Sermon for Sunday, September 13, 2026

September 13, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 18: 21-35



Last week’s Gospel instructed us in how to deal with disagreement in the context of community. Today’s Gospel continues the teaching—the work of forgiveness is never done. By now, we all know that Jesus isn’t telling us to keep a ledger book to track how often we’ve forgiven. Jesus is showing us how our forgiving becomes less a ledger book and more a repair manual.


Like last week’s text, today’s teaching, boiled down to that pithy 70 times 7, or 77 in newer translations, that number has been used to insist that we forgive some very hard to forgive actions: domestic violence for example. It can be a damaging text, taken out of the context of last week’s passage and the parable at the end of today’s Gospel.


Last week’s text reminds us that forgiveness doesn’t come without a change in someone’s behavior and/or belief, which is true repentance. If we’ve tried to sort out differences, not just one on one, but in the presence of community, and reconciliation can’t be achieved, we are eventually allowed to stop trying. Today’s parable tells us that forgiveness involves more than just an apology, which some people see as short hand for repentance. True repentance involves a change in behavior. True repentance involves a change in attitude too.


The slave in the parable shows neither a change in behavior nor a change of heart. Consider his predicament: the slave owes 10,000 talents. One Bible scholar notes that 1 talent is approximately 20 years of wages. It’s a shorthand way of saying he owes more than he can ever repay.


The fellow slave owes a hundred denarii, a much lesser amount—one denarii is one day’s wages. But the slave who has just had his much greater debts forgiven, literally in the same hour, on his way out of the palace, orders the other debtor slave thrown in prison. Luther tells us that repentance must be constant and daily, but the forgiven slave can’t even manage an hour! The king revokes his forgiveness and orders the non-repentant slave not only thrown into prison, but tortured.


Here we have another hard teaching, especially if we look at all of chapter 18. On the one hand, if someone is non-repentant, we’re allowed to cast them out, as verse 17 tells us we must. But we’re also required to forgive and forgive and forgive. And yet, if one remains non-repentant, the punishment is harsh. We’re told that God will refuse to forgive us, if we refuse to forgive.


It shouldn’t be a surprise. Jesus teaches us to pray “forgive us our debt, as we forgive our debtors.” If we don’t forgive, the Lord’s prayer says we won’t be forgiven. The parable elaborates on the prayer. It can also give us a bit of spiritual whiplash, with its depiction of extreme mercy in the early part of the parable and severe judgment at the end.


Christian teaching often sums up the idea of forgiveness as we are supposed to forgive and forget, but that idea is much too simple. Again and again in his theology, Luther tells us that the work of repentance continues until death. Luther saw humans as deeply sinful and that the work of turning away from sin takes humility and a daily effort. Part of that work is seeing where we are not the creatures God calls us to be and asking for forgiveness and turning away from the sinful behavior. Daily. If we’re not doing that, we can’t have an expectation of forgiveness for ourselves. We’re like the people in Luther’s day who wanted to pay money for an indulgence to avoid having to face the consequences for sinful acts.


The practice of rooting out sin sounds hard, and it can be, and that’s where we see the advantage of community. We are not the only ones discerning where we need to change. We are not alone in our discerning of whether or not the behavior of others in our community needs to change. The parable also continues to show the importance of having a group of people to help discern righteous action. In the parable, it is fellow slaves who notice the unjust behavior and report it to the king. Jesus shows us the role that community plays in right relationships—between humans and between humans and God.


Of course, this work will never be fully complete. God offers the gift of grace, an ongoing gift, because we are not made perfect in this lifetime, as Luther reminds us over and over again. We will fall short of being the people God calls us to be. We will cause harm. Others, too, will fall short, and we will need to repair relationships.


Scholar N. T. Wright reminds us that we must forgive others, not in a spirit of forgetting what was done, but in a move towards reconciliation, not revenge. He uses an interesting metaphor in explaining the last part of today’s Gospel: “Forgiveness is more like the air in your lungs. There’s only room for you to inhale the next lungful when you’ve just breathed out the previous one. If you insist on withholding it, refusing to give someone else the kiss of life they may desperately need, you won’t be able to take any more in yourself, and you will suffocate very quickly.”


Theories of social justice remind us of the importance of not just forgiveness but of accountability. In our own time, we’ve seen how these processes can work on an international scale. There are many examples, but one of the most successful recent ones is the truth and reconciliation committees in South Africa that allowed the nation to heal from the terrible wounds of apartheid. In the 1990’s, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu developed this approach in which victims explained the damage done to them, and perpetrators could confess what they had done, in the hope of both amnesty and reparations given to the victims. Some perpetrators still had punishment, particularly if they didn’t show repentance. It’s a compelling example of restorative justice taking the place of retribution. It’s a vivid and modern example of Matthew 18 in action.


Reconciliation is so important that it is now part of Just War Theory, the school of Philosophy that recognizes Matthew 18 on a geopolitical scale, that wars can be unavoidable, but they can be fought justly. In recent decades, the need for a just and lasting peace was added, a realization that without ensuring a just peace, the seeds for the next conflict are sown.


Bible scholar John T. Carroll says, “To be sure, Matthew’s Gospel emphasizes the importance of forgiveness in the lives of individuals and for the health of communities: blessing comes to those who are merciful (5:7). Yet justice matters too. There is and needs to be accountability for harmful actions and abuses of power.”


Our reading from Romans tells us that even like-minded people can disagree about any number of issues, but we find a way not to be torn apart. Our Old Testament reading reminds us of the way that reconciliation can happen, even after the most soul wrenching actions, if there is repentance. Our Gospel tells us what can happen if debts are forgiven without repentance. The king in the parable made forgiveness too easy, and thus, true repentance didn’t happen. Our Divine king does not make forgiveness simple, but the gift of grace that we can never earn is ours, ours so that we can continue with the repair work that must be done: repair to ourselves, repair to our relationships, and by doing so, repairing the larger mechanisms of both our communities and the larger world.