Thursday of Week 19 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
21Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
23“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, 25and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.
1When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.
Commentary on Matthew 18:21—19:1
The last part of Matthew‘s discourse on the church is about forgiveness. This is not unconnected with the previous section on excommunicating the unrepentant brother or sister. As soon as a brother or sister does repent, there must be forgiveness—not just once, but indefinitely—”seventy-seven times”.
The reason 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 owed to him by a fellow servant. Understand that ten thousand talents then would be the equivalent of hundreds of millions in a major currency today, and the 300 denarii would have been the equivalent of about three months’ wages.
In the Gospel, 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.
We do not expect God to forgive us once or twice or any limited number of times, but every time. It is nowhere written that we have, say, only ten chances of going to confession and, once our quota is used up, there is nothing left. But if that is true of our relationship with God, it also has to be true in our relationships with others. We can never refuse an offer of reconciliation. And, we might add, forgiveness is much easier to fully complete when reconciliation has taken place.
This is not at all the same as turning a blind eye to wrongdoing. Yesterday’s text made that very clear. We are talking about healing divisions between people; we must never put obstacles in the way of that.
We have now come to the end of this discourse indicated by the first sentence of chapter 19:
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.
