NOTES for Mat 18:15-35

Today's reading is devoted to one of the most important Gospel themes: the forgiveness of sins. Both the meaning of the parable and the meaning of the teaching come down to one thing: God forgives us our sins only if we ourselves are ready to forgive the sins of those who sin against us.

Sometimes this demand is taken as a call to forgive everything without distinction. But on closer reading of the text, it turns out that this is far from the case. After all, forgiving everything without distinction often means that the offended person simply does not notice the sin committed against him or pays no attention to it. Sometimes in Christian circles there are even calls to learn to ignore the sins of one's neighbor, including those directed against us. In practice, however, such ignoring usually sooner or later leads to an emotional explosion, in which all the accumulated grievances spill out so completely that no trace remains of the appearance of peace.

Jesus does not call us to ignore sin at all; on the contrary, He considers it necessary to call things by their names, openly and, if needed, in the presence of witnesses, and sometimes publicly, in the church assembly (vv. 15-17). Of course, such an explanation can lead not only to reconciliation but also to a break; yet in any case the relationship between people will be clarified, and only then will forgiveness and restoration of relationships become possible.

It is no accident that the teaching also mentions the assembly of the faithful (vv. 19-20), because it is impossible as long as relationships have not been restored. But they cannot be restored by failing to notice or by ignoring sin; this is possible only through repentance on one side and forgiveness of the sin on the other.

And this is not surprising, because what is at stake here is spiritual life, where relationships come to the fore, both between people and between individual people and God. To fail to notice sin, to pretend that nothing has happened between brothers, would mean building these relationships on a lie from the very start, and that would be a serious spiritual error.

But no less an error would be to absolutize sin, to treat it as something that from now on has made normal relationships between brothers forever impossible. Of course, in our still untransformed world the consequences of sin committed consciously and deliberately were indeed considered irreversible; but we no longer live in former times, we live in the age of the approaching and unfolding Kingdom, and now sin, even when committed consciously, cannot have irreversible consequences if the one who committed it sincerely repents of what he has done. And if we live in the Kingdom, we will be able to see the person behind his sin, and therefore we will be able to forgive him; if not, then a sin committed against us once will destroy our relationship with him forever.

But we can count on the forgiveness of our own sins only in the Kingdom. God does not require us to forgive our neighbors' sins because without this we will not be good enough for Him and for the Kingdom; rather, by failing to show readiness to forgive our neighbor everything and begin the relationship with him anew, we refuse the Kingdom, where everything begins with a clean slate, including for us ourselves.

In a dispute with a brother, or indeed with any “neighbor,” a person is called to take the most difficult course: not to condescendingly forgive the one who is mistaken, not to overlook his foolishness, but quite the opposite—to admit the possibility that you yourself may be wrong! If you have failed to find common ground with this brother, ask yourself, “What if I am the one at fault?” and invite a third person who can reason objectively. But even then, even if the third person's objective judgment proves to be on your side, make a further effort: doubt your own victory and appeal for judgment to the final authority, the assembly of those who gather in Christ's name, where He Himself can judge between you and reveal His will to those willing to hear it. For it is so easy to believe that we are right, and so difficult to believe in the real possibility of God's judgment on earth...

It’s so simple and obvious: if a problem arose between you two – you should first of all solve it together. But why do we have the opposite: we are ready to discuss our damaged relations with anyone, but only not with the person with whom we should have? We are maybe afraid of a direct conversation, that it may reveal instability of our own position, and finally – the justice of our “opponent”? And maybe we do not like the situation that if it turns out that we are right we will have to forgive – and no one will know about our generosity, do we? One way or other, with the “help” of all these rumors and gossips we try to improve our “rating”, our popularity in the others’ eyes through humiliation and condemnation of our brothers – and thus we lose them. The risk of losing frightens in direct conversation, but after all, we should not forget that the possible “win” is great: we can get our brother back.

We cannot fail to notice that in today's Gospel reading Christ reveals to us the way in which God chose to be present in our world. Where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is in our midst. It is precisely this union of us in His name that God expects from us, and when it happens, He unfailingly comes to us. For if two of us agree to ask God for something together, He cannot fail to be present, because it was precisely for such agreement and union that He created us. The reverse is also true: for us to find ourselves in God's presence and come to Him, we must agree with one another. This means that what becomes significant for us is not our personal problems, but another person and that person's life. And this is an essential aspect of our likeness to God.

The Lord Jesus Christ tells this to His disciples the first time in Matthew 16:19. The Church in the person of Apostle Peter, who then just confessed Christ as the Son of the Living God, is given there what belongs only to God: the power to forgive people’s sins. The Lord Jesus gives here again to His disciples – the first Christian community – the power to forgive sins, and emphasizes that forgiveness given by the Church is been fulfilled not only on earth, but also in heaven, that is in eternity.

It’s understandable and logical, when things done by the Lord in heaven reflect in people’s earthly life. But here we can see that the Lord wanted to establish a different relationship in the Church: what the Church accomplishes here extends till heaven. The church delivers to people the divine forgiveness and then the sin, confessed in the church’s sacrament of penance is forgiven, and exists no more.

Usually we think that the Lord speaks about power as a right or ability, a power to give forgiveness. But he speaks of an entirely different nature of power in the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather, His words must be understood as that He entrusts the church a service, which the essence is to impart His forgiveness. This is the purport of the existence of the Church and its sacraments, because Christ Himself gives forgiveness through the apostles’ hands.

There is again a very important meaning of these words: terrestrial time of our lives is priceless, we can build relationships with people only here, while we still have time. Whilst we live on earth, we can try to rectify something, to forgive and to open our heart to those who have offended us, to ask for forgiveness ourselves to those we have offended too. Therewith we will die with the spiritual “assets” we have accumulated. Well, if we die with unforgiveness in our hearts, how can we find ourselves in the Kingdom of forgiveness and love?

Can it really be true that “whatever they ask, it will be done for them”? But what if...? Concerning every prayer, the Lord says that the heavenly Father knows all our needs, while we should seek His Kingdom and pray, “Thy will be done.” Two points in the Lord's words are fundamentally important for us.

First, He speaks of our human agreement with one another. This proves to be so important that God promises unfailingly to hear the united prayer of several people. In practice, this explains why Christians value the Church so highly: it is precisely here that we ask together. It also means that through prayer you can share in the needs of others.

Second, the Lord speaks of His presence. To the question “Where is God?” or “Where is the Kingdom of Heaven?” the Gospel gives a simple answer: wherever people agree to be together and to share one another's lives and needs. This is at once an empirical fact and God's promise, which we can trust.

How important our agreement with each other happens to be from God’s point of view. Jesus promises the fulfillment of a joint request without any additional conditions. He seems to be unaware of such things like conspiracy or collective egoism. Apparently, He understands what prayer is somewhat differently than us: for Him, it is the relationships with the Father – relations of such completeness and such proximity that the congruence of these relations between the two can only mean true love between them. But as it’s said in one Christian song: “where love is, there the Lord is”.

After reading the first two verses, the temptation arises to make a quick calculation: seven times seventy is four hundred ninety; this brother of mine has been sinning against me every day for two years, so the credit has long been exhausted and everything is in order; I no longer have to forgive.

It is clear that the Lord uses seven times seventy as a symbol: not simply of fullness, which the number seven signifies, but of a kind of infinite fullness. To forgive up to seven times seventy means here continually, always. Jesus unfolds this thought in the parable that follows this episode: if we do not show mercy to others, we thereby refuse God's mercy toward us as well. The words "So also My heavenly Father will do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart" remind us that every attempt of ours to reshape the Bible in our own way, so that it becomes convenient and undemanding, can end in nothing good. Do you want the number of forgivable sins to be limited? Then you want that limitation not only for your neighbor, but also for yourself.

Verses 21–22 call to mind this story: two little girls quarrel; one has hurt the other, who must, of course, forgive her, especially since forgiveness has already been requested. But the hurt is fresh, and she does not want to forgive. She tells her mother, who repeats words we already know: “Forgive seventy times seven,” whereupon the little girl angrily declares that she has already forgiven the offender exactly that many times, and even more! This story makes us smile. First of all, it is clear that she has very likely not “shown her mercy” so many times. Then another thought arises: what span of time is meant—an entire lifetime, a year, or a day? But when we remember the apostle Paul’s words, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26), we should probably incline toward the shortest of these periods. Then the enormous number of “acts of forgiveness” of which Jesus speaks seems even more incredible. It becomes clear that the point is not the number. The Lord’s mercy is boundless, and we are called to imitate Him (see Lk 6:36). By imitating their parents children learn how to live, and we become children of God by imitating the Father.

Of course, the point is not to make notches after each “forgiveness” and count them again every day, anticipating the long-awaited revenge after the 490th mark. To forgive means to forgive, leaving no notches, not counting the sins of one’s neighbor, not keeping an evil memory in the heart. Hard, is it not? But there is another option: my brother sinned, I forgave him, and in order not to give him the opportunity to sin against me again, I simply break off all relations with him. It would seem reasonable and quite feasible.

Everything would be fine, but one phrase from the Lord’s Prayer gets in the way. Yes, yes, “and forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Moreover, Jesus considers it necessary to emphasize the significance of these words separately (Matt. 6:14-15). That is, the heavenly Father forgives us exactly as we forgive. It remains only to imagine that after our very first sin He would forgive us and then break off all relations with us...

This means that in His answer to Peter Jesus does, after all, have in mind something unreasonable and not very possible for us. In this way He again directs His disciples, and you and me, to let into our heart the One Person who can forgive in this way, because His love for people is perfect. But without our effort, our consent, our desire to forgive, nothing will come of it: God does not compel, but gives strength.

Today Jesus tells a remarkable parable showing that there is no need to speculate about how the Lord will treat us at the end of days. We need only look at how we treated people during our life: that is how the Lord will treat us. The servant owed his master ten thousand talents, an immense sum. Some scholars believe that, converted into modern money, it would amount to billions of dollars. Yet the king does even more than he is asked: he does not merely grant a delay, but forgives the debt. Such is the greatness of God's mercy.

But the Lord is not only merciful; He is also just. Many find it strange that Jesus chose this particular parable to illustrate the need to forgive seventy times seven, since the king forgave only once. Those who reason this way miss its central point: we must strive to resemble the Lord in mercy, but while trusting in God's mercy, we must not forget God's justice.

The parable of the debtor reminds us of our usual everyday behavior, so habitual that we do not even notice that we are guided by savage logic: when I am being eaten, that is bad; when I am eating, that is good. Here we have one of the stern passages of the Gospel, reminding us that the salvation God gives is truly attainable, and the danger of losing it through our own disgraceful actions is also real, especially when we refuse to pass on the mercy given to us from above. It is no accident that Christ points to the destructiveness of unforgiveness, for the person who refuses to forgive after being forgiven has, in essence, spat on the very principle of forgiveness. But by doing so he has also crossed out the forgiveness he himself received.

The words of the parable about the punishment of the debtor, handed over to the torturers until he pays the whole debt, are harsh, but they also appear to offer hope that the punishment may not be endless, that it may balance the sinner's guilt and serve his redemption. Yet can the one being tortured pay, if he has rejected the only One who paid his immeasurable debt?

At the heart of the Gospel is the message of love. At the heart of love is forgiveness. The parable told by the Lord places forgiveness at the very centre of human relationships. It is impossible to want to be forgiven and not desire to forgive. Forgiveness is a two-way bond between people, in which both sides are responsible for sustaining it. To forgive not when someone has atoned for their fault, nor even when they have asked for forgiveness, but beforehand, in advance, leaving no unforgiveness in one's heart—this is the essence of Jesus' words in verse 22.

For today's Day of the Holy Spirit, let us quote words from the liturgy written by St Theophanes the Branded, who lived in the first half of the ninth century.

Source of life, in whom we believe, stream of goodness, Holy Spirit of God, bring my deadened mind to life and by Your action raise it up to sing of Your divinity.

O Spirit of wisdom and the fear of God, Spirit of truth, counsel, and understanding, Giver of peace, dwell in us, so that, sanctified by Your indwelling, we may sing without ceasing in the night: We glorify You, Lover of humankind.

Almighty and Lord of all, who preserve all creation from decay, grant us sanctification and enlightenment, so that, filled with Your light, we may sing without ceasing in the night: We glorify You, Lover of humankind.

Come to us, Holy Spirit; make us partakers of Your holiness, of unfading Light, of divine life, and of Your fragrant gifts, for You are the stream of the Godhead, proceeding from the Father through the Son.

It is very important that today, on the day of the Holy Spirit, the Church reminds us of the Lord's promise to be among us when two or three of us gather in His name. At the time when Christ spoke these words, the apostles hardly understood how the Teacher could always be present with all those who gather "in His name." Until they learned this and were convinced of it with their own eyes, through their own experience, these words remained a mystery to them. Christ, foreseeing this, still sent the apostles this "package," which reaches its addressee in time.

And precisely on the day of Pentecost this package was delivered: "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I have said to you" (John 14:26). On that day the Spirit gave the apostles the sense of the living presence of their Teacher among them, just as real as it had been when they walked together along the roads of Palestine. Perhaps even more real: the Spirit "provided" His presence both among them and in each one of them at the same time. For they were truly gathered in His name.

It is possible that, while awaiting the descent of the Spirit, the apostles were doing exactly what Paul lists in the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 5:9-19). After all, this is a concrete embodiment of the words "in His name"; it is truly what is worth doing while waiting for the Spirit. In any case, the apostles truly took Christ's words to heart and remained together. And their shared disposition, their faithful waiting during the ten days from the Ascension, was what the Lord wanted from them. It was the one step in response to which He does far more: He pours out His grace on us.

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Ephesians reminds us that 'the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth' (v. 9), and calls us to 'be filled with the Spirit' (v. 18). The apostle Paul calls this new state of the human being 'light in the Lord'; the apostle John also turns to this image of light when he speaks of brotherly love among believers (1 John 2:10). In the spirit of love we are called to 'seek those who have gone astray' (Matt 18:10-14), to resolve problems in our relationships (Matt 18:15-18), and, finally, to receive God's grace in unanimous prayer in the name of Christ and in His presence, just as we were promised.