In theological circles, it is usually assumed that the thorniest question for Christians is the issue of evil. How is it that an all-powerful, all knowing, all good God allows evil? That is a hard one. Attempts to wrap our minds around that are called theodicy. Fancy title, important topic, but I don’t think it’s the one most of us struggle with on a regular basis.
No, I think the issue with which we most grapple finds us at ground level, where we live day to day. In our interactions with other people like ourselves. That issue sits at the heart of all three of today’s readings: Forgiveness.
The issue arises because we know, as people of faith, and specifically as Christians, we are meant to forgive. Jesus managed to forgive the people who were killing him and jeering at him on the cross. But, after all, that was Jesus. Nonetheless, every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, there it is: forgive us our trespasses (or debts, or sins – the specific word doesn’t matter) as we forgive those who trespass against us. We pray that God’s willingness to forgive us should be linked to our ability to forgive others. We sometimes recite that prayer by rote. Actually pray it, though, and it’s unnerving.
All three scriptural readings focus on forgiveness and, making for a pleasant change, Paul’s words in Roman’s are the easiest to understand and accept. There were differing opinions in the church in Rome (some things don’t ever change) and some people thought they understood the faith and its implications better than others (did I mention that some things don’t ever change). Paul writes to remind these good church people that no one is in any position and no one should use their position, standing, erudition or anything else to make somebody else feel less, since all of us without exception have fallen short and stand in need of God’s love. God alone has the right to judge. Holding back judgment isn’t easy; but Paul’s admonition is easily grasped. Judgment is God’s prerogative, not ours.
Then we come to the Gospel. It’s also not hard to understand. Just hard to do. Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive another member of the church. Is 7 times good? (The Rabbinical expectation was 6 so Peter feels pretty good about his offer.) No Jesus says and depending on the translation you either hear seventy-seven times, or seventy times seven times (which is 490 times). Daunting sure, but the calculations can be made, though some think at that point it means infinitely: you must forgive infinitely. Usually when I’ve heard that story or people talk about it, it suggests someone who continually does something wrong and you have to forgive that person over and over again. However, one wise Pastor* has said she thinks it’s more likely, given our struggles with forgiveness (and Peter’s), that it may take us that many times just to forgive fully once. I think she’s right.
But forgiveness about differing opinions is one thing. Even forgiving someone who’s hurt us in some general way (the hypothetical Peter sets up) is imaginable. But what about the egregious sin?
Jesus’ parable moves us into that unpleasant arena. In the parable, the master is owed a great deal of money, and the slave asks for patience to make a repayment. (It is in fact a debt he could never repay since he owes the equivalent of the GDP of several countries.) The Master does what only he can do—he wipes out the debt in its entirety setting this slave on his feet with a wide-open future. Which he doesn’t appreciate—at all. At all. For coming upon another slave (a peer), who pleads for patience and who might actually be able to repay the debt given some time, he throttles him and casts him into debtor’s prison. How quicky we forget. Even, as in this parable, the connection between the two debtors seems obvious both to us as well as to the fellow slaves watching the story unfold.
We’ve moved from members of a shared community in Rome, to peers suffering under the same burden of guilt in the parable. But I’m not convinced this moves the needle for us much, or for me. One feels commonplace and the other too hyperbolic. But what do we do and can we forgive when someone truly hurts us? When someone has done us or someone we love real harm, or betrayed our trust, trampled on a promise, knowingly lied to us. Especially when those sins are committed by someone we loved and whom we thought loved us. Now, that gets our attention, that knots our stomach — and walls off our heart.
The story of Joseph and his brothers in the Book of Genesis has it all. We likely know it, at least in broad outline: Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, is the father’s favorite. A clear favorite is never good news for the rest of the kids and Jacob giving Joseph a multi -colored coat didn’t help. Neither does Joseph flaunting his extra-beloved status. His jealous brothers decide to kill him but then choose instead to sell him off to a passing caravan. However, they tell their father that Joseph was killed by a wild animal, shattering their father’s heart. Joseph becomes a slave in Egypt but due to his extraordinary gifts as a dreamer and prophet, rises in the ranks to become Pharoah’s right-hand man. Even so, we have deeply guilty brothers, a broken father and a betrayed brother. No one is OK. The theologian Miroslav Volf has said, rightly, that “forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.” Yet, when it’s family that clever reframing isn’t possible.
The story ends in tears, but of the best possible kind. But it takes honesty to get there. It takes Joseph calculating just how much he wants revenge, it takes the brothers knowing both their actual need for Joseph and acknowledging their guilt. It requires admitting their guilt to their father who has no reason to forgive them. But does. Everyone must own up. And it includes a promise to bring Joseph back home, even if only for his burial. A promise that is kept through generations as it will take several centuries to accomplish.
The critical line in this whole story is spoken by Joseph. We often misunderstand it. Joseph tells his brothers, as they are reconciling, that though they meant what they did for harm, God meant it for good. What? Does that mean it doesn’t matter? No. Does it mean God was behind the brothers’ terrible betrayal of their little brother. Absolutely not. No, their tears, everyone’s tears, make it clear that’s not so. What that phrase tells us is that though the brothers had their own plans (as did Jospeh in his young arrogance), God does not abandon us to them. God’s plan is stronger — and it is God’s plan for love and healing. These last verses of the Book of Genesis are the lead-in to the rest of the Bible. The stories that will take us all the way to Jesus’ death and resurrection and make God’s plan plain. As one preacher has said, “God’s love is as consistent and as insistent as gravity.” “God’s love is as consistent and as insistent as gravity.” **
We don’t have an infinite amount of time or opportunities to forgive. Or to be forgiven by those we have hurt. We probably don’t even have 490 times. But God does. God truly has all the time in the world and then some. All the time in the world for every single one of us. So it is that we can pray that “Christ stretched out his arms on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within reach of his saving embrace”. (Book of Common Prayer, page 101)
Will forgiveness ever be easy? No. Will it include tears. Yes. Does it help to know that we are already in God’s embrace? I think so. I pray so. For me and for us all.
Amen.
*The Rev. Liz Walker, retired Presbyterian minister and author of No One Left Alone (copyright 2025)
**The Rev. Patrick Ward, Rector, Church of the Holy Spirit, Orleans, MA
Sermon at the Chapel of St. James’ the Fisherman, Wellfleet, MA
September 13, 2026
The Rev. Brenda G. Husson, preacher
Genesis 50:15-21
Paul’s Letter to the Romans 14: 1-12
Matthew 18:21-25