Numbers 14:10-23 Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they."
       But Moses said to the LORD, "Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O LORD, are in the midst of this people; for you, O LORD, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, 'It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.' And now, therefore, let the power of the LORD be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, 'The LORD is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.' Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now."
       Then the LORD said, "I do forgive, just as you have asked; nevertheless--as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD-- none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.

Matthew 18:21-35 Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
       "For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But 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.' Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

I. BEGINNING

Forgiveness is not easy. It is a hard, almost counterintuitive thing to do. Someone does something wrong to me and I'm supposed to let them off the hook.

I'm sure you've had an experience like this: Once I was driving through my neighborhood and in an attempt to take a shortcut, turned into an alleyway. About half way down someone had parked their car while loading something up. When they got back to their car, they motioned to me to back up all the way down the alley. At first I protested saying that the alley was not a driveway and that they were in the wrong blocking me. The guy just shrugged and got in and started backing up. A lot of thoughts went through my head. Should I refuse to move? Should I provoke this guy? Should I get the baseball bat out of my trunk? In the end, I just backed up and let the guy out. But I'll tell you something, it ate at me all night. I felt like the biggest pushover. He had clearly been in the wrong and I did nothing to stop it. In fact, I allowed him to get away with it. And it made me feel like I'd been used.

That experience has happened a number of times to me. People do something wrong and you let them off the hook and often there is a sense of feeling taken advantage of.

II. The Text: An impossible Task

Something of those feelings comes back when I read a passage like the one in the New Testament lesson for today. Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone who has committed an offense against him. He even offers a suggestion: seven times. Seven's a good Biblical number, after all. It's a number of completeness and perfection. Of wholeness. Of shalom . But Jesus says, "Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times." Now that's a whole lot more. And it turns out that the Greek can also be translated "seventy times seven" which means "490 times." That's a good deal more.

I don't know about you, but I lose patience right around the third time someone has done something wrong to me. Three strikes and you're out, right? I'm not about to give 490 strikes. That seems unreasonable, Jesus. I mean, how is such a system supposed to work anyway?

III. Justice & Forgiveness

One day in my Systematic Theology course in seminary, our professor brought up South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He asked if anyone knew what it was and one of my classmates said, "Yes, it's a way to let guilty people get off without punishment."

For those of you who don't remember, the Commission was a part of Mandela's post-apartheid government's effort to move on from the sins and wrongs of apartheid. One of the prominent members of the Commission was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Commission invited anyone who had been a victim of violence or oppression to come forward and testify as to what had been suffered. The Commission thus compiled an extraordinary record of the abuses under the apartheid regime--both those perpetrated by the government and those perpetrated by the resistance movements.

But perhaps even more extraordinary is that anyone who had participated in violence could come forward, testify, and request amnesty from prosecution. Over 10% of those who requested amnesty were awarded amnesty.

The South African model was very different from the Nuremburg model--where the victor puts the defeated criminal government on trial and winds up executing a number of them. (This was the model used in Iraq.) And while many would argue that the South African model greatly helped to bind up the wounds of decades of oppression and violence, others would argue that it leaves justice wanting.

It's just like the man with the car in the alleyway. I'd let him off the hook. Justice was wanting.

But that is perhaps one of the greatest misunderstandings we have about forgiveness. See, forgiveness does not come apart from justice. Indeed, when forgiveness is done right, it is the most just result.

It's helpful to know that "forgiveness" as a term, like many terms in the Bible, is an economic term. It refers to the cancellation of debts. Now, as one with $100,000 in student loans that I'll be paying off until I'm 64, I like that image very much.

Now, the thing about canceling a debt is, no one pretends the debt didn't exist. No, the reality of the debt is what makes forgiveness so extraordinary. And that is why Jesus uses the image of debt in his parable about forgiveness. A man owes 10,000 talents to his master. He is forgiven this debt but then comes upon someone who owes him 100 denarii. He is merciless with his debtor and hands him over to debtor's prison. When the master is made aware of this, he has the man cast out himself.

Let's put that into perspective. A denarius was a day's wage. A talent was 15 year's worth of wages. One source reports that the money owed by the unforgiving debtor was 204 metric tons of silver or about "60 million denarii". [1] The amount owed by the first man was substantial. If we look at the cost of 204 metric tons of silver at today's rate of $13.18 per ounce, we're talking $94,840,834.20. Or if we put it into labor terms, given a daily wage of $ 52.40 (8 hours at $6.55 an hour), that amounts to $ 3,144,000,000.

It is not an inconsequential amount. That's Bernie Madoff kind of money. And yet the king pardons the man who owes him this staggering sum. Now of course, the parable is meant to show how much God forgives us and thus how we are required to forgive others, especially when the sins committed against us are, in perspective, far less than those we commit against God.

Now, let me ask you: is God a pushover? God is demonstrated as canceling a significant debt. Is God not interested in justice? Is God weak?

IV. Weakness & Strength

One of my favorite scenes in the movie Schindler's List involves a conversation between Oskar Schindler and the commandant of the ?odz concentration camp Amon Göth. The two have been drinking and Schindler, who has secretly been protecting Jews in his factory, decides to try to intervene with Göth, who is a vicious, murderous thug. He starts to talk to Göth about what power is. He says that the Caesars understood what power was. They would bring some poor worthless wretch of a man before the emperor. The man had committed some offense and was guilty. To the emperor, this man was nothing. In consequential. But the emperor would pardon him. Schindler says, "True power is in having the right to kill, but refraining from killing."

The advice works for a while and Göth refrains from killing prisoners for minor offenses, but his malice wins out in the end and he reverts to his killing ways.

But Schindler was right. Forgiveness does not come from weakness, but from strength. It does not come apart from justice, but as necessary to justice. When we are wronged, we do not roll over out of weakness. We stand up--like the king we make an accounting of the wrong. We declare that a wrong has been done. Just as God does with the Israelites in the wilderness, there is an accounting, and there is often consequences (they will not enter the Promised Land) but there is no need for retribution or vengeance. We declare what was wrong, but out of strength, we choose to let it go.

That is not something that the weak can do. Nor is it something the weak should be encouraged to do. Too often oppressors encourage the oppressed to adopt attitudes of forgiveness. It's why they taught Christianity to slaves--hoping it would make them docile and teach them about suffering and forgiveness. Our task is to empower the oppressed to see the strength they have, that out of forgiveness they are not succumbing to the oppressor, they are claiming power over the oppressor. Forgiveness is something that only one who has made a full appreciation of the wrong committed, of the impact it's had, of the depth of the hurt, and then made a choice to move past it. It is not an easy thing. Nor is it always a quick thing. But it is a Christian thing.

When we come at this from a perspective of strength and power, forgiving seven times, or seventy-seven times, or four-hundred and ninety times is not beyond us.

V. END

Paul writes that God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and that God's weakness is stronger than human strength. To an outside observer, a commitment to forgiveness can seem like weakness. It can seem like foolishness. It can seem like we're pushovers. But to those who forgive and are forgiven, the power of forgiveness, the wisdom of forgiveness is clear.

We do not forgive out of weakness of foolishness, we do so out of strength and wisdom. Out of a recognition that God's love, God's strength, God's power is known through mercy and forgiveness. And when we forgive others, we help them to know something of that love, strength, and power, too.

It is part of a process of loving the way God loves us. So much of God's love is known to us in letting go: letting go in giving us free will, letting go in forgiving our sins, letting go even of God's own Son upon the Cross. And we as disciples of Christ are called to do likewise. Not to do so out of weakness or injustice, but out of strength and our own choice.

Because ultimately, forgiveness is about us being able to let go of the things that keep us from closer relationship with God. And often those things are the perceived grievances we have with others who have done us wrong. Forgiveness calls us to let go of those things and in so doing to come to a deeper understanding of the heart of God.

Notes
[1] Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol 6. "Weights and Measures", p. 907.