerited favour and love. Because through his death and resurrection, Jesus took on our sin. He took on our shame, our failings, our inadequacies — in other words, our sin debt. And he took it on himself and proclaimed us forgiven, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but will have eternal life.
So here's the thing. If you have made the decision to follow Jesus, you are forgiven. It is one and done. Everything, anything — there is nothing that he holds against you. That is good news. It's amazing news.
The Uncomfortable Final Verse
Rev Harry Newton: But there's also a challenge. Right at the end of our story. And it is so tempting to gloss over it. When I prepare a sermon, I sit down early in the week on a Monday and I read the scripture. I pray about it, I read it again. And then I read a bunch of commentaries, which are like big, thick books written by very boring people who are very intelligent — and that was a joke. And I'm reading through these books, and you know what I noticed? None of them commented on this final verse. Because it's awkward. It's hard. It carries a harshness. And there's a sense that it seems too demanding of people who themselves are being victims of horrific and terrible acts.
And the challenge is this. Right at the end of the story, Jesus says, "In his anger the master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
And in case we're tempted to think that this is an anomaly — that Matthew just added it in on his own volition because he didn't like someone in his congregation — Jesus actually makes a similar point elsewhere, multiple times, across the four different accounts of his life. For example, when he taught his followers how to pray, he said, "Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors" — again, that first century financial metaphor at play. But then he says, after he's told them this, "If you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you." Once again, harsh words.
And we don't like it as Kiwis. It grates against our social conscience. I can make a joke — yeah, I'm not going to say it. I can hear my wife saying, "Don't say it." So I won't.
Making Sense of the Harsh Words
Rev Harry Newton: How do we make sense of these harsh words? Part of what's going on here is that Jesus is reiterating the point that if mercy is the defining characteristic of God, it should be the defining characteristic of his church. Jesus' parable makes it clear that in the same way that you and I have been forgiven, we are expected to forgive others. And so he concludes this parable by making it clear that his followers should be willing to forgive if they expect to be forgiven.
Which is easy to say, isn't it? But what if you have been on the receiving end of horrific treatment by others? In my last parish, I was getting to this point where, arrogantly, I thought, "Oh, not much shocks me anymore. Most people have admitted most things to me. There wasn't much more to shock me." And then someone came into my room and showed me the wounds she had from when she'd been beaten. And then a few days later, she was set on fire — had a tyre put around her and set on fire. It's horrific. She's still alive to this day, but she was obviously really hurt from that. Then shortly after, someone else came into my room and started telling me about the horrific things that had been done to her family, including to her children. And I literally could not sleep for a couple of days. And I actually went and repented to God and said, "I got arrogant and got a bit weird there about thinking I knew everything. Obviously I don't. This is so horrible."
So there are some people, including some of us in this room, who are being treated horrifically. Maybe not in those extremes, but there are things that are being done to us, things we've been on the receiving end of. We've been cheated on, abused, bad-mouthed, taken advantage of, discarded in our moment of need, exploited, ridiculed. And if that's you, how can I stand up here and say, "Oh, just forgive others"? It's easy to say forgive others. What if you can't? Are you doomed to be condemned, as our reading implies?
Two quick things on this — remembering my PSA at the beginning.
One: an inability to forgive is not unforgivable in and of itself. That would contradict Jesus' teaching elsewhere. His main point here is that forgiveness is incredibly important. It is central to the Christian message. He's making it clear that there is a danger in allowing personal animosity and conflict to poison our church. Jesus is reiterating the point that if mercy is the defining characteristic of God, it must be the defining characteristic of his church. So if you are someone who has had the unforgivable done to you, and you struggle to forgive, that does not mean that you are unacceptable in God's eyes.
But a warning to the rest of us: this does not give us the freedom of opting out of forgiving others by rationalising our hurts and offences and saying, "Oh well, that person was really mean to me." My words here are for those of us who have been treated terribly and horrifically and don't know how to process it. If that is you, the inability to forgive is not unforgivable in and of itself.
Desmond Tutu on Forgiveness as Liberation
Rev Harry Newton: Two: Desmond Tutu. You want to know who Desmond Tutu was? Really lovely guy by all accounts — South African Anglican Archbishop, anti-apartheid activist. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. During his life as a minister, he watched his friends and family live under apartheid, a system built on humiliation and violence. He buried victims of oppression and consoled families who had no path to justice. And then later, after the Rwandan genocide, he was brought to Rwanda to help go through the peace process. He sat for months listening to the most horrific testimony imaginable — people describing what had happened to their children, the torture they experienced, and various things that I won't mention here.
Now, I mention Tutu because he often spoke of how unforgiveness keeps a person bound to their offender. That until we can forgive the person who harmed us, that person holds the keys to our happiness and acts as our jailer. That was his take on it. But he believed that learning to forgive as we have been forgiven by Jesus lets us take back control of our own fate and become liberated from the oppression this person put on us.
So if you have someone in your life — regardless of whether it's minor or major — that you want to forgive, or you don't necessarily want to forgive them, actually you hate them, you just can't bring yourself to do it: can I encourage you? Focus first on Jesus. Focus on your own sin debt, as it were. Focus on fathoming just how deeply loved and forgiven, cherished and accepted you are, regardless of what has been done to you and what you have done to others. Focus on that, because that will become the seed from which forgiveness of others might eventually flow.
And in the meantime, trust. Trust in the goodness of God, which surpasses all understanding — that the love of God will be able to overcome our own inabilities to forgive. Trusting that no matter what, we are deeply loved and forgiven ourselves.
Is that cool? Awesome. I'm going to invite the band forward. I think we're going to have some prayers, and then we're going to celebrate communion together.