Is There a Harder Commandment?

Is there a harder commandment in all of scripture than forgiveness?

Love God and love your neighbour can sound difficult, but also broad enough that we can imagine ourselves doing it. We can define love in ways that feel manageable. We can be kind when it is convenient. We can care from a safe distance. We can offer support as long as it does not cost too much.

Forgiveness is different.

Forgiveness brings us close to the wounds we would rather avoid. It asks us to acknowledge harm, not only the harm others have done to us, but also the harm we have done to others. It asks us to look honestly at fractured relationships, painful memories, unfair systems, harsh words, and the ways we have failed to love one another well.

This is hard work. And it is holy work.

Chelsey Harmon reflects on public debates over student loan forgiveness during the pandemic. Some people who had received loans that were later forgiven resisted offering similar relief to people carrying student debt. Her point is not that every debt has the same story behind it. We often do not know why someone borrowed money, what barriers they faced, or what efforts they made to repay it. The deeper question is what happens when someone receives grace but refuses to imagine grace for anyone else.

That is close to the heart of Jesus’ parable in Matthew. The story is not mainly a financial policy lesson. It is a story about mercy. It is about what kind of people we become when we have been met by compassion.

Peter comes to Jesus with a question that many of us recognize. How often should I forgive someone who harms me? Peter wants a number. He wants a limit. He wants a line beyond which forgiveness is no longer required.

That desire makes sense. Counting can make us feel safe. If we can count the injuries, count the apologies, count the second chances, and count the failures, perhaps we can feel that we are in control. But Jesus does not give Peter a limit. Jesus responds with language that makes counting collapse under its own weight.

Some ancient copies of Matthew read “seventy seven times,” while others read “seventy times seven.” Either way, Jesus is not handing Peter a larger spreadsheet. Jesus is changing the question. As Andrews McGowan observes, Jesus moves the conversation away from keeping score and toward the deeper nature and challenge of forgiveness.

Jesus seems to be saying, stop counting.

That does not mean harm does not matter. It does not mean abuse should be ignored, hidden, or endured. It does not mean survivors must reconcile with people who remain unsafe. Forgiveness is never a demand to return to danger. Accountability matters. Truth matters. Repair matters. Boundaries matter.

But Jesus does challenge the instinct to build our identity around the wrongs we remember. Jesus challenges the belief that resentment is the only protection we have. Jesus invites us into a world where violence and grievance do not get the final word.

There is an important connection here to Genesis. In the story of Lamech, a descendant of Cain, violence escalates. Lamech boasts that if Cain is avenged seven times, then he will be avenged seventy seven times. The language is one of multiplying retaliation. One act of violence leads to another, and then another. Hurt becomes a reason to hurt again.

Jesus takes that same language and turns it in a new direction. Where Lamech imagines revenge beyond counting, Jesus imagines forgiveness beyond counting. Where violence multiplies itself, mercy multiplies itself. The kingdom of heaven is not simply a place where old scores are settled. It is a restoration of what violence has taken from the world.

Then Jesus tells a parable.

A servant owes a king an enormous debt, far beyond anything a servant could realistically repay. The debt is deliberately extravagant. Jesus wants us to feel its impossibility. The servant cannot work hard enough to repay it. He cannot bargain his way out of it. He cannot make a convincing enough promise.

And the king does something astonishing. The king cancels the debt.

The servant receives mercy he did not earn and could not repay. Yet almost immediately, he encounters another servant who owes him a much smaller amount. Instead of remembering the mercy he has just received, he grabs the other person and demands payment. He refuses patience. He refuses compassion. He refuses forgiveness.

It is tempting to hear this story and think, “How could anyone be so cruel?” But parables often place us in uncomfortable positions. They invite us to notice ourselves.

How often have we wanted understanding for our own mistakes while offering very little understanding to someone else? How often have we explained away our own sharp words, failures, or blind spots, while holding another person’s failure against them for years?

Harmon connects this dynamic to Nathan’s confrontation of King David. David is outraged by a story of a rich person taking what belongs to a poor person, yet he does not initially see his own wrongdoing toward Bathsheba and Uriah. It is easier to spot cruelty in someone else than to name the harm within ourselves.

This is where the passage becomes personal.

We are not only people who have been hurt. We are also people who have caused hurt. Sometimes that harm is intentional. Sometimes it comes through carelessness, impatience, privilege, fear, or our refusal to listen. Sometimes we do not understand the impact of our actions until someone is brave enough to tell us.

Asking for forgiveness requires courage because it means owning what we have done. It means saying more than, “I am sorry you felt hurt.” It means saying, “I see what I did. I understand that it harmed you. I am sorry. What can I do to repair what I can?”

That kind of honesty can change us.

Our reading from Genesis brings us to Joseph and his brothers. They stand before the younger brother they once betrayed. They had thrown Joseph into a pit, sold him into slavery, and allowed their father to believe he was dead. Now Joseph holds power in Egypt. His brothers are vulnerable. They are afraid that Joseph will take revenge.

No one would have been surprised if Joseph had punished them. The brothers expect judgment because they know what they have done. Instead, Joseph offers forgiveness. He does not pretend that the past never happened. He does not call their violence good. Yet he refuses to let their wrongdoing determine the future.

Joseph sees that life can emerge even after terrible harm. His forgiveness creates room for survival, relationship, and a future that is not controlled only by the past.

This is not cheap forgiveness. Cheap forgiveness ignores the wound. It rushes people toward peace without truth. It tells people to get over it before they have been heard. That is not the way of Jesus.
The forgiveness Jesus describes is connected to truth, mercy, justice, and transformation. It asks us to tell the truth about what has happened. It asks those who have caused harm to take responsibility. It asks communities to protect people who are vulnerable. And it asks us to believe that no person is beyond the reach of God’s transforming love.

Nicholas Schaser reminds us that Matthew does not present God’s forgiveness as entirely dependent on our ability to forgive one another. God’s love is not a prize we earn by achieving moral perfection. God meets us with grace first.

That matters because none of us forgives perfectly. Some wounds take years to face. Some relationships cannot be restored. Some acts require legal, social, and communal accountability. Some people need distance before they can breathe, heal, and begin to imagine freedom from what happened.

God does not stand over wounded people with a stopwatch. God does not count the days until someone is ready to forgive. God is present in the healing process, in the anger, in the grief, in the boundary, in the truth telling, and in the long work of becoming whole.

Still, this parable calls us to examine what we do with the grace we receive.

When we recognize that we are loved by God, even with our failures and unfinished growth, do we become more generous toward others? When we receive compassion, does it soften us? When we know we have been forgiven, do we become more willing to seek forgiveness ourselves?

Perhaps the only thing God is counting is love.

The world counts debts. The world counts status. The world counts failures. The world keeps records of who deserves what. Sometimes those records are necessary because justice requires us to name what happened and repair what can be repaired.

But God’s love is not a ledger. God’s mercy is not rationed out in small portions. God keeps opening the circle wider. God keeps inviting people back into relationship. God keeps calling us away from cycles of shame, blame, vengeance, and despair.

The kingdom of heaven is a place where people are loved into God’s creation. It is a place where debts are cancelled, where dignity is restored, where those harmed are protected and heard, and where those who cause harm are called toward accountability and transformation.

Forgiveness is hard because it is not simply an emotion. It is a practice. It is a decision we may need to make again and again. It begins with telling the truth. It may include apology. It may include repair. It may include boundaries. It may include releasing the hope that someone who hurt us will become the person we needed them to be.

And sometimes forgiveness begins with the smallest possible prayer: God, help me want to want freedom from this burden.

Jesus does not ask us to count up to seventy seven or four hundred and ninety. Jesus asks us to stop measuring grace as though it is scarce. He invites us to live as people who have received mercy and who are learning, slowly and imperfectly, to share it.

May we have the courage to name the harm we have caused. May we have the wisdom to seek repair. May we honour the pain that others carry. May we build communities where truth and safety are real. And may we trust that God’s love is wide enough to hold our wounds, our failures, our longing, and our hope. Amen.