Anniversaries and Debts
Anniversaries and Debts
In the interest of full disclosure, much of what I’m about to say I said on Sunday, September 11th, 2011. It was impossible to ignore the 10th anniversary of 9/11 when it fell on a Sunday. I suppose I could’ve let the 25th anniversary pass since it was on Friday. But it seemed a little too close for comfort to this 16th Sunday after Pentecost. Not to mention the readings for Proper 19, Year A, with its words of forgiveness, release of debts, and reconciliation. But there is no hidden agenda in our Bible readings for today. I did not pick these readings. This is the Word of God that has always been given to us on the Sunday closest to September 11th, once every three years. So it was 10 years from 9/11; so it is 25 years from 9/11.
So, “Peter said to Jesus, ‘How many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?’” There's a biblical reason Peter uses the number seven. Back in the book of Genesis, Cain commits the first murder by killing his brother Abel. When God sentences Cain to wander the earth alone, God promises that anyone who kills Cain will be revenged seven times. So, Peter thinks, God promised Cain a sevenfold vengeance. So is Jesus reversing that cycle of revenge, but stopping the cycle of forgiveness at seven? Well, seven’s not totally unreasonable.
But Peter forgot what happened after Cain in Genesis. Five generations later, Cain’s descendant Lamech inherits that thirst for vengeance. “Lamech said to his wives, ‘I killed a man for wounding me, a boy for striking me; so Cain will be paid back seven times and Lamech seventy-seven times.’” So Jesus is reverse-echoing Lamech when he tells Peter, “Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times.” Peter took these stories literally. I think Jesus knew that they were more archetypes than history. I believe that Jesus, as he has before with comments about cutting off a hand to keep it from sinning, is using hyperbole.
Peter accepts that the disciples, or students of Jesus must be ready to forego retribution. But he's looking for that reasonable limit. But Jesus isn't interested in reversing the cycle of revenge and retribution a certain number of times, after which the wheel can spin back. Jesus is intent on turning a cycle of revenge and retribution into a cycle of forgiveness and release, not for seven or even seventy-seven, but for all years.
Note that I’ve been saying revenge and retribution, not justice. Jesus isn’t saying that we should behave like weaklings or surrender without protest to force. But He knows that all around us are those who are forever scarred by someone else, scars that no amount of revenge or retribution can make go away. Jesus is risen from the dead, but he still has the nail prints in his hands and feet. He knows first hand that the only healing alternative to the cycle of revenge and retribution is forgiveness. So, Doctor, how does forgiveness heal? The doctor's answer comes in this parable about the burden of debt and sin.
That's what sin is. It is a debt we owe, to the human being we have scarred, and to the God who made us and loves us both, sinner and scarred. And so we have before us in the Gospel a king and a servant who owes ten thousand talents. One measly talent was equal to the yearly wage of an average worker times 20. So, 10,000 talents equaled 200,000 years of wages. The debt that this servant owes, like the debt of sin we all owe, is unpayable. It cannot be avenged or repaid.
But incredibly, the king forgives the debt; which should tell us something about the infinite riches of grace that our God has to give. But all this angry servant can think of is the 100 days worth of wages that someone else owes him. The burden of ten thousand talents was not as heavy on his shoulders as the burden of a hundred days' wages. The debtor who was forgiven 10,000 talents couldn’t accept that forgiveness. Was it the shame of having incurred that infinite debt to begin with that made the servant still want to justify himself at the expense of his debtor?
Again, Jesus’s use of hyperbole should tip us off not to assume that this king is a stand-in for God. The God that Jesus has revealed to us made us in their infinite love, and in their infinite grace forgives our trespasses and releases us from all our debts. And the God that Jesus has revealed also hopes that we will accept our forgiveness, and as we have scarred others and been forgiven, so we will forgive those who have scarred us. To forgive is to release your offender from the demand for revenge and retribution, which doesn't preclude the execution of justice. But much more important, to forgive is to be released from the shared burden of that debt.
How heavy does the debt of 9/11 weigh on our hearts a quarter century later? How do we compare the scars of that day with the scars since? How do we compare the debts owed and the debts incurred? However much we sought justice, how much revenge and retribution have we poured on that wheel? If I keep reaching for the right words, I risk increasing the number of wrong ones. But thanks be to God, we have heard God's Word today. And it is Good News for all the scarred. May that Word go deeper than I could ever go, and forgive all our trespasses and all our debts, as we forgive our debtors and those who have trespassed against us.
September 13th, 2026
The 16th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 19, Year A
The Rev. David P. Kendrick