“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt 6:14-15).  Jesus makes it clear, though it’s still hard to hear.  God’s forgiveness of us is coupled with our forgiveness of others: not conditional, but coupled, woven together.  God wants us to be forgiving, even as He is forgiving.  He wants us to learn forgiveness, from Him.

How many times, Peter asks?  We get it.  If someone, say a loved one, a friend or family member, or a member of the church, hurts us—not physically, of course, though we may have felt the injury like a blow to the body—if we are hurt, yes, we can make the sacrifice and forgive once, maybe twice.  It depends, though, doesn’t it?  Is the one who injured us sorry, truly sorry?  It depends on whether the one who injured us comes and asks for forgiveness, and admits the fault, with real sorrow.  Not the forced apology, where it’s clear they aren’t truly sorry because they don’t see that they hurt you, or don’t care.  Disciples must grow thick skins!  We also pray to God for a heart of forgiveness.

Once, twice—three times: that’s pushing it.  More than that, well, who’s the idiot, now?  Seventy times seven.  Always be ready to forgive.  Always?  Something is going on here, there’s an element here much deeper than the hurt others cause us.  Practice forgiveness, forgiveness as a way of life, forgiveness as the way to life.  No life, without forgiveness, as though to hold on to grudges, to keep wounds raw, to refuse to forgive, is to be dead, to have lost the way to life.

As for injuries, insults, wounds—these will come.  We cannot avoid them; they happen, can happen repeatedly.  Sins are rarely one-time events.  You know that.  I know that.  God knows that.  Let forgiveness be more than a one-time event.  Christ on the cross was a one-time event, and God’s forgiveness is ongoing.  We know why, yet we haven’t quite learned why.  Perhaps Jesus will show us; perhaps the Spirit is directing us to something deeper here, one of the deep, true things of God: forgiveness is a way of life, a way to life; no life, without forgiveness—no life for you, without the forgiveness given in Jesus Christ; no life for you if you do not live according to forgiveness, live in the way of forgiveness.  We receive it as a free gift from God.  Then, we must offer it, like grace, like love.  God gives us forgiveness to give.  This is the nature of God, the way of forgiveness.  He expects us to follow.

          Scripture tells us that forgiveness is in harmony with love: the two go together, coupled, woven together (Num 14:19).  No love, no forgiveness; no forgiveness, no love.  The word forgive appears most often in Leviticus, which is no surprise, really: there we are told about the way God gave Israel for atonement, forgiveness.  It is a way of love; it is a way of life.  It costs life.  Leviticus gives instruction for the animal sacrifices.  His people are to come to Him, confess their sins, and seek God’s forgiveness: God assures His people that the sacrificial blood atones—that blood for their blood.  Atonement with God is by sacrifice: Jesus tells his faithful, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28).

The blood, the life—a life for forgiveness, a life of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a way of life, for those in Christ.  Forgiveness, Christ shows us, is the way to life.  We are to love others, accept them, not for their sake, not for our sake, but for God’s sake.  We are to forgive, not for the sake of the one who hurt us, nor for our own sake, but for the sake of God.  Forgiving is good for those who have harmed us, if they are truly sorry—that doesn’t always happen, not often enough, maybe.  Forgiving is good for us: don’t you know what unforgiven hurt can do to you?  What old wound are you still rubbing raw?  Why?

Above all, we forgive for the sake of God.  This is God’s way.  God forgives us, from the heart.  When we reflect upon both the forgiveness God has extended to us, and on all that we have done, said, and thought that needed God’s forgiveness, when we remember all the hurt we have caused, unwillingly, unknowingly, or, God help us!, willingly hurt, knowingly hurt, hurt in order to hurt, hurt because we felt like it, because they had it coming, because they didn’t matter anyway, hurt because we could, because there would be no consequences for us—we haven’t lived especially pretty lives, have we?  God knows.  God forgives.  Consider all that God has forgiven you.

Reflect upon the forgiveness God gives you and you begin reflecting God by offering forgiveness.  No offense so great as an offense against God!  God is clear about what every offense merits: it isn’t happy, I assure you.  It’s nothing you would ever want.  But, honestly, we haven’t done anything so terrible, have we?  Really, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to someone, or to yourself, or to your relationship with God?  A little lying, a little cheating, a little messing around.  A sober alcoholic joked about having a little drinking problem; at once he corrected himself, was candid before God: it wasn’t a little problem, it was a problem.  I still have problems.  You still have problems.  God forgives.  Reflect upon the forgiveness God gives you, and practice forgiveness as a way of life.

Don’t practice false forgiveness, weaponized forgiveness, mouthing the words but not forgiving in your heart, or forgiving so long as it is convenient, until you feel like hurting the one who hurt you.  Oh, but we don’t like to hurt anybody, even the one who hurt us: we’re Christians!  No, we don’t like to hurt, do we?  Until we do.  God provides healing for our wounds—don’t keep them open!  You who know what it is to be hurt, why do that to others?  Bless, love, forgive.

You’ve heard the old saying “forgive and forget.”  I don’t think that’s possible or even wise.  Forgive, yes, do!  But we remember; we do not forget.  But don’t use remembrance as a weapon, to punish, to humiliate.  Don’t use forgiveness as camouflage for your program of revenge.  Vengeance must be immensely greater than the hurt, yes?, in order to teach a lesson, to show our power, to defeat and destroy the one who hurt us.  Yet God tells us that vengeance is to be left to Him: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” (Dt 32:35).  God’s vengeance is perfect because it is perfectly just and it is perfectly loving, because God is love.  But we must leave it to God, which means we have to wait.  Can we leave the final balancing, the final settlement of all accounts, to God?  Do we trust God to get it right?  Peter wondered; we do, too.

Jesus tells a story.  A king wanted to settle accounts (18:23).  Uh oh!  One of his servants is hauled before this king (18:24).  This servant was deep in the king’s debt, unable to pay what he owed (18:24-25): not ever, not in twenty lifetimes, not in two thousand years could he even begin to dare to hope to make a slight start upon repayment.  He didn’t have that kind of time.  His time was comparatively brief.  He begged for patience, for mercy, promising to repay it all (18:26).  We’ll say anything, won’t we?  We always promise to pay, making yet another promise we cannot possibly keep.  What are our promises worth?  God knows.

This king, knowing what all these desperate promises were worth, had pity upon the man (18:27).  The king didn’t need to: he chose to have pity.  The king chose to forgive the debt, to cancel it and set the man free.  What if all your debt were just canceled, canceled today?  All that medical debt, all that credit card debt, your auto loans, your home loan, all those little personal loans, all debt, canceled?  You would feel free, suddenly, miraculously, marvelously free.  You wouldn’t understand it.  You would barely believe it.  The joy would be almost unimaginable.  You would make resolutions: no way would you ever again willingly, knowingly get yourself into such a perilous situation.  You’d resolve to improve this gift that the king just gave you.

You’d walk out feeling so elated, like all was right with the world, life was perfect.  Then you’d see that jerk who owed you that twenty thousand, who talked about repaying it, who wasn’t even shy about being around you, like he was flouting your stupidity for not beating him right then and there.  Now you have had enough: that fool ruined your good mood; now, you just feel angry, like a sucker, and you’ve had it: you want what you have coming and you want it now.  How sweet to put that jerk in his place, make him grovel, make her beg, squirm.  Ooh, the power rush feels almost as good as that other feeling you just had!

Of course, like always, only a little more pitifully this time, the debtor pleads for mercy, for patience, promising to repay (18:29), like always.  No more, not this time.  You aren’t going to listen, this time.  Why does the world have jerks like this in it?  Why do jerks like this have to be in your life?  So, you make your hardened heart even harder, just like that other servant Jesus told us about.  That servant chose to harden his heart (18:30): he was enjoying it.  And he was no longer reflecting on what had just happened to him, on what it meant, the implications and consequences of it, in his own life.  Knowing the joy of forgiveness, total forgiveness, he wasn’t about to share it: this jerk in his debt didn’t deserve it.

Now, other servants saw and heard all this, and they were upset.  They took the matter to the king (18:31).  What we do is observed.  Our actions are seen . . . and our posts.  Our words are heard by others.  “The tongue is a small part of the body,” James reminds us, and it “is a fire” (James 3:5-6).  Let what we do live up to what we say, and let what we say be matched by what we do.  Do we live in harmony with God who has forgiven us freely, completely, and set us free?  Do we live in that same Spirit?  God knows.

As God shows us mercy, let us show mercy.  As God has forgiven us, let us live to forgive those who have wounded us.  Easy?  No!  Hard, so hard.  And holy, if God is right.  Blessed, if Jesus is right.  The way of life; the way to life.  “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  Jesus tells us that the servant who did not forgive was handed over “to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed” (18:34).  Our Jesus says, sweet Jesus.  Then he says, “this is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (18:35).

Strong, clear language.  Jesus wants us to know this for a fact, for a certainty.  He wants us to know it because it matters hugely.  We hear it, but can we live it?  Jesus has in view, first, believers, the church, because here in the church, as the church, is where we are learning to live in this Way.  We also take this Way with us.  Forgive from the heart the one who injures us, not just once, not twice only, but every time?  Doesn’t that just make us a sucker, a fool, an idiot?  Or does it make us holy?  Beloved, may I just say that the practice of forgiveness opens for us long vistas into the heart of God.  Not everyone will see, not everyone can, right now, just as not everyone sees that God is at work even now, right now, in you, in me, in so many not here, not even known to us, right now.

Radical forgiveness as a way of life, the way to life.  Live to forgive and forgive to live.  That’s a high calling, a high expectation: higher than we can attain, without help, without support.  Here we are, for one another, with one another, for this reason.  No help for these high expectations?  Do we forget God, so quickly, so easily, as if we didn’t even know Him, didn’t even know what He has done for us, given us?  God gives us His Word, gives Jesus Christ, gives His Holy Spirit, gives us the Church, gives us one another to learn the way of forgiveness, which is the way of love, which is the way of grace, which is the way to life.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.