2026-09-13 Pentecost 16
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen!
Perhaps you might have noticed that life is all about the numbers. Just think about that for a second. I have to remortgage my house, what is the interest rate? Did I get enough questions right to pass my exam? How did the canola test at the elevator? Gas just shot up to $1.68 per litre! Ring, ring, is Ted there? Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong number! Did the cows get up to sale weight for the auction? The cake didn’t turn out right, must have measured wrong with the flour. Oh Shelly had her baby, a little girl, how much did she weigh? “Your blood pressure numbers are too high!” your doctor says as he furrows his brow. What was the final score in the Labour Day Classic?! Overtime or any time is the right time to beat Winnipeg! You get the idea. All of life is constantly revolving around numbers.
Today, that all changes, much to the chagrin of all the bean counters, math teachers and otherwise number-savvy folks! St. Peter comes up to Jesus and says “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times” (MT 18:21). Or in layman’s terms, it’s not actually about the numbers! To illustrate it further, Jesus breaks it down in a wonderful parable. The Kingdom of heaven is like …
A wealthy farmer wanted to settle up some accounts. His wife was doing the books and she was on his case about the neighbour who still owed them a metric tonne of money from a failed flax crop last year. The neighbour finally came by one night. In typical Saskatchewan hospitality fashion, they chatted a bit and even had a wee dram around the table. After the small talk, the conversation turned to the numbers. It was much worse than the farmer thought. His wife told him it was to the tune of around 4.6 million dollars. The neighbour told him that he didn’t have the money and couldn’t pay. The farmer was livid! “You better lawyer up, Bucko” the farmer said, “I’m coming for your farm, your machinery, your cows, your rusty paint can collection – everything! - until you pay me every last red cent that you owe me!”
The neighbour was terrified! He was about to lose his farm, his livelihood, everything that he and his family before him had worked hard for his whole life! What would he tell his wife and kids? What would he tell his brother who was a partner in the farm!? So he begged the wealthy farmer “I beg you, have patience with me, and I will pay you everything!” (MT18:26). The farmer grabbed his scotch glass, swirled the ice and drank down the last swallow. He sat there and thought about it quietly for a bit, calmed down, and then told the neighbour “Don’t worry about it.” He forgave him the debt completely (MT18:27).
The next day, the neighbour was going for 5am farmer coffee down at the A&W. The plaid jackets and mesh ball caps were aplenty around the tables. He opened the door and saw a guy who hadn’t paid him for his hay bales two years ago when the alfalfa was short. He ran right up to him and grabbed him around the plaid collar and began to butter-churn-choke him, demanding he get paid the $10,000 he owed him! “Easy, easy, calm down!” the man grunted from the choke-hold, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you!” (MT18:29). But the neighbour refused. He whipped out his flip-phone and had the RCMP come and haul the man off to the Mortlach slammer until he paid him every last red cent!
News of how the wealthy farmer forgave the neighbour’s enormous debt was already the talk of the town around coffee row. When the other farmers saw how the neighbour treated the other guy, it didn’t take long for word to get back to the wealthy farmer about it. The next day, the wealthy farmer caught up to the neighbour out at the COOP Cardlock. “You wicked so and so, I curse your name!” the wealthy farmer said, “I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow [farmer], as I had mercy on you?” (MT18:32-33). And in anger, the wealthy farmer called his lawyer and had the fuzz throw the neighbour into the clink until he could pay him back every last red cent! Jesus ends the parable with a warning: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (MT18:35).
So in other words, it’s not about the numbers. It’s not about keeping track of how many times someone has hurt us, sinned against us, indebted us, harmed us or otherwise finagled us. Rather, it’s all about grace. It’s all about radical mercy and wild forgiveness. The wealthy farmer was willing to forgive an enormous fortune out of pity. But that pitied neighbour was unwilling to pay that forgiveness forward. “How can that be?!” we think. But if we are honest with ourselves, we tend to do the exact same thing.
How many people have wronged us and we still hold a grudge against them, even years and decades later? Nobody is immune from this one. Jesus’ parable shines like a mirror, showing us our sin. If we expect and want our Heavenly Father to forgive us, how can we not forgive others? The Lord’s Prayer is really apropos on this one. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgive us, O Lord, in the same degree to which we forgive others? This can be a rather terrifying prayer for those set on harbouring resentment or acting out vengeance.
Instead of the numbers, we need to be concerned with repentance. We have to see ourselves as the neighbour in the parable. We’ve screwed up, sinned big and wracked up much spiritual debt against God and each other. But instead of resentment, or revenge we are better off seeking reconciliation. We can walk the road that Joseph walked in Genesis 50, speaking kindly to his brothers who hated him, betrayed him and sold him into slavery.
You may find though, that perhaps you have a case of St. Peter’s bean-counter syndrome. “How many times must I forgive?! Seven times?! Eight times?! Surely not nine times?!” But if we turn it around and apply this to God, how many times do we expect God to forgive us? We find that we want infinite forgiveness. Infinite grace. Infinite mercy. Infinite love from God. But if we do–and we really do, trust me–then we must drop our bean-counter, number-loving ways when it comes to forgiving other people.
But this is almost always easier said than done. We cling to past hurts and betrayal and debts of sin. And we often cling to our own un-repentant ways. If left to purely human willpower and strength, then yes, it is too hard for us. But we certainly have God’s help. We have Jesus, who shows us what this number-less forgiveness looks like. We look to His cross, the place that absorbs sin and iniquity like spiritual sham-wow! He takes all of our sin upon Himself and He gets rid of it. He takes away the sin of the world through self-sacrifice. This He does this out of a wild and crazy love for us. We look to the cross. There we see God’s grace and mercy. We focus on it. We pray about it. We allow God’s grace to become ours that we share with other people who have sinned against us. We remember our Baptism and how God’s wild grace is applied to us directly. We receive our Lord’s Supper to transform our hearts and minds to embrace forgiveness and grace for others.
This becomes the only way to bury the hatchet and not leave the handle sticking up! It’s the only way to dump the numbers and shed our bean-counter syndrome in our dealings with others. We know God’s will is forgiveness and grace and kindness to us for Christ’s sake. We also know He wants us to spread that same love around to others. Therefore, look to Christ our Lord for the strength to continue to ever embrace the wild and lavish grace and mercy of God for each other. Now and forevermore, Amen!
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