"Forgive _________"
Maybe the title should be: forgive, Peter.
Matthew 18:21-35
September 13, 2026
Dr. Todd R. Wright
How would you complete the sermon title? What should fill in the blank?
A name? A sinful act? A failure to speak up?
Our passage today offers some possibilities. Let’s consider them together.
Poor, Peter! Bless his heart! He’s trying, but he doesn’t quite get it.
He hears Jesus talking about what to do if someone sins against you and interrupts to ask:
“How often should I forgive?”
And then in true Peter fashion he blurts out an answer:
“As many as seven times?”
Maybe the title should be: forgive, Peter. He is learning. Seven is more than the expected limit.
One scholar writes, “Convention had it that three pardons were all you deserved — or in Peter’s economy, all you needed to give.”
That’s where he starts. But Peter is inspired after listening to his generous Lord, so he offers a number that signifies completeness and fulfillment – like the seven days of creation.
That’s not enough! says Jesus. When you think about forgiveness, think bigger!
Jesus says the number should be 77 times, or 70 times 7, depending on the translation.
His rationale may derive from the story of Lamech who boasted, “I killed a man for wounding me. If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it’s seventy-seven!”
According to scholars, “Jesus recalls the same numerical [interplay of 7 and 77] to emphasize forgiveness rather than vengeance.”
Whether it’s 77 or 490 times, the point is: forgive until you can no longer keep count!
Forgive big debts, like the king owed 10,000 talents – equivalent to 150,000 years of labor!
Forgive small debts, like the 100 denarii – paid off with just 100 days of extra work.
Forgive, because God has forgiven you!
Forgive, because it will free your soul.
But here’s the problem: forgiveness is hard.
Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Reformed Christian, was imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp for hiding Jews in her home. She survived and traveled around Europe preaching the gospel message of forgiveness and reconciliation. In 1947 she encountered a former guard, He told her he had become a Christian, that he knew God forgave him, but he wanted to ask her forgiveness.
She recognized him and felt nothing but anger. Forgive, the guard? Impossible! She writes,
“I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’ And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into [his hand] stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. A current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’”
Maybe you have been blessed with a similar flood of healing warmth. But if you have not; if there are things that have scarred you, and people you struggle to forgive, take heart.
We usually hear this passage as applying to someone who is persisting in sin, causing harm over and over again – like a bully stealing your lunch money every day. Or to someone who has done something truly terrible – like Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three young children.
Jan Richardson, poet and pastor, invites us to consider a different possibility – that the difficulty is not the repeated grind of another’s sin or the spectacular level, but us. She writes,
“I wonder whether Jesus is instead acknowledging that in the life of the community, we sometimes have to make multiple attempts to forgive.”
She elaborates, noting that the ability to forgive comes as a gift from God:
“Sometimes we are given the grace to forgive quickly. Sometimes the grace to forgive takes a long, long time to receive. And so forgiveness often requires practice. It takes choosing to work at it. We might have to chip away at it. Seventy-seven times, at least, as Jesus says.”
To that end, she offers a blessing that includes these words:
“Let us say that forgiveness
can take some practice,
can take some patience,
can take a long and struggling time.
Let us say that to offer the hardest blessing, we will need the deepest grace;
that to forgive the sharpest pain, we will need the fiercest love;
that to release the ancient ache, we will need new strength for every day.”
If she is right, then maybe the blank is waiting to be filled with our own name.
Forgive yourself, if you are finding forgiving others hard.
Forgive yourself, if your wounds are still not healed.
Forgive yourself, if you need God’s strength to keep trying.
How often? As many times as it takes. God’s reservoir of grace is limitless – for you needing help in the forgiving, as much as for you needing forgiveness.
So drink it in – like the cup of salvation, filling you up!
Bathe in it – like the waters of baptism, washing you clean!
Seventy-seven times, if you are still counting. Amen
From Gracia Grindal’s reflections on the text in “New Math”, for the Christian Century, 8/28/22l
From Genesis 4:23-24 in The Message by Eugene Peterson
From Nicholas Schaser’s reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 9/13/26
From The Hiding Place, quoted at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/boom.html
From her reflections on the text, “Seventy Times Seven and Nine-Eleven”
Here and following, from her reflections on the text, “The Hardest Blessing”
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