A Reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew
Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
(Matthew 18:21-35)
Fr. Columba’s Sunday Homily for Exodus Men
Peter really wants to crack this question of forgiveness. Now, if somebody has offended me seven different times, or maybe different people come at me in a single day, that is a lot. If you get stabbed once, that’s bad, but if you get stabbed seven times in a day, that’s different. But Jesus’s comeback is extraordinary: not seven times, but seventy-seven times. There are different translations, such as “seventy times seven times.” Now that one is very interesting because it’s actually the same as what is said in the Book of Daniel, which we read last week: “seventy weeks of years,” or seventy sevens, meaning 70 multiplied by 7, which equals 490.
So it’s not just doubled. You don’t just add one or two. You don’t just stick with the status quo. You go and exponential increase it. It’s not seven times seven; it’s seventy times seven. It’s unspeakable what Jesus is asking of us here. It’s a perpetual outpouring. Our very nature needs to become forgiveness—automatic and constant—because this is the nature of love. Love is continuously choosing the good of the other, and the good of the other and the good of myself is always that I pour out mercy and forgiveness.
Now, brothers, this is not natural. This is supernatural. This is not our nature. It’s God’s nature. But we are the ones who get to be, as St. Peter says, partakers of his nature. We have to engage and grow it because we’re likely not at 490. If I could just forgive one person a day, I’d be doing great.
Brothers, if we only knew the enormity of what we have been forgiven, if we only knew the enormity of our crime and the enormity of his love, and the fact that he hasn’t just forgiven us—he’s adopted us—I think we would be transformed. And that’s what this parable is. It is the grievance of the heavenly Father saying, “Oh, you still don’t get it. You have no idea what you have done, and you have no idea what I have done.”
There’s a story that I love to share, and for me, it just sums this up. It’s a true story from just after apartheid ended in South Africa. The fact that it did not end in an absolute, unspeakable bloodbath is a miracle of our age. It’s a testimony to the likes of Nelson Mandela, the Anglican Archbishop Tutu, and so many other unbelievable leaders who just did what needed to be done. One of the things they did was set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was separate from other courts. A lot of people, police officers, and others were brought to court for the crimes they had committed under apartheid. But this was more—it was for reconciliation. It was almost something spiritual. If a crime had been committed against you or your family, you could meet the perpetrator. You could sit across the table and talk. The person who had been offended could ask, maybe, “Why?” or something else.
There was one particular woman whose husband was murdered by the police. This is a story that was told to me by a former brother in my community who lived in South Africa. And he said that this woman’s only son had been burned alive by a police officer in front of her. The person responsible was brought to justice, found guilty, and sentenced to prison. But this woman had to sit in the same room with him. When she was asked what she wanted from him, she said, “You’ve taken everything from me. And now I have no one to love. So what I ask is that you now become my son, and that you let me love you.” And this man, who was capable of such unspeakable cruelty and all through the legal proceedings appeared to be utterly remorseless, cold, and hard, just broke. Her words broke him in the most beautiful, most precious way. She proceeded to visit him regularly in prison and brought him gifts to show her love, as one would with a son. And he received it—so much so that when he got out of prison, he moved into the house beside her, which is unspeakable for an apartheid police officer to live beside a black woman in South Africa. They continued to live this relationship of mother and son, and they would travel and speak about their experience. This, for me, is extraordinary. It is the love of God for us.
Brothers, the enormity of our crime is made visible in this man. We, in our sins, have put to death God’s Son. We have killed the life of God in our souls, and what we deserve is clear. Yet God’s response is so unspeakable. It’s not seven times. It’s until the end of the universe if we were to offend him. And why does he do this? Because this is the only thing that could save us. It’s this return, this illogical, insane response of love, and yet it completely heals and transforms our hearts. If only we could know the severity of what we’ve done and the infinity, the unbelievableness, of what he has done in saying, “This is the punishment: that you will become my son and you will let me love you.” This is not the parenting advice I would hand out, but it is God’s parenting policy. And this is the thing that will turn us into saints, brothers, if we will only let it in.
