Seventy times Seven

Matthew 18:21-35

“…how often should I forgive?”  --Matthew 18:21

Reconciliation is hard work.

Last week, I wrote about the reconciliation process Jesus lays out in Matthew 18:15-20.  This week, we get the punchline.  Peter asks, “So, how often should we forgive?”   Peter wants a number.  “Seven times?”  And Jesus gives him a number.  “Seventy-seven times.”  He says.  But, his meaning is clear: “as many times as it takes.” Reconciliation is not about accounting formulas or balancing scales.  Reconciliation is about the often hard work of rebuilding broken relationships.  It doesn’t happen in the head…  it happens in the heart.

Forgiveness is the first, though often the hardest, step on the path toward reconciliation.  Someone (I don’t remember who) once said that forgiveness is about letting go of the pain, the hurt, the anger, the bitterness and the disappointment that we feel when someone wrongs us.  I have always found that helpful.  Forgiveness is not about letting the other person off the hook so much as it is freeing ourselves from the burden of carrying all that stuff (I could use stronger language) around inside us.  It is about freeing our hearts to love again.  If the pain is deep and the wounds are profound this can feel impossible.   But the alternative is letting the pain slowly kill us.

But, here’s the Good News:  we don’t have to do any of this alone (nor should we attempt it).  Our ability to forgive begins with the One who has done the impossible and forgiven us.  There is life in that.  There is power in that.  But this promise can feel pretty abstract when we are in the depths of the pain of a broken relationship.  That’s why God always embodies God’s promises in flesh and blood.  Christ died a human death on a cross and rose again on the third day so that we might see clearly the depth of God’s forgiving love for us.  When it is at its best the community of faith, the “Body of Christ,” our brothers and sisters in Christ, embody that love today.  God gives us one another to strengthen us and encourage us on our journeys of reconciliation.  That’s what Jesus was trying to get across to us in Matthew 18:15-20!

When reconciliation feels beyond your grasp, if forgiveness feels impossible, find someone to walk with you:  a wise friend, a pastor, a counselor, someone you can trust to be lovingly honest with you.   Find someone who can be Christ’s forgiveness and grace for you.  That person can encourage you to keep working at it even if it takes seven tries, or seventy-seven tries or seventy-times seven tries to find that place of peace and wholeness and reconciliation again.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading.

Please continue to pray for all those impacted by Irma and Harvey, and all the other natural and unnatural disasters that shatter human lives all around the globe.