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“You’ve Got to be Kidding Me” 

Matthew 18:21-35 

There are moments in life when the only appropriate response is, “you’ve got to be kidding me!” 

I have had several of those moments with Verizon this summer.  

Some of you may remember that when we closed the day school, we discovered that our church phone system was considerably more complicated than anyone realized.  

So Beth called Verizon and explained the problem. 

Then she explained the problem to someone else.  

Then she explained the problem to someone else.  

There were phone calls. There were support tickets. At one point, we were trying to account for fourteen different devices connected to our Verizon account. And every time I thought we had finally figured it out, there seemed to be one more thing.  

One more phone call. One more trip to the Verizon store. One more problem hiding behind the problem we just solved.  

Eventually, you reach a point where someone says to you “We just need you to-” 

And something deep within your soul responds: You’ve got to be kidding me.  

There is a limit, right? There has to be a point when you can say, “I have done this enough times. I have made enough phone calls. I have explained this enough. I have fulfilled my obligation. I am finished.”  

I suspect Peter knows that feeling. Because just before our passage this morning, Jesus has been teaching his disciples about what happens when relationships go wrong. If someone sins against you, go and talk to them. Try to work it out. Seek reconciliation. And apparently Peter has been listening. 

But Peter has a question. Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? 

Peter doesn’t choose a stingy number. Seven times is generous. Seven times means somebody has hurt you, and you forgave them. By the seventh time, I think most of us would feel pretty good about ourselves. Surely Jesus is going to say, “Peter, seven times? That’s extraordinary. Well done.” 

Instead Jesus says, Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.  

And somewhere in peter’s mind, I imagine one thought: You’ve got to be kidding me.  

But before we give Peter too hard a time, we should give him some credit. Peter isn’t asking whether he has to forgive; he’s asking when he has forgiven enough. Peter wants a number, and Jesus is about to challenge the whole idea that forgiveness can be counted.  

Depending on the translation of Scripture you grew up with, you may remember Jesus saying “seventy times seven.” Scholars can argue about whether the Greek should be translated seventy-seven or seventy times seven, but either way, Jesus’ point is not that Peter needs to keep a little notebook and make a tally every time someone wrongs him.  

Jesus isn’t replacing Peter’s limit of seven with a limit of seventy-seven. Imagine getting to number seventy-eight and saying, “Good news! Jesus says I’m done forgiving you now.”  

If you’re still counting, you’ve missed the point.  

Peter wants forgiveness to be something he can measure. He wants to know when he has met the requirement. When has he been patient enough? When has he been gracious enough? When has he forgiven enough?  

I understand the impulse. We like things we can measure. We like knowing what is expected of us. We like knowing when we have fulfilled our responsibility. Give us the policy. Tell us where the finish line is.  

But forgiveness doesn’t work very well on a spreadsheet. Because forgiveness is not primarily about meeting a quota. It is about refusing to let what someone else has done determine the kind of person we will become.  

Jesus isn’t asking Peter to become a doormat.  

He’s asking Peter to stop keeping score.  

But that still leaves Peter’s question hanging in the air. So Jesus changes the equation. Peter has been thinking about how much forgiveness another person deserves. Jesus asks Peter to think instead about how much mercy he himself has received.  

And to make the point impossible to miss, Jesus tells a story about a king, a servant, and a debt so enormous that no amount of patience, hard work, or careful budgeting could ever repay it.  

If Peter thought seventy-seven acts of forgiveness sounded ridiculous, Jesus is about to show him something even more ridiculous: the extravagant mercy of God.  

And this is where Jesus wants Peter to look: not at the person who needs to be forgiven but at the one who has already been forgiven. Because the debt Jesus gives this servant is almost impossible to comprehend.  

10,000 talents.  

One talent represented roughly 15 years of wages for an ordinary laborer. So when Jesus says this servant owes ten thousand talents, nobody in the crowd is reaching for a calculator.  

The number is ridiculous.  

This man could work every day for the rest of his life and never come close to paying it back.  

And yet when the king demands payment, the servant falls to his knees and says, Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” 

No, you won’t.  

That’s part of the absurdity of the story.  

The servant is still imagining that somehow, given enough time and enough effort, he can settle the account himself.  

The king knows better.  

And instead of giving the servant more time, the king does something far more extraordinary. He releases him. He forgives the entire debt. 10,000 talents. Gone. If ever there were a moment in this story when somebody ought to say, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” this is it. 

Nobody cancels a debt like that.  

And yet the servant walks out of the king’s presence completely free.  

Then he sees another servant who owes him one hundred denarii. And this is where we need to be careful with the story. One hundred denarii isn’t nothing It represents several months of wages. The second servant really does owe him money. The problem is that he has just been forgiven an unimaginable debt and somehow walks away unchanged by the mercy he received.  

He grabs the other servant by the throat and demands he pay him what he is owed. He refuses to heed his servant's plea for mercy. That’s the moment that ought to stop us. Because he knows what it is to kneel there. He knows what it is to need patience. He knows what it is to owe more than he can produce. Most of all, he knows what it is to receive mercy.  

But somehow the mercy he received never becomes mercy he can extend.  

I think that’s why Jesus tells Peter this story. Peter begins by asking Jesus how many times he needs to forgive. Jesus wants him to ask a different question. What kind of person does receiving mercy make me?  

The Christian life is not supposed to be divided into two separate accounts- one where we gladly receive the limitless grace of God and another where we carefully calculate how much grace everyone else deserves.  

The mercy of God is supposed to change us. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We show mercy because we live by mercy. And perhaps that is why Jesus refuses to give Peter the number he wants. Because forgiveness isn’t ultimately about reaching seventy-seven. It’s about becoming the kind of person who has stopped counting.  

I think there are some things in life we are absolutely allowed to stop counting. I have no idea how many times Beth has called Verizon this summer. And I don’t need to find out.  

But there are other ledgers we carry with us much longer.  

We remember the thing someone said. The promise they broke. The apology that never came. The moment when they disappointed us again. And sometimes we have been keeping those accounts for so long that we don't even realize how heavy they have become. 

Jesus does not ask us to pretend those things never happened. But he does invite us to put down the ledger. Because forgiveness is not saying, “What you did doesn't matter.” Forgiveness is saying, “What you did will not have the final word in my life.” 

And maybe there is someone whose name immediately comes to mind when you hear that. Maybe there is a hurt you have carried for years. Maybe forgiveness is something you thought you had finished, only to discover that you have to choose it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

If so, Jesus isn't standing over you with a tally sheet waiting for you to reach seventy-seven. Jesus is reminding you that you do not have to do this from an empty reservoir. We forgive from the mercy we ourselves have received. Mercy we did not earn. Grace we could never repay. A debt we could never settle ourselves. 

Peter asks Jesus, “How many times?” 

Seven? Seventy-seven? Surely, eventually, there must be a number. 

And Jesus gives him something better than a number. 

He gives him grace. Grace extravagant enough to receive. Grace powerful enough to change us. Grace abundant enough to give away. 

And when we begin to understand just how much mercy God has given us, there may be only one thing left to say: 

You've got to be kidding me. 

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.