15 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
18 “I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
19 “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. 20 For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!
23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
Matthew 18:15-35
Dear God, I suppose there is a difference between forgiving someone and accepting them. The Gospel reading today starts with verse 21, but the story really starts back at verse 15. Verse 15 is what prompted Peter’s question in the first place. But the example in verse 15 is not unlimted allowing yourself to be wronged. It’s not, “Make yourself a doormat,” which is how some people interpret verse 22. No, Jesus says we need to have some boundaries, but we also need to let go of the bitterness, hate, and anger, and extend forgiveness because we should remember how much we’ve been forgiven of by you. If someone steals from me, lies about me, or even murders a loved one, that still pales in comparison to what you, my God, have forgiven me of. I should bless them and send them on their way. Or, if they are someone who must remain in my life because they are family, I should love them even though I might put up limits to how much of my life I expose to them.
But here’s the danger in that when it comes to family. Those boundaries have to be drawn carefully. Rarely is it appropriate to just take a line and draw it all the way at the edge and cut off relationship completely. Yes, that might be the easiest, least friction way forward, but I will also likely be losing a blessing you have for me in figuring out how to move forward with that person. Frankly, my wife and I have several family members who have drawn the drastic, all the way to the edge, line with us. Some of them have done it because we have not drawn drastic lines with others in our family. Some have done it because of a perceived wrong we did years ago that cannot be understood or forgiven. And then there’s one who hasn’t told us why. They just walked away. I get the feeling there is a “why,” but it is somehow to shameful to share and so they are letting the secret drive a wedge between themselves and people who really love them.
I’ve had to figure out where to draw these lines with both family and friends, and I haven’t always done it correctly. I’ve drawn lines that were too harsh because I was filled with so much anger and bitterness that I couldn’t bring myself to look at or talk to the person. Through prayer, you worked on my heart. I opened relations again. I still struggle to find my way forward with them, and I don’t always do it right. But I do my best to show love beyond the hurt I’ve experienced because, 1.) it’s good and healthy for me to do it, and 2.) you remind me in passages like this that the debts they owe me are equivalent to the small debt the fellow servant owed the first servant in Jesus’s parable. The debt I owed you is the greater debt, and you forgave me. What right do I have to any debt someone else owes me?
Father, I thank you for forgiving me. Help me to not forget just how much I did that received your redemption anyway. You are a great God. And I pray for the family members who are harboring anger and bitterness towards me. And I don’t pray that they would treat me like I deserve because what I deserve is probably nothing. But I pray for their sake that they might experience healing, release, and peace. I pray that they might hear a word from you about forgiveness and realize that it is for them, not for me. And in the pain that I am experiencing because of this rejection, I pray that you will help me to even take that and grow from it. Use it to refine me int the man you have for me to be.
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
