How Often Must I Forgive Him, Matthew 18: 21-35

Dan Doyle

Forgiveness. If you really think about it, forgiveness is a central theme of the entire Bible. It is God’s infinitely faithful response of love in the face of our ancient and ongoing rebellion. In essence, it is the reason for, and purpose of, the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Forgiveness reveals the nature and the power of God’s unconquerable, unconditional love. It is the essence of God’s liberating, healing, redemptive love offered to us freely, openly, and in the end, sacrificially. It is given a face and an historical, lived reality in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In this passage, Peter asks a very human question of Jesus that is very familiar and very challenging to us: “Lord, if my brother (neighbor) sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Mt. 18: 21) Because we have been given the gifts of intellect and free will, we have an instinct for the moral good, and a recognition of evil. Because of our own lived experiences of help and harm, of good and evil, we also have an instinctual desire for justice. The problem is that our sense of justice is often one-sided; that is, it is generally seen and experienced from the perspective of the self, and not of the other. This may be what is behind Peter’s question. You can almost hear the tone of the question: “Come on, Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive someone who hurts me, for heaven’s sake! There must be a limit after all.” God, though, sees all sides and loves both the one who is harmed and the one who has caused the harm.

Jesus’ response is direct, and we might think that it is rather ‘idealistic,’ or even unreasonable. “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times” (v. 22). Peter’s question is pregnant with irony, as the number seven held a specific numerological meaning in Jesus’ time; it symbolized divine completeness and spiritual perfection. Peter’s very human question is rooted in a recognition of human finiteness, our human limitations. Jesus knows both our limitations, the result of our fallen nature; he knows what we are made of and what we are made by God to become. Jesus’ answer to Peter is also his answer to us. We are called to learn to forgive endlessly, constantly, and without calculation…in imitation of him.

This passage actually reiterates one of the themes of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus gave to the disciples and to us: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6:12). In other words, there is a link between God’s forgiveness of us and our own capacity for forgiving those who have harmed us. We are called upon to forgive those who harm us, who sin against us, with the same completeness, constancy, and without calculation, in the same manner that the Father has forgiven us through the suffering, death, and resurrection of his only Son, Jesus Christ. In this imitation of Christ lies the hope for the potential of healing and reconciliation, and ultimately the lasting, nurturing, and life-giving peace that we all desire.

This is a difficult message in any age, but maybe especially in our ego-centric, ever more atheistic age. It seems preposterous, or at least beyond our abilities. But God does not ask us to do anything beyond our human capacities. His grace is unlimited, and he willingly and generously provides us with all of the grace we need to succeed in our humble efforts to walk in his ways. All that is needed is the willing and humble surrender of our finite and often selfish wills to his infinitely loving will for each of us. His love and his grace will always be enough to help us on our journey toward his kingdom.

How can we develop this forgiving attitude and practice? The first necessary thing is to recognize and take responsibility for our own sinful habits that can, and often do, cause harm to others. We can do this by developing the habit of a nightly self-examination. Just before going to sleep each night, go over in your mind both the graces you received and the harms you may have done to others in thoughts, words, or deeds during the course of your day. Then give thanks for the graces received and give the failures over to God for his forgiveness. We can try practicing the art of forgiving quickly, rather than giving the harms done to us the time to take root in our minds and hearts where they can turn into devilish resentment or thoughts of revenge. Rather, seek reconciliation right away. Finally, make your forgiveness concrete in some way. Write a note or make a gift of your affirming and welcoming presence, rather than a cold shoulder or a denial of your friendship. This is what love is and does. This is the very essence of God’s love in action toward us, in us, and through us. It is the imitation of Christ.

Lord, Jesus. Defeat all of the subtle forces of temptation within us; uproot thoughts of anger and retaliation from our minds and hearts; protect us from all inner and outward deceit that would blind us to our own fallenness, and give us the graces we need to forgive our loved ones and our neighbors as you have forgiven us. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.