As We Forgive Our Debtors

Matthew 18: 21-35

When it comes to forgiveness, we’re in a double bind. We like to be forgiven. But it’s much harder to forgive. We ask forgiveness for our sins just as we forgive those who sin against us.

We’ve domesticated forgiveness to the point that it’s become something soft and fluffy. It has some supernatural powers since God forgives all of our sins, and the baptismal waters wash them away. It sounds kind of easy, but we still sin, and we still need forgiveness, both to be forgiven and to forgive.

There are some other wilder, scary words, that we don’t hear as often: confession, confrontation, reparation, reconciliation.

Jesus’ answer to forgive those who sin against us 70 times 7 times has become a sound bite to encourage Christians to be forgiving. But that’s it. Be willing to forgive. If someone wrongs you—no matter how atrocious and painful—you forgive them and let it go. Turn the other cheek. Do what Jesus would do.

You know, there’s a certain movie rental company that I’m not pleased with. I rented movies from them a few years ago and stopped when they decided to threaten me with charges for a movie I had long returned. They informed me that I would own this movie within a few days and that might have been fine if I hadn’t already returned it. They did, at the last minute, discover that I was telling the truth and they had the movie all along.

When we moved up here and that was the closest rental place to us, I thought, well, it’s been a while since that last indiscretion maybe things will be different. Then I returned some movies that we’d rented last week. And on Thursday, got a phone call that I would once again be the proud owner of these movies sometime next week if I don’t return them. I’m feeling that perhaps I forgave this company a second chance too quickly. Here we are, in the same position we were a year ago and nothing has changed and I’m just as irritated as I was the first time. But you see, that first forgiveness was a one-sided deal. I did not confront them with their mistake and they did not apologize. They did not confess or offer any sort of reconciliation action. There was no coupon for a free rental. They did not reform their organizational structure to keep better track of their inventory.

Obviously, this is a minor insignificant example, but I’m just saying. I don’t like being accused of things I didn’t do. Forgiveness in this situation is just a mechanism for me to get over my frustration. It doesn’t invoke or require true transformation and change.

The most classic example—and obviously more serious—is in cases of domestic abuse. For too long, abused women seeking help from their priests have been exhorted to forgive their abusers and go home. Victims have been told to “suck it up” more or less, forgive and move on. Because Jesus says to forgive infinitely.

Except that forgiveness is about more than getting over something. And in cases of violence, it’s about more than going home to a never ending cycle.

When Jesus tells the story of the master and the slaves, he demonstrates a true change in behavior—at least the expectation of true change. As the master pardons the debt of that first servant, he assumes that this goodwill ought to trickle down and the slave would go and do likewise. Instead, the slave is just as vindictive and petty to his debtor as we might have expected the master to be. Instead of offering forgiveness and pardon, he shows no mercy. Upon hearing this news, the master takes back his forgiveness and severely punishes that offending slave.

Jesus says that God will do no less to us. Refusing to forgive can result in feeling spiritually tortured.

To the ones that God has forgiven, we must also forgive.

I recently ran across this story of a small California family. The daughter, Amy, went to South Africa to work against apartheid. While there, she was murdered by a mob. Her parents, in an unbelievable act, left California to finish their daughter’s work in South Africa. They started a service foundation in Amy’s name and now, two of her killers are working for that foundation as an act of atonement. Her parents have forgiven them and even befriended them.

This seems like almost a perverse level of forgiveness. To pardon and befriend a love ones killer?

We all know what happened this week 7 years ago. And seven years later, we know that justice, while dramatically sought, has not come full cycle. We have neither revenge nor reconciliation. But what about forgiveness? Can we forgive while our attackers are still out there? Do we need them to confess, repent, and atone before they can be forgiven?

The following is a statement from Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town: regarding the US and 9/11. He says:
“Forgiveness is not to condone or minimize the awfulness of an atrocity or wrong. It is to recognize its ghastliness but to choose to acknowledge the essential humanity of the perpetrator and to give that perpetrator the possibility of making a new beginning. It is an act of much hope and not despair. It is to hope in the essential goodness of people and to have faith in their potential to change. It is to bet on that possibility. Forgiveness is not opposed to justice, especially if it is not punitive justice but restorative justice, justice that does not seek primarily to punish the perpetrator, to hit out, but looks to heal a breach, to restore a social equilibrium that the atrocity or misdeed has disturbed.”

This isn’t a comfortable place to be in. It’s not a distinction between forgiving and forgiven, wrong and right. Instead, we’re both. We are to offer an open, loving forgiveness to those who have sinned against us. And we hope for a change, for true reconciliation and repentance, but we can’t require it. We can only hope. And for us, as people who know we are forgiven, we need to remember that that forgiveness comes with a price. God forgives us abundantly, but not without cost. Like that slave that took his forgiveness and turned it into retribution against his fellow slave. As forgiven people, we must also be able to forgive.

The acts of forgiveness remind us that we are all connected to each other. Our actions have consequences and affect the wider web of humanity. We sin, both as individuals and as groups. We sin as a church, as a nation.

We are all forgiving and forgiven. Its not about being nice, but about being honest. Not about escaping accountability—for ourselves or others—as we also have to be accountable.
We can ask God to help us forgive and thank God for forgiving us first.

As forgiven and reconciled people, we are to go and do likewise