Beyond Measure

Sermon from Sunday, September 17th, 2023 | Lectionary 24
+ by Pr. Sevig +

Some of you may remember the Broadway musical Rent that debuted in 1996 and changed musical theater on Broadway for the next generation. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in Lower Manhattan's East Village while living under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. 

One song is sure to inspire a sing-a-long whenever it’s played in my presence. [sung] Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. How do you measure a year in the life? [speak] How about love? Measure in love. The lyrics include:

In truth that she learned,

Or in times that he cried?

In the bridges he burned,

Or the way that she died?

It's time now, to sing out,

Though the story never ends.

Remember the love,

Measure in love. 

There are lots of ways that we measure but rarely is it in love. We measure ingredients when cooking. We measure our weight on a scale or our waist with a measuring tape. We measure our lives compared to others. Churches often fall into the trap of measuring their “success” by how many people are in worship or whether they are meeting their budgetary demands. 

In our Gospel lesson, Peter comes to Jesus and asks a measurement question. “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Peter had heard Jesus talk about forgiveness, so he wanted to know more. 

There is an ancient rabbinic tradition that says a person should forgive another who has sinned against them as many as four times. So, Peter, earnest and eager, tries to be even more extravagant than the rabbis, and he adds three more times. He asks, “Should I forgive a person even up to seven times?”

Seven times seems pretty generous, after all. When did you last forgive someone seven times in a row? It’s a lot. 

Jesus turns and says, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” New Testament scholars debate whether the Greek text means “seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven times.” But that is beside the point, because either way, Jesus is holding up an enormous number, a number so big that we can’t begin to calculate it in terms of forgiveness. 

Peter wants a rule, a measurement, so he holds wide his hands and says, “This much, Jesus? Should I forgive even this much?” And Jesus says, “No, much more than that. You’re not even using the right scale. As far as the east is from the west, that’s how much you should forgive.” It’s such an enormous amount of forgiveness, it would be senseless to try to calculate how much or how often.

There has been a fair amount of social science research on forgiveness. It turns out that forgiveness is good for you. People who forgive have lower levels of anger, anxiety, and depression, are more agreeable and emotionally stable, and may also have gained some health benefits. It’s good to know that there is some social scientific evidence that supports the claim that forgiveness is good for us, although I doubt that was Jesus’ point.

One instrument designed to assess (or measure) our forgiving character is known as the “Forgiveness Likelihood Scale”. It gives ten scenarios of wrongdoing and then asks participants to indicate their likelihood to forgive on a scale from very unlikely to very likely. Here are a few of the items:

• You share something embarrassing about yourself to a friend who promises to keep the information confidential. However, the friend breaks their promise and proceeds to tell several people. What is the likelihood that you would choose to forgive your friend?

• A family member humiliates you in front of others by sharing a story about you that you did not want anyone to know. What is the likelihood that you would choose to forgive the family member?

• A stranger breaks into your house and steals a substantial sum of money from you. What is the likelihood that you would choose to forgive the stranger?

How are you doing so far in measuring your forgiveness capacity?

It seems as though Peter comes to Jesus with his own version of a Forgiveness Likelihood Scale. Peter’s question, “How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” is like asking, “How many times, on a scale from 0-7, must I forgive someone?” Jesus’ answer, as we have seen, is literally off the scale: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

I doubt that if Peter had asked in his question “Should I forgive  77 times?”, that Jesus would have said, “Yes seventy-seven seems about right.,” and then been done with it. I think Jesus’ response is a way of saying the question, and what it is trying to measure, is not quite right. The Psalmist says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins from us.” It’s hard to put a number on that type of forgiveness!

Jesus goes on to tell a parable that is even more hyperbolic than the original answer, “seventy-seven.” The parable of the unforgiving servant is a story where the numbers don’t add up. In the story, a servant owes the king ten thousand talents. Now, that’s a crazy number. A single talent was more than 15 years’ worth of daily wages. So, when Jesus says, this servant owed the king ten thousand talents, he’s effectively saying he owed him a bazillion dollars. And the king forgave him. Wiped that debt clean. It wasn’t measurable anymore. Gone!

Note, Jesus doesn’t say forgiveness is like this…, but he says the Dominion of Heaven may be compared to… That is, he’s trying to give us a window not just to a technical question about forgiveness, but also into a whole way of life, a way of being and thriving, an entire climate and atmosphere–God’s realm of love and mercy–within which humanity may unfurl into its fullest, most beautiful form. 

It’s almost as if when we are merciful, we create a kind of micro-climate around us, within which we experience mercy with others. Just as if we are stingy, vengeful, judgy, or what have you, we will experience the same from others. If we live in an atmosphere full of mercy, we’ll experience mercy. If it's judgment, we’ll experience judgment. Forgiveness, it turns out, is an environmental issue: the world we make is the world we’ll inhabit. 

Like a loving parent, God continually calls us to be our best selves, and at the same time generously forgives us when we fall short. This generosity itself is a call for us to do the same with one another. We are made to be merciful.  We forgive because God forgives. The forgiveness that we are to pass on to others is the forgiveness we have in union with Christ. Not because we are moral heroes or because we seek our own well-being, but because we are forgiven people.

In the end, Peter’s question is on the wrong foot. He uses the wrong measuring tool for forgiveness because God’s love, forgiveness, and mercy are beyond measure.  

Jesus calls each of us to leave the quantities behind and embrace forgiveness as a quality of mind and heart, an ongoing way of being in the world. For then forgiveness won’t be something we do. It’ll be part of who we are, givers and receivers of mercy. Children of God, by the grace of God. 

How do you measure a year in the realm of God? Measure in love. Measure in forgiveness. Measure in the mercy received from the Holy One–five-hundred, twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes–every. single. year. in your life.