What is Forgiveness? (04-21-16 Part II)

“Up to seven times?” The Jewish law in those days talked about forgiving someone three times as evidence of compassion and kindness. So this man figures he’s going to try to look big by doubling that amount and then throwing in an extra one for good measure to get it up to the perfect number seven (to seal the deal of his image of generosity). “Up to seven times?”

What’s Jesus’ point? He responds to the question by saying, “No, not up to only seven times, but seven times seventy!” In other words, think big, think way bigger than you’re used to thinking. Think, not three, not even the seven of perfection, but 490. In other words, live your life continuously with an attitude of forgiveness.

So what’s Jesus’ point? Why does he tell the story in answer to the man’s question? We can observe two points here:

1. Our ability to forgive is in direct proportion to our acknowledgement that we’re debtors, too. We’re not perfect. We’ve failed many times. We’ve hurt others. We compiled debts in our lives, just like everyone else. We’re no better than anyone else. Until we first admit that human reality about ourselves, we’re not in a position to let others go.

Here’s how that works. When the king confronts the servant with his incalculable debt, the servant’s immediate response is, “Give me more time. I can pay it back.” Didn’t he see that his debt was too huge for him make a dent in?

Did he really think he could extend his life for another 190,000 plus years? Or did he simply have the life view that you only get what you deserve? There’s no such thing as a free meal. You work for everything. So his automatic response was, “I can do this! I can pay off my debt if I just had more time! So give me more time and I’ll clear it all up!”

This paradigm of life doesn’t acknowledge the existence of grace in the mix. It simply operates on the “pay back” system. You do your work, you get your reward. No work, no reward. And so, since that is what you expect from yourself, that is what you expect from others. Hence, the servant, who though his debt was graciously cancelled by the king still operated under the “I can pay you back” paradigm, comes across his indebted colleague and, rather than cancel his debt, throws him into jail until the man’s debt is paid back to him. No grace, no forgiveness. You only get what you deserve, what you are willing to work for.

So, at the heart of Jesus’ model prayer is an acknowledgement of a very significant spiritual reality: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” It begins with confession of our own indebtedness – that we’re no better than anyone else; that we’re in debt to others and to God, too. And that the only way we have hope is through grace, a kindness toward us that we could never deserve but only accept – forgiveness of our debts that can never be repaid no matter how many extra years are added to our lives.

Living in that truth empowers us to live in humility – a humble recognition of our own humanity, our own frailness and brokenness, our own need of grace and kindness and acceptance beyond our ability to repay our debts or to work off our sins and failures against God, others and ourselves.