Trinity15 2026

Matthew 18: 21-35 and Genesis 50: 15-21

“How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered Peter, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Everyone, I suspect, is in favour of forgiveness, at least in principle. “Everyone,” C.S. Lewis writes, “says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until there is something to forgive”. What do we do then? What do we do when there is something to forgive?

Some people will strike back seeking revenge. Others will run away from life and relationships. Some people will let the darkness paralyze them. We know how hard forgiveness can be. We struggle with it and often avoid it. Yet none of those answers are the way of Christ. All of them leave us stuck in the past, tied to the evil of another, and bereft of the future God wants to give us.

Forgiveness is the only way forward. That does not mean we forget, condone, or approve of what was done. We don’t ignore or excuse cruelty or injustice. It means we are released from them. We look to the future rather than the past. We try to see and love as God sees and loves. Forgiveness is a way in which we align our life with God’s life. To withhold forgiveness is to put ourselves in the place of God, the ultimate judge to whom all are accountable (Ro. 14:10, 12).

God’s forgiveness and human forgiveness are integrally related. That is more than apparent in today’s parable. The king forgives his slave an extraordinary amount. Ten thousand talents is about 3000 years of work at the ordinary daily wage. It seems there is no debt too large to be forgiven. This man, this debtor, was forgiven. That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like. That’s how our God is. This slave, however, refused to forgive his fellow slave 100 denarii, about three months of work at the ordinary daily wage. Too often that’s what our world is like. Frequently, it is how we are. In that refusal, the forgiven slave lost his own forgiveness.

This should not be news to us. We know it well. We acknowledge and pray it every Sunday if not every day. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We pray those words with ease and familiarity, but do we live our prayer? Do our actions support our request? “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

That’s a lot of forgiveness but the pain of the world, our nation, and individuals is great. We need to forgive as much, maybe more, for ourselves as for the one we forgive. Forgiving those who trespass against us is the ointment that begins to heal our wounds. It may not change the one who hurt you, but your life will be more alive, more grace-filled, more whole, more God-like for having forgiven another.

Forgiveness creates space for new life. Forgiveness is an act of hopefulness and resurrection for the one who forgives. It is the healing of our soul and life. Forgiveness takes us out of darkness into light, from death to life. It disentangles us from the evil of another. It is the refusal to let our future be determined by the past. It is the letting go of the thoughts, the hatred, the fear that fill us so that we might live and love again.

Forgiving another takes time and work. It is something we must practice every day. It begins with recognition and thanksgiving that we have been forgiven. We are the beneficiaries of the crucified one. Hanging between two thieves he prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Lk. 23:34). That is the cry of infinite forgiveness, a cry we are to echo in our own lives, in our families, our work places, our parishes, our day to day life.

Forgiveness does not originate in us. It begins with God. That’s what the slave who refused to forgive didn’t understand. It was not about him. It’s about God. We do not choose to forgive. We only choose to share the forgiveness we have already received. For most of us forgiveness is a process that we live into. Sometimes, however, we just can’t. The pain is too much, the wound too raw, the memories too real. On those days we chose to want to forgive. Some days we chose to want to want to forgive. But we choose because that’s the choice Christ made.

How many times must we choose to forgive? How many times have you been hurt and suffered by the actions or words of another? How many times has anger or fear controlled you? How many times has the thought of revenge filled you? How many times have you replayed in your head the argument with another? That’s how many times you choose and with each choosing we move a step closer to forgiveness.

“Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Amen