Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
There’s a little bit of discussion as to whether Jesus says 77 times, or 70 times seven times. It doesn’t change much, except mathematically. It’s the difference between 77 and 490, but either way, Jesus is using hyperbole, He’s exaggerating, He’s making a point, and He’s blowing Peter’s self-righteousness out of the water.
Yes, Peter, the disciple whom I think I, personally, am most like, is completely and totally self-righteous in this passage. He asks Jesus if he should forgive his brother the grand number of seven times. Now, this was a big deal. Many of the rabbis at this time were teaching you only needed to forgive three times. So, Peter, thinking himself better than most, decides, let’s double that number. And you know what, I’ll add another forgiveness on top of it. Three times two is six, plus one is seven. Jesus, should I forgive Andrew, my little, stinking, rotten, annoying brother seven times, I mean, after all, that’s a lot. And he’s really annoying. You know, you’ve been with him a couple years now. Imagine me, I’ve known him all his life!
I can imagine Jesus almost rolling His eyes at Peter and thinking about how He’s going to have to beat this one back. Not seven times, but seventy-seven times. And that’s quite a bit. But, Jesus might as well have said, in comparison to the other rabbis, you should forgive your brother eleventy-bajillion times. It’s ridiculous, it’s ludicrous, and it’s the point.
So, to get Peter through his self-righteousness, and to get him to depend solely on God, to get him to repent of this sin of thinking too highly of himself than he ought, Jesus tells a parable. And it’s a parable that is perhaps somewhat misunderstood today. It’s a parable of kings and kingdoms and debts and slavery and prisons. We don’t have most of that today, so let’s cover some of it real quick.
A king in Jesus’ time would have ruled over a whole kingdom, but we’re not talking empires, necessarily, we’re talking small countries. Perhaps the size of Ohio. Somewhere around there. And these kings would have this kingdom and the kingdom would be worth a certain amount of money. Let’s just say a kingdom in Jesus’ time was worth somewhere around twenty-million dollars. That would have been plenty of money to keep everything going, the crops to be planted, the soldiers to be paid, the king to have staff.
And the king would also have slaves. Now, slavery was a little different back then for the most part. A Jewish king would not have had prisoner slaves, conquered slaves. That was against the Scriptures. Rather, he would have slaves, basically employees, that would offer themselves to the king for 6 years in exchange for the king’s ability to pay back their debts as well as provide food and shelter for them. In the seventh year, they would be set free with no debt owed.
These slaves would oversee many things, and many times would become part of the family and these slaves had the choice of staying or going in that seventh year. Sometimes, the slave would have an allowance they would have to pay back by working or by other services. And if they couldn’t pay, they would have to go to debtor’s prison, where they would have to work and have all of their wages garnished until the debt was gone.
I hope that helps, because the parable that Jesus tells Peter is about a slave of a king who wracked up 10,000 talents. Now, a talent is NOT a skill or ability when you see that word with money. It’s not. A talent is a way to measure money, gold, or silver. A talent is actually about 80 pounds, so we’re talking 800,000 pounds of gold, 400 tons. Today, that amount of gold would be worth $15,760,640,000. If you made $45,000, a year, it would take you 350,000 years to make that kind of money. All the stats are interesting, but, to be honest, that’s not even really what Jesus was getting at. He’s not meaning for us to count the money; He wants us to see that this all is just insane.
The amount of debt Jesus says the slave wracked up is huge. It’s incredible, and it’s absolutely impossible. That debt would have paid for nearly 800 kingdoms. It would have been enough to cover the entire world in this specific king’s rule. If anyone had that amount of money, they would be the richest man in the universe. He would rule the planet. He’d be the overlord.
So, one, there’s no way the slave could possibly have this kind of debt, and two, there’s no way the king in the parable had this amount of money. But Jesus is using hyperbole here to make his point against Peter. The master calls his slave in to pay the debt. The slave can’t, he knows he can’t, and so he begs for the master’s mercy. And surprise of surprises, the master FORGIVES the debt! You cannot forgive a debt this big. You can’t. You would ruin the whole world. You would set the world’s economic systems in chaos. AND, you would, in effect, make this slave the master of all, for he has the benefit side of the debt. He is the one who got what he needed and got to keep it. But, Jesus says the master is full of pity on this man, he has mercy, and sends him off. This man got off into the world with fifteen billion dollars.
And then he sees another slave, one of the men in the very same condition he was in, except this slave owes HIM money, about $21. And, the fifteen billion dollar slave wants his money. So he chokes the ever-loving mind out of this $21 slave and then throws him in prison until he pays it back. Do you see what Jesus is setting up here yet? A man who has been forgiven much, holding little against another?
So, what does the master do? He gets ticked. He takes everything the man owns, his wife, his children, his home, his possessions, and then throws every single family member in debtor’s prison until it can all be repaid. If he’s got two kids, that’s good. It’ll only take everyone about 87,500 years total to get it all done. No worries.
And then Jesus says this, we’ll each be thrown into prison by the Father unless we forgive our brother from the heart. Now, a couple of things. When Jesus uses “brother,” He’s usually talking about us, his brothers and sisters in faith. And when He says “heart,” He’s usually talking about the place from where our thoughts, faith, and beliefs come from. So, is Jesus saying that you have to forgive everyone absolutely perfectly, and you have to feel every bit of it in your emotions so that you’re never mad ever again at them?
No, He’s not. What He is saying is this: we forgive others in the faith because we have been forgiven much. We forgive others because we know that it is what our faith has moved us to do. And we forgive others because we know the depth of our sin and how much in debt we were to the Lord, so how is it we possibly hold anything AT ALL against our brothers and sisters?
Seriously, if you’re holding grudges against your brothers and sisters, and let’s talk especially about those here in this congregation, the Lord is telling you that you should indeed be thrown into hell because you’re no better than the 15 billion dollar slave choking the 21 buck slave. You’re no better than an ant gnawing on an aphid. You’re no better than a mountain sitting on a pebble. You’re no better than this man.
And in fact, let’s all be honest, we’re not better than jack. We’re all holding grudges. We’re all little complainers. We’re all unwilling to forgive someone. It’s our sinful nature. I sit there with you. I’m an unforgiver. I’m the 15 billion dollar slave. And so are you. And we should go to hell.
The debt of sin we have is enormous, and we never, ever, EVER could pay it off. We couldn’t. Even one little sin, a little white lie, is enough to separate us forever from God’s love. It’s enough to send us to hell with the devil and his angels. It’s enough.
But, what’s the other side to this story? You see, Jesus ended with the Law for Peter, didn’t He? Unless you forgive your brother, you will be sent away. Why did Jesus end there? Because He needed Peter to repent. He needed Peter to leave behind his self-righteousness, and depend on Christ’s righteousness. He needed Peter to repent of his unforgiving nature, and look to Christ’s forgiveness.
But, if you have repented of your sin, John tells us that God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That’s what the Law does. It moves us to repent. And then the Gospel restores us to God in and through Christ Jesus. And so it has.
For the master, the king who was willing to risk the entire world, His entire kingdom, everything He owned, everything He ruled, everything He loved, risked it all for a great debtor, you. This master is Christ, and He gave up all things for you. He gave up the love of God. He gave up the fellowship of the Trinity. He gave up His life upon the cross, all for you. And He did it out of pity, and mercy, and love. He went to the cross to take your debt. He paid your debt, your account. And so, to this master we look for mercy and pity and love. We’re not going to find it in ourselves. We’re too in debt to look to ourselves. Our debt has to be paid by someone greater than us, someone who can forgive us.
And so, in Christ, we are restored. More than that, it is as if Christ has not only taken our massive, world-shattering debt, but He has given us double besides. As Christ is raised from the dead, so, too, do we have the promise of everlasting life. When we owed God a death because of our sin, Christ took that death for the entire world. But, Christ has raised Himself in newness of life, and He know even promises that we will have the same. We are better than the 15 billion dollar servant, for we have all that we could want, nothing we abhor, and promises unto everlasting life.
So, why do we hold sins, debts, grudges against our fellow brothers and sisters? Why? Sin. Our own sin. Our own most grievous sin. For the sake of Christ, and what He has done for us, we should stop. We should do as Christ tells us to. We should forgive. We must forgive, after all, we’re Christians. It’s what we do. As we are forgiven, so we forgive. We are forgiven much, we are called to forgive little.
But, when you can’t forgive, when you have a hard time forgiving, look to Christ. For there, He tells you that He forgives you. And when you cannot look to Christ, come to the Church, where I will tell you that I forgive you. And when you cannot hear my words, eat the Lord’s body and blood and taste His forgiveness. And when you feel unworthy for the altar, remember that Christ has forgiven you long ago in your baptisms. These are all relying on Christ. They are here for your sake, and they are all for your forgiveness. They are all there for you, for Christ forgives you. He is the great master, full of pity and mercy and love for you. Be forgiven, for so you are. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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