ELEVENTH SUNDAY OF MATTHEW
August 24
[Forgiveness in the Church]
THE SERMON
Christ teaches us that mercy is a key to eternal life. In this section of the Gospel of
Matthew, the Lord is instructing about life in the Church and human relationships. He tells
us how to become like children in order to inherit His Kingdom. He also tells us how to re-
solve conflict in the Church. Here, in this parable, He teaches us about forgiveness. First,
we see the justice of God, as Jesus uses the illustration of a king who settles accounts
with his servants and finds one who owes him a large sum of money and cannot pay his
debt. During this time, and in this culture, if a person cannot pay a debt to their master,
they cannot declare bankruptcy. He can be arrested and sold to slavery so that his labor,
or the price of being sold, would become a repayment. In this parable, the king exercises
his right to sell the servant and his family into slavery for repayment of the debt.
However, the servant falls on his knees, imploring, “Lord, have patience with me,
and I will pay you everything.” Out of mercy for the servant, the king releases him and for-
gives him of the debt. The servant who is forgiven owed “ten thousand talents,” which, in
the currency of that day, would be equivalent to millions of dollars. Christ uses this figure
to illustrate that it is not an amount that can be paid back, so the forgiveness of the debt
was beyond imagination, a great act of mercy and forgiveness. Yet, that same servant
finds another person who owes him money and, seizing him by the throat, tells him to pay
what he owes.
The amount owed by the second servant to the first is “a hundred denarii,” that
is to say, a much smaller amount that a worker would make in a few months. The con-
trast is staggering. The second servant said the same words the first had used with the
king. “Have patience with me,” he said, “and I will pay you.” However, the first servant
is unmerciful and puts him in prison until he pays the debt. When the other servants see
what has happened, recognizing the great injustice, they report to the king, and the king
summons the first servant. The king then calls the first servant “wicked” because he was
forgiven an unpayable debt and did not have any mercy on a fellow servant who owed a
very small debt.
Jesus teaches us that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. It is better to forgive and
be merciful than to exact justice. Mercy is the practical expression of love of neighbor.
God loves us, and therefore He is gracious to us. If we say we love one another and are
willing to love our neighbor, then we are willing to forgive others as God forgives us. Of
course, this requires that we recognize our sins. If we acknowledge our sins, this is the first
step to being willing to forgive others. This is the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, which we
pray daily: “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” (better known as “forgive us
2our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”).
It is important to emphasize that we seek to forgive those who injure us in any
way. However, this does not necessarily mean that every relationship is immediately and
automatically restored. At times, forgiveness will mean releasing the other person from
any guilt they may have incurred from injuring us. At the same time, we maintain healthy
boundaries so the situation does not continue. This is a way to release us from the grief
of unforgiveness, which hurts only ourselves, while also considering how to protect our-
selves and our loved ones from harm. At other times, by God’s grace, relationships can be
completely restored when repentance and forgiveness occur. In either case, forgiveness
is needed because it is the key to mercy and healing from God. The Lord hopes that re-
gardless of the attitude of those who have hurt us, we try to forgive them for our spiritual
benefit.
It is for us to forgive because it is for us to receive forgiveness from God. God
knows we are imperfect and need His grace and mercy. Saint Cyril of Alexandria teaches,
“The God of all releases us from the difficulties of our faults . . . But this happens on the
proviso that we ourselves release our fellow servants from the hundred denarii, that is,
from the few minor faults they have committed against us.” When we acquire a measure
of humility, we begin to understand that our imperfections, compared to God’s perfect
love, are indeed an unpayable debt if the Lord would hold them against us. Then, we can
understand how the sins of others against us are nothing in comparison. If God forgives
much, we can forgive much less.
Two things happen when we forgive: First, we are changed into the likeness of
God. We become like Him. Second, the door to God’s mercy and forgiveness is open to
us, and our sins are also forgiven. God’s love and grace manifest His Kingdom. He invites
the outcasts, forgives sins, calls the lost sheep, receives the prodigal son, and rewards all
the laborers in His vineyard. Jesus teaches us to be ready to forgive a brother or sister,
not just seven times, but seventy times seven, and to pray for those who injure us, forgive
them, and return good for evil.
On the other hand, refusing to grant forgiveness means we do not necessarily wish
to receive forgiveness from God. How can hope for God’s forgiveness be present when
no human forgiveness is offered or received? Our willingness to forgive others means we
open ourselves to divine forgiveness and become a channel of divine grace. Recognition
of the need for divine forgiveness opens the eyes to the need for human forgiveness.
Similarly, we can love God far more deeply when we love our neighbor, so we receive
forgiveness and mercy when we are merciful and forgiving.
The Church is the community that prays the Lord’s Prayer, and so it is the communi-
ty in which forgiveness is given and received. This parable shows us how God is full of love
and mercy, but also full of justice. God loves us unwaveringly, and we are also accountable
3for our actions. There will be the Final Judgment, and Jesus teaches us to show kindness
to others so that God can reciprocate when we stand before Him in the next life. On that
day of the Final Judgment, God will judge us according to our behavior towards others.
He wants us to be merciful and forgiving. He wants us to love our brothers and sisters
even if they “owe” us.
We are called, as Christians, to be loving and welcoming, that is, to have what in
Greek is called philoxenia (in Greek, φιλοξενία). Saint Paisios the Athonite, also teaches us
to have philotimo (in Greek, φιλότιμο). According to him, philotimo is a heart full of grat-
itude to God and his fellow neighbor, a heart that tries to repay even the slightest good
that others do for him. He teaches, “When one realizes one’s sinfulness and the great
mercy of God . . . real tears fall of themselves and then man prays and weeps without
effort. This is because humility works continuously together with philotimo.”
Our Christian ethos, expressed in our behavior, is the best way to bring others
closer to God. The Lord teaches us that we will be known as His disciples if we love one
another. It is by forgiving others that we receive forgiveness. By pouring the oil of mercy
on others, we are also healed from our spiritual wounds by the merciful Lord and restored
to His likeness.
