A synopsis of the sermon delivered by the Rev. David L. Hicks at St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church at the 10:30am service on Trinity XXII, November 7, 2004. Please read St. Matthew 18:21-35.

Today is the Sunday after All Saints Day, which was celebrated last Monday. In this season of the year we are especially mindful of all those who have gone before us in the Christian faith and have provided wholesome and holy examples of what it means to lead of life of service to Jesus Christ. Essential to this example of holiness, and perhaps one of the most difficult to emulate, is the action of forgiveness. In our Gospel lesson for today, Saint Peter is particularly vexed about the whole question of forgiveness and asks our Lord how often one must forgive an offending person. Jesus responds to his question with a parable about a servant who was himself forgiven a huge sum of money (10,000 talents, which equals several million dollars by today’s standard) by his king, but he in turn refused to forgive one of his fellow servants for a much smaller debt (100 pence, or a few dollars). When the king hears of the first servant’s behavior, he is quite angry and demands the payment of the debt that had been forgiven. Our Lord concludes with these words, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Mt. 18:35).

Jesus’ teaching shows us that there is a direct connection between our ability to forgive and the comprehension of how much God has forgiven us. God’s action of forgiveness and our action of forgiveness are linked together. We see this illustrated in the Lord’s Prayer that we repeat in each of our church services – “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The reason that the servant’s behavior in the parable is so heinous is that he was forgiven so much. If Jesus’ parable were simply the story of a man who demanded that a debt be repaid, we might be disturbed somewhat by the man’s lack of patience, but we would not give it much more thought than that. But if we learn that this same man had been forgiven a huge debt, his subsequent lack of mercy toward someone who owed him a paltry amount becomes much more condemnable. 

Our Lord told this story to Peter, and through St. Matthew to us, in order that we might understand the nature of forgiveness as it relates to God’s people. We should not be asking the question, “How many times must I forgive this person.” Rather, we should consider how much God has forgiven us. When we truly appreciate the extent to which God’s grace in Jesus Christ has cancelled the great debt of our sins toward God, then we will have the right frame of mind to consider the sins that others have committed against us. All of this is not to say, however, that God wants us to continue to be burdened by the guilt of our past sins. God speaks through Isaiah the prophet saying, “I am he who blots out your transgression for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Is. 43:25). While we can forget our sins, we are not to forget the wideness of God’s mercy in dealing with our sins, so that we may show that same mercy to others. 
Amen.