Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-22

John 21:15-17

            A pastor once told me the sermons he preached that received the most negative reactions were the ones on grace.  It seems his listeners wanted themselves and the people they loved (or at least who thought and believed the way they did) forgiven freely, but not any of those other kinds of folk.  The parishioners wanted the other ones to suffer—to pay for their forgiveness.  Why should that kind of sinner get off scot free?

            Jesus, of course, saw things differently.  He understood forgiveness—real forgiveness—better than anyone.  True, he did seem to have it in for the religious leaders.  He gave them a hard time about forgiveness—but it’s important to remember that most of them were unrepentant.  There is solid evidence that some of the leaders (Nicodemus, for instance, or Joseph of Arimathea) came to Jesus in an entirely different frame of mind.

            The Matthew passage actually begins several verses before this.  Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”  Jesus continued on with other teaching on this subject, but if we look at Peter we can see he’s not paying attention.  We know how that works.  We hear something that engages our interest, so we stop listening to what is being said and begin to frame our response.  People who teach interpersonal communication skills tell us this is the wrong approach, but in the heat of the moment, we forget.

            When Jesus stops to take a breath, Peter says, “So, should I forgive my brother seven times?”  Seven—the magic number.  Anyone who forgave seven times was considered gracious indeed!  After all, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Fool me seven times and I’m either a super fool or a saint.

            Not in Jesus’ eyes.  Jesus throws all common ideas of grace out the window.  “Forgive seventy times seven,” he says.  The idea here is that by the time Peter (or any of us) gets well into that number he’ll forget where he is in the count and have to start over.  Our forgiveness, like God’s, will be never-ending.

            There was one other time, again with Peter, when Jesus seemed to tie the forgiveness closely to the sin.  You remember how on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied three times not only that he was a follower of his Lord, but that he even knew him.  You will also remember Peter’s reaction when he realized what he had done.  He wept bitterly—as any of us would have done who had denied Jesus so completely.

            Imagine the guilt Peter must have carried!  He knew he would never have a chance to make it right—never have a chance to ask forgiveness from the Lord he had turned his back on.  For Peter, even the resurrection must have been tinged with fear and remorse.  How would Jesus treat him now?  Would he still be given the keys to the kingdom?  Was there any hope of him ever being allowed back in the inner circle?

            Then comes the encounter by the seashore that John describes so beautifully.  Three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times Peter replies, “Yes, Lord.”  By the third time we hear some exasperation creeping into his voice, but Jesus doesn’t seem to notice.  Three times Jesus says, “Feed my sheep, my lambs.  Do for them what I have done for you.  Here begins your chance to offer grace.”

            Jesus calls us to offer grace in the same way—and in the same amount—today.