Episode Details

Peter’s Question and Jesus’ Radical ReplyLast week we considered Christ’s teaching on what to do if a brother sins against you. “Go and tell him his fault,” Christ says, “and if he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”In our passage this morning, Peter— as he often does— has a question about this. As we might, because it rather implies that we accept our brother’s apology and therefore want to be reconciled with him. “Lord,” says Peter, “how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”The biblical number seven implies wholeness, completion, fullness. So Peter believes he is saying something very great and magnanimous. Others may forgive once or twice, but I am going so far as to suggest that we may forgive up to seven times.Jesus’ response, though, is far more radical than he was anticipating: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”Lamech’s Vengeance and Christ’s AlternativeWe should be cautious about taking Jesus too literally here, because to Peter and the observant Jews who were present and listening, they would most probably have recognised the reference to the Book of Genesis— what we would call Genesis 4— and a particular character called Lamech, who comes after Cain in his line.Lamech is said to have taken two wives, and he boasted to them:“Ada and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”In other words, if Cain wreaked a certain amount of destruction in killing Abel, Lamech says he will wreak far more. Notice also that Lamech’s violence is taken in vengeance for wrongs done to him. “If I am wounded, I will kill. If I am struck, I will destroy.”And that, of course, friends, is the normal way of humanity. It is the instinct that we all recognise, that we all to some extent possess: to hurt, to wound, even to kill, when somebody hurts us. This is vengeance.Many of you will have seen the film in the cinemas at the moment— Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. Homer’s story, his epic poem, culminates in an act of brutal and pitiless vengeance, which is depicted as just and heroic. The evil and wicked suitors got what they deserved.However, it seems that Christ came to show us a different way, and that this is what those numbers— seven and seventy-seven— point to. Christ is comparing his way to the way of Lamech, and to a certain extent with the way of the rest of humanity. If Lamech is saying vengeance and destruction without limit, then Christ is saying forgiveness and reconciliation without limit. He is not saying “count to seventy-seven and then stop.” He is actually saying: stop counting. Don’t count. Don’t keep a record. Just forgive— and go on forgiving.The Parable of the Unforgiving ServantThen Jesus tells a story. He says there was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. One servant owed a huge amount of money— a colossal, extraordinary amount. In our day we might say he owed billions of pounds. It was a debt he could not possibly pay.So he begs the king for mercy, knowing that he and his family are about to be sold into slavery. And amazingly— amazingly— the king has pity on him and forgives this enormous debt.Then that servant, forgiven so much and so lavishly, so easily, goes and finds a fellow servant. That second servant owes something a lot less— still significant, but a lot less: ten thousand or something like that. Still a lot of money, but nowhere near billions. The first servant starts choking him, will not listen to his pleas for mercy, and throws him into prison until he should pay every penny.Then comes the twist. Some other servants see all this happening. They are greatly distressed and go and tell the king. The king summons the first servant and says: “I forgave you all that debt, and yet you would not forgive your fellow servant something so much less