Matthew’s fourth discourse on the Church reaches its conclusion in today’s Gospel which talks about forgiveness. It’s connected to the previous section on excommunicating the unrepentant brother or sister. But, as soon as the brother or sister does repent, there must be forgiveness.
Peter continues to act as a spokesman for the disciples and here clearly wants to explore the limits of patience and charity. Jesus responds to Peter’s suggestion of seven times of forgiveness with 77, in practice saying there is no limit to forgiveness.
The reason is for this limitlessness is given in the parable which Jesus speaks about the two servants in debt. The one who had a huge debt to the king was forgiven but then refused to forgive a relatively trivial debt to a fellow servant. (Ten thousand talents would be the equivalent today of hundreds of millions of dollars and the 300 denarii would be the equivalent about three months’ wages.) The ones with the big debt to the king are clearly ourselves; the ones with the small debts to us are our brothers and sisters. Our forgiveness of others should mirror that of God to us.
We don’t expect God only to forgive us once or twice but every time. But, if that’s true of our relationship with God, it also has to be true in our relationships with others. This isn’t the same as turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Yesterday’s Gospel made that very clear. We are talking about healing divisions between people; we must never put obstacles in the way of that. We all know that the inability to forgive those who have offended us is corrosive and nursing our hurts is destructive, but we also know that it’s sometimes very difficult to do. The book of Genesis tells us that we’re made in the image and likeness of God. I believe that we are most like God when we are loving, compassionate and forgiving.
Let’s pray that God will grant us forgiving hearts.