Bible Math Class

Matthew 18:21-35

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents

was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Welcome to Bible Math Class.  I am your professor, the Rev. NOT-Doctor Erik Karas.  This class of Bible Math begins with Jesus telling Peter he needs to forgive “77 times” which sounds like a lot, but in Bible Math, “7” is not a literal number.  It’s a symbolic number which means… “the perfect amount” and “77” is symbolic for… and this is technical language… the “super-perfect” amount.  Jesus was telling Peter that he needed to forgive others the “super-perfect” amount of times… in other words he needed to forgive others the way God forgives him… no matter how many times it might take.  

Our Bible math class moves next to the accompanying parable.  We start with the second slave first.  He owed the first slave 100 denarii, but what’s a denarii?  A denarius (singular) was a day’s wages for a field worker, so in Massachusetts the minimum wage is $15 an hour, so working for 8 hours…  that’s 120 bucks… times 100 and the second slave owes the first one 12 grand.  In Connecticut he’d owe close to 14 grand, where the minimum wage is linked to inflation automatically.  Either way… that’s an Ouch!  

THAT, however, is peanuts when we turn our mathematical eye to the first slave who owed his King 10,000 Talents… but… what’s a Talent?  Well, it takes 6000 Denarii to make just ONE Talent… so 6000 times $12,000 equals $720,000.  That’s just for ONE Talent.  But this guy owed 10,000 Talents!!  This guy owed the king 7.2… BBBBBB Billion dollars!  That’s more than the GDP of around 40 COUNTRIES in today’s money!  If that slave tried to pay back that debt to his king (without interest mind you) at even a million dollars a year, it would take him 7200 years to pay what he owed.  

Jesus is using Bible Math in this parable to do what Bible Math in parables always does… it shocks us into learning something about the way God works.  Jesus uses this “can’t wrap your mind around it” amount of money… more than the GDP of entire countries… to show us the mind blowing extent of God’s forgiveness.  When we pray the Lord’s prayer and it says, in one version, “Forgive us our debts” THIS is the level of debt it talks about God forgiving!  This lesson in Bible Math is teaching us that there is absolutely, positively, no possible way for any of us to do anything, anything, ANYTHING that God would not or could not forgive.

But now we need to go back to the second slave and his encounter with the first slave over his debt of a measly 12 grand.  Even though the first guy had just been forgiven his 7.2 BILLION dollar debt, he refused to pass on the same compassion, grace, and forgiveness with the same generosity that he had first received.  Jesus added this part to the parable because he knew very well that we’d all very much like RECEIVING God’s unlimited, unconditional forgiveness, love and compassion BUT we’d also have TERRIBLE TROUBLE passing it on to others, even at a minuscule fraction of what we first received.  

Jesus knew that even though the King in the parable was into radical forgiveness, the rest of us humans tend all too often to want to sprinkle in some retribution with any forgiveness we might give.  But this part of the parable is here to remind us that passing on less than the unconditional love, grace, and generosity of forgiveness that we’ve first received is not the Way, the Truth or the Life. 

It’s not the Way because IF we only pass on only a portion of what we’ve received, then we will inevitably find that it is US who are not free.  It will be US who remain tortured.  Not tortured by God in some cosmic hot place, but by the simple truth that when we don’t let all the debt, all the hurt, all the pain, and all the resentment go, the part we hold onto just grinds away inside of us.  We churn it over and over in our minds.  We work ourselves up into a lather.  We torture ourselves and it feels… well… like hell.  

Jesus gets his point across here very clearly… the more we forgive… the more we let go of the wrongs that have been done to us… the more we strive to be generous, even when others have not been generous with us… the more we will experience the freedom, fullness, and abundance of life God created us to live.  The tighter we hold those resentments, the longer we grind those grudges, the more we look to get even, the more hold back the compassion, generosity and love we have first been given by God, the more our lives will feel like hell.  

But how do you genuinely let it all go?   How do you let all that hurt go?  It’s really, REALLY hard!  This parable tells us the answer is found in community.  We can’t do it alone.  We ALL need help living toward that Divine level of forgiveness.  We ALL need help dying to our brokenness, our woundedness, our past hurts and rising toward being ever more generous, compassionate and forgiving.  

And that is exactly the homework this Bible Math class gives us.  To sit together and acknowledge with one another our shared old hurts, pains, and wounds.  To listen to one another as we get those hurts up and out and discover we are not alone.  To encourage one another as we practice generosity, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion for the people around us.  Because living out of an equation of forgiveness, gratitude, and generosity rather than the equation of resentment, condemnation, and retribution will lead us each day toward a much less tortured, and infinitely more abundant, life.  Amen.