The Math of Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

September 13, 2026

 

            I am not a math person. It’s not just that I don’t like math, it’s that I have math anxiety. Sometimes that anxiety can feel crippling. I have dealt with math anxiety for years and years. The last time I remember not having math anxiety was third grade. But as I recall, multiplication tables were beginning to test my early math calm, so third grade may have been the gateway grade to my mathematics challenges.

When I was in junior college, I took college algebra and was struggling to understand and struggling to deal with my anxiety. My teacher was a very kind, very patient woman, and she tutored me outside of class. When I was sitting with her working through the equations, they made some sense. I could figure them out. I didn’t stop working when the tutoring ended. I studied at home too. But the minute I sat down to take the test any comprehension I thought I had about algebra was gone. I couldn’t figure out the equations. I didn’t know what I was doing. I remember how panic would just well up in me. It was awful. Even today, if you were to ask me to do some calculations beyond any basic math, and you insisted on watching me do the work, I would probably start to cry. Even if I don’t full on cry, I will definitely be fighting back tears. Ask me to write an essay, and I can write rings around anybody. But ask me to do math, and I’m a hot mess.

            This is why whenever we come to these verses from Matthew’s gospel, I get a little panicky. In the verses we read last week, Jesus gives the disciples a way to handle conflict when it arises in the community, because Jesus understood that conflict would arise. The community of the faithful is not immune to conflict, so when it arises here is a way to work through it. This conversation continues in our verses this morning. Peter takes the next step from resolving conflict to forgiveness of someone who has wronged him. He asks Jesus just how many times he is required to forgive another member of the church who harms him. Lord, should I forgive this person as many as seven times? And Jesus responds,

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

            The seventy-seven can also be translated as seventy times seven, which for the math people out there is 490 times. (I used the calculator on my phone.) But I don’t think that Jesus was trying to make the point that there is an exact number for forgiving someone. I think that Jesus was trying to get to the heart of what it means to forgive someone and what forgiveness and forgiving is.

            To explain this, Jesus turns to a parable. He tells the disciples a kingdom parable which is more than just a clever way to begin the story. When Jesus began a parable making a comparison to God’s kingdom, then the people listening needed to take heed because the kingdom of God is everything. So, the parable begins with the kingdom of heaven may be compared to … fill-in-the-blank.

Jesus fills in this blank with the story of a despot king who decides to settle accounts with his enslaved laborers. While it is unlikely that any king would ever lend a laborer one coin, this particular ruler has lent this particular person an enormous sum of money. The enslaved man owes 10,000 talents. This huge debt would roughly equal 150,000 hours of labor. In other words, the laborer is never going to be able to pay it off in his lifetime. It was ludicrous on the king's part to even think that would be possible. Of course, the man can't pay. In response the king ordered him to be sold, along with his entire family -- wife, children, everyone. The man falls down in front of the king and pleads for mercy. In what appears to be a total contradiction of character, the king grants it. He forgives the debt. 

            You would think that this enslaved man who has been forgiven such a great debt, who has been shown so much grace and mercy, would immediately want to bestow the same grace and mercy on someone else. You would think wrong. No sooner than the laborer leaves the king’s chambers, he runs into another laborer who owes the first one money. This debt is relatively small. Especially in comparison with the original debt owed to the king. But when the second indebted slave asks for mercy, the one who had been shown so much grace refuses to extend it in return. Instead, he has this fellow thrown into prison. The other workers witnessing this are horrified, and they report it to the king. The king becomes furious and demands to know why the first enslaved man, having been shown mercy, denied mercy to someone else. Then the king hands the enslaved man over to be tortured until he can pay his debt. Knowing that his debt to the king is insurmountable, this is really a lifetime sentence.

            This is a disturbing parable indeed. We must be careful to read this as parable and not allegory. If we look at it allegorically, then each aspect of the story correlates to God and heaven exactly. Yet I cannot see God as a despot sultan whose first response is to not only condemn the one who owes so much, but also his family. However, saying that does not lessen the parable’s unsettling challenge to the disciples and to us. We are shown great mercy. We have our debts wiped out. Shouldn’t we also show that mercy to others?  As we are forgiven, should we not also forgive? 

            Technically the answer to these questions is “yes.” Yes, we should forgive as we are forgiven. Yes, we should show mercy because we are shown mercy. Yes, yes, yes. But as theologian, Debie Thomas, wrote, if we are going to talk about what forgiveness is in light of these verses, then we must also talk about what forgiveness is not.

            Forgiveness does not negate accountability or justice. Forgiveness does not make everything better nor does it wipe every slate clean. The truth is that passages like this one, especially this one, have been weaponized against people who have been abused and harmed. Telling an abused spouse, woman or man, that they must forgive the abusive spouse because that’s what Jesus requires yet never holding the abuser accountable harms the abused all over again.

            Forgiveness does not automatically mean relationship or reconciliation. In the verses preceding these, Jesus lays out the steps for confronting someone who has sinned – go alone to confront the person first, then take one or two other people with you, then involve the whole community – and if none of those work to bring the one who has sinned back into the fold then that person should be treated as a gentile or a tax collector. To our contemporary, western ears, we may hear that as shunning. Well, I’ve done everything I could to make it right with this person but nothing has worked. Therefore, I break with thee, I break with thee, I break with thee.

            But how did Jesus treat gentiles and tax collectors? Did he shun them? Or did he treat them with love, did he recognize them as neighbors? Even if they refused to reconcile or be in relationship, Jesus never treated them as Other, as anything less than children of God. We may not wind up being in relationship with someone we have tried to forgive, but they’re still a neighbor.

            If forgiveness is not all of the above, then what is it? It seems to me that forgiveness is a choice rather than a feeling. If I wait to feel forgiving before I forgive someone, then I will probably wait the rest of my life. Forgiveness is liberating, sometimes for the one who is being forgiven but equally if not more often for the one doing the forgiving.

            Over the course of my life, there are people who I have had to make the choice to forgive; not because they have asked for it or even owned up to doing anything wrong. But I have chosen to forgive because life is too short. It is too short to bear grudges. It is too short for bitterness. It is just too short. And I suspect that there are people who have made the same choice about me.

            But does that make forgiveness cut and dry? No. Forgiveness is as messy and as complicated as the humans who are trying to achieve it and those who make it necessary. Which is all of us. We started off these verses with a strange equation, which should be straightforward. Isn’t math straightforward? 2 + 2 always = 4. That’s about as straightforward as you can get. But it seems to me that when it comes to the math of forgiveness, Jesus understood that it was not easy and not clearcut and not simple. It requires resolve and recognition of the other’s humanity, and it may require repetition to get it right. How many times do I forgive someone who has wronged me? Seven times? No, seventy-seven times. Or seventy times seven times. You forgive until you lose count. And then you forgive some more. We forgive because we have been forgiven, just as the parable about God’s kingdom reminds us. But we also forgive because even the gentiles and tax collectors are our neighbors in this kingdom of God. And what place does vengeance and hatred and bitterness hold in the kingdom of God? I don’t think any of that is meant to be there. It is forgiveness that can liberate us from the cycle of vengeance we find ourselves in. It is forgiveness that has the power to transform enmity into amity, foes into friends. It is forgiveness that liberates those who forgive. Forgiving someone who has caused you great harm does not erase the harm, but it can change the dynamic. Forgiving someone who harms you can change you.

            The math of forgiveness is not simple. It can challenge us in ways we cannot imagine. But forgiveness is part of agape love, and forgiveness has the power and the potential to transform the world into the kingdom of God. So, how often should we forgive someone? What is the magic number? Jesus said, do the math. Let’s do the math. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s forgiven children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

           

What We Owe One Another

Romans 13:8-14

September 6, 2026

 

            I have been having computer issues this week. My old laptop shook off its earthly charging cord and went to that great tech recycling bin in the sky. But losing the old laptop required me to get a new laptop, and that required a couple of trips up to the Best Buy in Cool Springs. Yesterday, Brent and I were on our way to Best Buy, and we were stopped at a big and busy intersection. I was in the passenger seat and not paying attention to the traffic ahead of us, when I heard a loud bang and Brent said,

            “Oh my gosh, an accident just happened! A car went up in the air!”

            We were a few cars back from the light, but on the other side of this busy, big intersection, two cars hit. One of the cars had flipped over on its side, and a woman was trying to climb out of the car window. Several people on that side of the highway had stopped to help.  Two men were helping the woman get out of the car, and they carried her away from the car. Other people were bringing jackets or anything extra that they had in the car to put on the road, and then around her shoulders.  And the two men carrying her laid her on those clothes. One of the guys who had helped her get out of the vehicle, then climbed into it, I guess to make sure no one else was trapped.

            We were able to drive around it, and I worried to myself about whether we should have stopped as well, but there were so many people right there that I think more folks stopping would have been a hindrance rather than a help.  Both Brent and I were pretty shaken up by this, because we both understand how quickly something like that can happen and how terrible it can be. As we were driving down our part of the highway, two fire trucks were racing toward the accident. And I did what I always do when I see something like this, I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for everyone involved – the drivers, the helpers, the first responders. And I thought about the fact that we had just witnessed love at work in the people who helped the woman out of the car, ran to bring jackets, and called for help. That’s what Paul was talking about when he said to owe no one anything except for love, I thought. The people who helped may or may not have thought about owing love to someone else, but their actions spoke loud and clear.

            “Owe no one anything except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

            What we owe one another. Maybe this should be a question instead of a declarative statement. What do we owe one another? Paul writes that the only thing we should owe one another is love. Whenever I read statements like this in our scripture, I always think about how beautiful and poetic this kind of language sounds, but how hard it actually is to live out and live into. Loving one another is never a simple task, because love’s requirements are not simple nor are they easy. The debt of love requires us to put ourselves last and others first. Love requires us to reach outward rather than drawing inward. Loving one another can put us into situations that are challenging, even frightening. Owing each other love is not as simple as it might sound, is it? So, what do we owe one another? If we owe only love, then what does that mean and what does that look like?

            One challenge to owing one another only love is that so much of our world – our societies, our relationships, businesses, and even the church – seem to be built and structured on something else other than the debt of love. We look at owing one another as quid pro quo. If you do for me, then I’ll do for you. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. But that has nothing to do with what Paul is writing about in this letter to the church in Rome.

            Paul wrote that the one thing we owe to one another is love. There are three types of love in Greek. There is Eros — which is romantic love. When we fall in love, we fall into eros. There is Philia — which is friendship and loyalty. Think of Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Its name begins with philia. The third kind of love is Agape. Agape is love that willingly sacrifices itself for another. It is love that does for someone else without expecting anything in return. It is love that pulls a woman out of a car or carries someone out down flight after flight of steps in a burning tower.

The love that Paul uses in these verses is not eros. It is not philia. It is agape. Owe no one anything other than agape, a love that sacrifices itself for another. I go round and round with Paul on many things, but I cannot deny the power of his rhetoric. This is a rhetorical feat. By using the language of owing, of debt, and then pairing that with agape, Paul sets up his listeners for a shock, especially if you take into account what he writes in the verses preceding ours about what we owe others in authority.

Listen, y’all. You should be good citizens. Obey the laws. Pay your taxes. Do what is right. But when it comes to owing others, the only thing you owe is love. That’s it. Oh, by the way, the love that you owe each other is agape love.

Wait a minute, Paul. Agape love is about sacrifice and willingness to give all that we have and do all that we can. So, what you’re saying is that all we owe is agape, but that means that we owe one another everything! Yikes!

But here’s the rub. Paul makes it sound simple. But we know it isn’t. We know how hard it is to love others. Yesterday, Brent and I witnessed people acting out of agape love. But I can’t help but wonder if those same people would have anything to do one another had it not been for that terrible accident? I’m not trying to be cynical. It’s just that we are living in divided, polarized times. That’s an understatement. A crisis brought out the agape, the love, that lives in us. On Friday, we will observe the 25^th anniversary of the most terrible crisis in my lifetime. On September 11, 2001, we watched in real time as agape love leapt into chasm hate created. Agape love seems to be at its most visible in an emergency.

But Paul was not writing in terms of an emergency or a crisis. He didn’t write, owe no one anything except love when the worst happens. He did not pen, owe no one anything but love but only when the world falls apart. He wrote,

“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

Paul does not make this love we owe one another conditional or time contingent. What we owe one another is love, agape love, love that sacrifices, love that puts the other first, love that does what is hard and even what is scary. And this isn’t love that is reserved only for the people you like or agree with. It is for everyone.

Why can’t we do that? Why can’t we take Paul’s words seriously and act in a way that shows we love others, without concern about what it may cost us? I think that’s the clue. What does it cost us to owe nothing but love?

            I think when we read and hear statements about agape love like this, we believe that we are being called to give away everything we have. Certainly, Jesus did not shy away from that kind of call in the gospels. He told the rich young man that if he wanted to follow Jesus, he had to sell his possessions and give everything to the poor. And it is highly possible that Jesus was speaking literally. But, for the sake of argument, Paul’s words are not necessarily asking us to give up everything we own for someone else, so what is this agape love? Does agape love require us to believe that other people are as human as we are? Do we owe other people the right to exist, even if their existence challenges us? Do we owe other people the common courtesy of treating them with dignity and respect? Do we owe others the belief that their experience, their perspective, their life has meaning and truth, even if we don’t understand it or can see it?

            It seems to me that some of the worst atrocities humankind has committed against humankind — and there have been many and continue to be many — comes out of our ability to convince ourselves that the other is not fully human, that they are lesser than us, or that their lives matter less. And when we can convince ourselves of this, then we can convince ourselves to do terrible things to others because we believe that their lives matter less than our own; or that their lives matter not at all.

            What do we owe one another if we all we owe is agape love? We owe one another everything.

            Writer Anne Lamott tells a story in her book, Bird By Bird, about an eight-year-old boy. His little sister was diagnosed with a blood disease. His parents tell him that he may have the same blood as his sister, and if he does, then a transfusion of his blood could help her live. The brother agrees to be tested, and it turns out that his blood is a match for his sister. The parents ask him if he is willing to give her some of his blood so she can live. He asks to think about it. He goes to bed and the next morning he tells his parents that he is willing to give his sister his blood. All the arrangements are made. The little boy and his sister are in a room together, and they begin the transfusion. Everything seems to be going fine. The doctor comes over to check on the little boy. The doctor asks how he is doing, and the little boy looks at the doctor and asks,

            “When will I begin to die?”

            I’m sure everyone rushed to explain to him that he wouldn’t die giving his sister his blood. I’m sure they immediately reassured him that all would be well. This would not require his giving of his life for his sister. But the little boy thought it would. And he did it anyway. He was willing to die so his sister could live. That is agape. That is what we owe to one another. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Now Go

Exodus 3:1-15

August 30, 2026

 

            My first call was to be the Associate Pastor of a church in Rockville, Maryland. Rockville is right off the beltway around Washington, D.C., and it was a nice church with nice people. I had my first interview with their search committee when they came to a job fair at my seminary. I was a last minute add-on to their interview schedule. I hesitated about interviewing with churches because I was not sure about what I wanted to do after seminary. Would I go on to a call in a church or would I stay on campus and continue with another degree? But I thought I should at least try an interview. Some of the search committee members confessed to me later that when they first read my resume, they were not convinced that I would be the right person for the call but were pleasantly surprised when they met me in person. I guess we were all unsure about each other. But as we talked during the interview, it began to feel right.

            After that initial interview, I drove up to Rockville for a second interview, see the church, meet the with the Head of Staff, and all the other things that you do when you are interviewing for a call. Everything looked good. Everyone was excited. However my excitement was tinged with trepidation. That’s an understatement. I was terrified. Not because it was a bad call or because I had a bad feeling about it. I was just terrified. I had no idea what I was doing when it came to being a minister, none. None. It didn’t matter that I was about to be a seminary graduate. It didn’t matter that I worked as a church intern for a year. I knew that when it came to ministry I was clueless. My fear was real.

            I must have hidden my fear well because they offered me the call. I said “yes,” and smiled and hugged folks. But in my mind I was screaming, “AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” After the interview was over and I was driving back to school, I told myself that if I heard the band REM’s song Don’t Go Back to Rockville on the radio, I would take that as a sign. That would be it, I told myself. That would be my sign from God that this was not the right thing to do. If REM told me not to go back to Rockville, then I would not go back to Rockville. I would go back to my apartment, call the committee chair, apologize for my change of heart, and turn down the call.  

            Brent and I were talking about this the other night, and I told him that I have never prayed so hard to hear a song as I did on that drive back to Richmond. I searched every radio station. Please, somebody play REM. REM must be playing somewhere! Brent joked that I was probably wishing for a call line so I could make a request.  

            But my fears were not eased by REM. I did go back to Rockville. I took the call, and even though it was not perfect, I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I started to figure out how to become a minister in that call.

            Flash forward a few decades, and I was again looking for a call. My first interview was virtual, and it was with this church in a town that I had heard of but knew nothing about. It was a call in a town with a name that sounded out-of-place in Tennessee. Pulaski. There are no songs about not returning to Pulaski that I know of, and by the time I was interviewing with the search committee REM had broken up. It was doubtful they would write one for me. I was offered the call. I was excited! The committee was excited. And just like that first call I was terrified. I had served in ministry for over 20 years when I first came here. I served in churches from Maryland to New York to Iowa to Minnesota and Oklahoma. I was most definitely not a first time pastor. But I was still terrified. I still had to trust that God was telling me, “now go,” not because I didn’t like the folks here or the church or the area, but because every call has both promise and challenge. Every call means that I will have to learn new things and be challenged in new ways and have to figure out how to be a minster in this new church and in this new place. With every new call, including this one, no matter how excited or enthusiastic I am, I am equally convinced that I do not know what I am doing. No amount of experience can change that fear.

            I’m not alone. A friend and colleague in our lectionary group told us about Eugene Peterson, the acclaimed minister, teacher, and author. He served one church for over 20 years. He went on to teach and contributed to the scholarship of the church. He wrote a colloquial translation of the Old and New Testaments – The Message – which we use sometimes in worship and definitely in our Wednesday night bible study. Yet with all that experience, with all that ability, Peterson once said that he never really felt like he knew what he was doing. He never felt like an expert in ministry. He just made it up as he went.

            All of this is to say that I get Moses. I understand why he answered God’s call to lead God’s people out of Egypt with the words, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” In other words, “Wait, what? I must have misunderstood you, God. You want me to do what?”

            The focus of these verses from Exodus is usually the burning bush, understandably so. Moses is shepherding his father-in-law, Jethro’s, flock, and he leads them out to what was probably the edge of nowhere, beyond the wilderness. And while he’s minding the sheep and minding his own business, he sees a bush that was on fire but it was not being consumed by the flames. An elementary knowledge of fire tells us that fire needs fuel. A bush on fire should have burned up, and the fire would have either extinguished itself or jumped to a new source of fuel. But this bush just kept burning. Moses sees it and decides to give it a closer look. God sees that Moses is coming near to give the bush a closer inspection, and God calls out to Moses from the flames.

            Moses responds, “Here I am.” God tells him to take off his shoes because this is holy ground. God then establishes his identity and his connection to Moses. God is the God of Moses’ father, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Then God tells Moses that just as Moses has seen the burning bush, God has seen, really seen, the misery of his people in Egypt. He has heard their cries and knows their suffering. And now he has come to deliver them from this misery to a good land, a broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So, God tells Moses that the way he will deliver the people is by sending Moses to Pharoah to bring God’s people out of Egypt.

            I think it is safe to say that this not what Moses was expecting to learn. He questions God’s wisdom in sending him. Moses doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not anyone special. He isn’t prepared or trained to go to Pharoah and to set God’s people free. But God promises that Moses will not be alone. God will be with him. God will go with him. And when Moses has brought the people out of Egypt, they will worship God together on this very mountain.

            God may be sure, but Moses is not. So he stalls and delays. If you think about it God has already told Moses who he is. God has already offered his litany of identity. But Moses, who I suspect was playing for time, wants to know God’s name. Um, if I go to the people and tell them, “God sent me,” they’re gonna want a name.

            I cannot speculate as to what name Moses thought he might hear, but it probably was not, “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be,” which is another way that can be translated. This probably did not give Moses the clarity he was seeking. After all, how can you wrap infinity, endless being, creator of all, into a name? How would Moses convince the people that God was calling him to lead them with a name like I Am Who I Am?

            As I said, the focal point of this story may traditionally be the burning bush, but I think the real crux of these verses comes down to two words: now go. My former professor, Tyler Mayfield, an Old Testament scholar at Louisville Seminary writes that “holy spaces have holy consequences.” By paying attention to the burning bush, Moses found himself on holy ground. But as Mayfield wrote, encountering God is not just about seeing the burning bush, then posting it on your social media with the caption, #blessed, then going back to your daily life.

Encountering the holy means that there is more coming, more to be done. Holy spaces have holy consequences. Moses met God in the burning bush, in that holy space, and the consequence was that he was told, “now go.” The holy space was important but not the final point. The holy space led to holy consequences.

            I suspect it is an understatement that Moses felt inadequate to the call he was given. He was unsure if he could handle the holy consequences of his encounter with God in that holy space. Jesus’ words in our gospel lesson only reinforces the challenges of being called. He tells the disciples openly, without any pretense or attempt at subtlety, what it means to be the messiah. It means suffering. It means death. It means resurrection, but that does not happen without the suffering and death first. And if they want to become his followers, then they must be prepared to deny themselves, pick up their own crosses, and follow – wherever that path may lead because just as Moses encountered God in that holy space, so too have the disciples encountered God in the person of Jesus. The holy space they have lived in comes with holy consequences. The holy consequences may mean losing everything in order to gain everything. Now go.

            The thing I have come to learn about holy spaces and holy consequences is that whenever you find yourself in a holy space and answer the call to go, where God leads is to another holy space and another call to go. That was true when I answered to call to go to Rockville, and it has been true for every call I have answered since then. But whatever the call may be, no matter how unprepared or how inadequate we believe we are to face the challenges ahead, the promise is always the same. God will be with us. We are not alone. God is with us.

We gathered in a holy space, and in this holy space we are all called to go out. I cannot predict the holy consequences that await us, nor do I know what each person’s unique call may be. The calls we face may be daunting and hard, but I also know this. God is with us. We are not alone. There are plenty of times in my ministry when I have forgotten this promise. There are plenty of times when I have doubted God’s presence. But God has not forgotten me, and God has been faithful, even when I wasn’t. I’m still here. I’m still called. I’m still afraid. I am not sent out alone.

We are not sent out alone. God is with us. So whatever the holy consequences may be, we will be given the tools, the knowledge, the ability to face them, because God is with us. God was with Moses. God was with the disciples. God is with us. Now. Go.

            Let all of God’s children answer this call in this holy space saying, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.