+ 16th Sunday after Pentecost – September 13th, 2026 +
Series A: Genesis 50:15-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Peter remembered what the rabbis had taught him: three times you were obligated to forgive. And no more. Seven, seemed generous. It’s a biblical number. Surely that’s enough.
Jesus replied, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. (or 70x7 depending on your translation). It’s not about numbers. Forgiveness, Jesus tells Peter, is not like a battery or a gas tank. Forgiveness has no end. No cutoff line. No threshold. Jesus’ forgiveness is inexhaustible.
So Jesus tells a parable about sin and forgiveness. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wants to settle accounts with his servants. There was a servant who owed an outrageous amount of money to the king. Ten thousand talents. 200,000 years’ worth of day’s wages. A debt...more like a death sentence.
And what does the king do? He embraces the man’s debt. Embraces his death.
He wipes way the entire debt. And the servant was to live in this kingdom ruled by mercy, where debt and death are paid by the mercy of the master.
He finds a fellow servant who owed him a couple hundred bucks, wraps his fingers around the man’s neck, and demands payment in full. The king finds out. He summons the forgiven servant and condemns him to prison. The servant fails to embrace his death, to embrace forgiveness.
Jesus wants his disciples and us to stand in this servant's sandals.
Our sin is an unpayable debt. We’ve no chance of ever repaying it ever. You can never earn your freedom. All we can do, like the servant in the first part of the parable, is fall on our knees and beg the mercy of the King. And the King is merciful. He embraces your debt and embraces your death by embracing the cross for you. And there the debt is paid in full. Sin cancelled by the cross and blood of Jesus. Every day, hour, and moment we live in the abundant mercy and endless forgiveness in Jesus.
Jesus also wants us to live in his forgiveness. To live in his unending forgiveness, and to forgive others as Christ forgives us. The way Jesus tells this parable is intentionally absurd. The unpayable debt vs. the smaller debt. We are the servant of this parable: in need of forgiveness, but constantly struggling to forgive. C.S. Lewis said it well: “Forgiveness is a lovely idea until we have something to forgive.”
We know we should forgive. Jesus commands us to forgive. Still we wonder, how can I do that? What do I do when forgiveness is hard, feels impossible even? The answer to that is in Jesus’ parable. Don’t look to the servant (don’t look at yourself), but the merciful, forgiving master. Jesus’ parable draws us back to him and his forgiveness, time and time again.
Whenever we’re dealing with sin and forgiveness…go back to the merciful, forgiving master, Jesus. When you’re struggling to forgive someone, go back to Jesus’ abundant, limitless forgiveness. When you don’t know how to forgive don’t look at the person’s sin but look to where all sin is embraced, where debt and death is embraced for you: on the cross by the blood of Jesus.
This is what Jesus is getting at when he says...
“…if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” It’s about the heart, which is not the seat of emotions, it’s not about your feelings but about your will. Forgiveness is an intentional act. From the heart. The heart is the place where Sin has had its way. From the Sin-infected heart proceed all sorts of sins – murder, theft, adultery, gossip, slander, you name it. If we are going to forgive from the heart, then our hearts must be changed, and we can’t do that. But our Lord can and does.
Forgiveness begins not in our hearts but in the merciful heart of God. In the heart that seeks and saves the sinner. In the heart that beats with compassion for the least and the lost, the heart that reaches out to the ungodly and the enemy. The heart of God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish in Sin, desiring everyone to turn and live. It’s the heart of Jesus who prays, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing,” as Roman soldiers drive nails through His hands and feet to crucify Him.
The source of forgiveness is the cross of Jesus, pouring out forgiveness on the entire world. As St. Paul writes in Ephesians 4, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Our forgiveness is nothing else than His forgiveness, the overflow flowing over to the neighbor. Christ our King has embraced your debt and death. More than you could ever repay. In Jesus name, you are forgiven.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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