(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Swamped in Forgiveness”, originally shared on September 11, 2026. It was the 430th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Have you ever found yourself with a massive debt that you couldn’t
possibly repay, and then it was forgiven? Yes, you have! Today, we’re going to
find out what it was.
The people living on the
Southern California coasts would not be saying it was welcome, though.
The side slip of Hurricane
Marie destroyed sections of the boardwalk and beach in Long Beach and Dana
Point and damaged homes. The beach is gone in some areas.
Actor Nicholas Cage’s home in
Malibu was undermined and its sinking during high tides and high surf caused a
gas leak.
I’ve been thinking for a while
that rising sea levels could make our home in La Verne beach front property in
several hundred years but, maybe it will be sooner. 😊
There were a couple of days
when the combination of heat and humidity here was the highest in the nation!
And many experts say that this
is just a preview of what the “Super El Niño” conditions could bring this
winter.
The things that we’ve seen on
TV reminded me of a parable that Jesus told in Matthew 7:24-27,
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be
like a wise man who built his house on rock. 25 The rain fell,
the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not
fall, because it had been founded on rock. 26 And everyone who
hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man
who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was
its fall!”
We have been awash with rain
and high tides this week like many of us are awash in debt. The foundation on
which we are built is being undermined.
The US national debt today is
over $40 trillion. That amount would
make every person living in the United States responsible for $116,800.00 if it
were divided equally, according to U.S. Treasury fiscal data.
The average credit card debt
for Americans is $6,659 per person, according to Experian data from 2026.
According to U.S. News and
World Report, 37% to 43% of Americans could not cover a sudden $400 to $1,000
emergency expense using only their personal savings.
In Matthew 18:21-35, the
Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches in the
world this coming Sunday, Jesus tells the story of an impossible debt. But its
meaning is placed in the context of forgiveness.
Peter asks, in Matthew
18:21-22,
21 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?” 22 Jesus
said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
The expectation was that a
person should forgive another person three times to meet the requirement of the
religious Law.
One of our modern sayings is
even less forgiving: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Peter might have thought that
he was being especially properly religious by asking if he should forgive as
many as seven times. We might call that “virtue signaling”. 😊
Jesus’ response was to put the
number way higher at 77 times, and he explains why with a parable in the
remaining verses, Matthew 18:23-34,
23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who
wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the
reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 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. 26 So
the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I
will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord
of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 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.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him,
‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused;
then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 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. 32 Then
his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all
that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have
had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And
in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire
debt.
This parable is the story of a
slave who owed a king an impossible debt. It would have been about $2.5 billion
at the time and, though it’s almost impossible to adjust for inflation over
such a great amount of time, it could be hundreds of billions of dollars,
adjusted for inflation today. This is not likely a literal number. The
circumstances under which a king would loan a slave this kind of money are
unthinkable, even if he had been able to accumulate that much money, which is
also unlikely.
Using an extreme example of
something was a common rhetorical technique in the Middle East during Jesus’
time on earth for saying that the point of the parable was extremely
important.
It’s like where Jesus says, a
little earlier in this chapter, in Matthew 18:8-9,
8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw
it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two
hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And
if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better
for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into
the hell of fire.
If we were supposed to
understand that literally, there’d be a whole lot of one handed, one footed,
one-eyed people around, including you and me.
And, here, the huge debt in the
parable is owed by a slave.
Slavery is not commanded, and
it was moderated for those times, in the Bible.
Slavery has been practiced in
every civilization on earth since the dawn of time. It was only ended by
Christians in Great Britian and the United States in the 19th
century both in the Western World and in all the countries over which they had
influence, if not outright control.
There are still millions of
people being held in slavery today in Muslim countries, and many more if you
count “wage slaves” in the Far East.
In fact, the first war that the new United States of America fought was to
end slavery in the Barbary Coast of North Africa. It was the origin of the
first line of the U.S. Marines’ Hymn, “From the Halls of Montezuma (note: in
the Mexican-American War) to the shores of Tripoli (note: in Libya,
earlier)”.
The slave in the parable is
forgiven an impossible debt, and then confronts a fellow slave over a
relatively small debt. When the fellow slave begs for patience and a little
more time, the first slave has him thrown into debtor’s prison until his whole
debt is paid.
The other slaves were very
upset by this and reported it to the king. The king was enraged and had the
first slave sent, not just to jail, but to be tortured until the full debt was
paid. This seems to be an obvious reference to Hell.
Then comes the kicker at the
end of the parable, in Matthew 18:35, where Jesus says,
35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not
forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This is not gentle Jesus, meek
and mild. This is the Jesus who will judge the world at the end of time.
And not only does Jesus require
that Christians forgive a brother or sister but that we do so “from your
heart.”
It’s explained by 16th
century Church reformer, Martin Luther, in his explanation of the Fifth
Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin
against us”, which I’m sure all of us who have gone through Lutheran
confirmation classes remember. 😊
Luther said, “We ask in this
prayer that our heavenly Father would not regard our sins nor deny these
petitions on their account, for we are worthy of nothing for which we ask, nor
have we earned it.
Instead we ask that God would
give us all things by grace, for we sin daily and indeed deserve only
punishment.
So, on the other hand, we, too,
truly want to forgive heartly and to do good gladly to those who sin against
us.”
We have been forgiven the
immense debt of sin that we carry that has separated us from God. There is no
way that we could repay it. In fact, we continue to add to our debt of sin
every day.
We who truly understand the
eternal significance of the great gift that we have received in the forgiveness
of our sins, want to forgive those who have sinned against us in response to
God’s underserved love, that is, in response to God’s grace.
If you had to summarize
everything that Lutherans believe and teach in one word, it would be “grace”.
That doesn’t mean that we can
do anything we want because God will forgive us. It means that what we want
is to please God, in gratitude for all that God has done and has continued to
do for us.
It doesn’t mean that anything
that people do against us that is wrong should just be forgiven. That would
lead to anarchy. But it does mean that we should release the anger from our
heart, to forgive as we have been forgiven. We are to seek justice, but as
justice is defined in the Bible, as doing God’s will.
We marked the 25th anniversary
of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 9-11 last Friday. Should we
seek justice with regard to those responsible for those attacks, or should we
seek forgiveness?
I think that we could seek
both: forgiveness from our hearts to release the burden of hate, and an
expectation that the requirements of the law will be respected.
I remember that day and the
impromptu prayer service I called for that evening. I remember leading our
congregation in prayer for the victims as well as for our enemies, and I
remember how hard that was.
The text for today has to do
with forgiveness of a brother or a sister in Christ. But Christianity is very
broad in who we define as our neighbor, and how we are called to treat them,
and why.
I think that our text teaches
about our call to act generously toward others because of the great debt that
was cancelled at the cross for all who believe and are Baptized. We get rid of
our enemies when we make them our brothers and sisters in Christ by leading
them to receive the grace of God.
I was speaking with a fellow
pastor many years ago who told me that he thought that he was doing an
excellent job of preaching about grace, because nobody in his congregation
wanted to do anything. 😊
That’s not the way it works!
It’s just as easy for us, as it
was for the first slave in the parable, to forget about what God has done for
us, and what it took to do it on the cross.
But Christian communities don’t
form around politics, or social values, or race, or common needs and interests,
or anything but around those who have received mercy and forgiveness from God
and who want to respond with love for God and for one another.
How do we live the Christian
life? Here’s how Jesus answered that question when a bunch of Pharisees tested
him, in Matthew 22:34-40,
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they
gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a
question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law
is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This
is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like
it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
This is at the core of the
meaning of today’s Gospel lesson. One naturally follows the other.
The last sentence of this
week’s Gospel reading, Matthew 18:35, “35 So my
heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your
brother or sister from your heart.”, may sound harsh, and it is. But only
to those who are perishing.
Sharing the Good News of Jesus
Christ, of salvation by faith alone through grace alone, and not by what we do
or don’t do, falls on deaf ears if people don’t understand the Bad News first.
This is not a story about life
and death. It’s way more important than that.
When I was in seminary, I took a class on futures studies. At the end of
that class, I thought that with overpopulation and diminishing resources there
was no way that I would live past my early 50’s, yet here I am at 78.
I
saw on the news this week that a senior researcher for the San Francisco-based
AI company, Anthropic, said that he believes that there is a greater than 10%
chance that AI will destroy all human life within the next 10 years.
Today,
with all the concerns about extreme weather and climate change, rising tides
and unpredictable weather patterns, we may be concerned, but we are not
worried.
Will God’s judicial justice prevail in the Last Judgement, or God’s
judicial mercy?
There is no gentle Jesus today. Jesus gives us a hard answer.
Does this seem like an uncharacteristically harsh Jesus, fully God and
fully human being? I don’t think so. I think that Jesus is describing the
mechanics of faith.
As
John writes, in 1 John 4:16-19,
16 So
we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those
who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love
has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of
judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18 There
is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with
punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We
love because he first loved us.
The
End is not something that we haven’t pondered before. In fact, it’s central to
our worldview, though in distinctly more optimistic and purpose-filled terms.
Jesus’ answer to sin is Jesus.
On the cross.
We who were swamped in the debt of sin have now been swamped in
forgiveness through the love and grace of God. 😊
That is good news to all
humanity, whose debt of sin was insurmountable, and it’s the good news that we
have been called by God, and sent and equipped to share with those we know who
are still in their sin, separated from God’s grace.
We announce forgiveness,
because we ourselves have first been forgiven and restored to newness of life
in Jesus Christ.
Every Sunday, the vast majority of churches throughout the world,
confess together their common core beliefs in what are called “creeds”, from
the Latin word “credo”, that means “I believe…”
The two primary creeds are The Apostles and The Nicene, and they include
these words about the end:
Nicene:
“He (Jesus) will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his
kingdom will have no end.”
Apostles:
“He (Jesus) will come again to judge the living and the dead.”
So, we know that there will be a last judgment, and we know that when
Jesus comes, there will be people who are living. Nothing, including ourselves,
will have destroyed us.
A
colleague once said that one of his seminary professors summarized the Bible’s
book about the end, Revelation, with two words, “God wins.”
We
forgive others because God has first forgiven us. God has won the final victory
for us over sin, death, and all the forces that defy God, at the cross. We will
not stand on our own on the last day, but on the steadfast grace of God alone.
We
have no need to fear the future. We long for it. A new heaven and a new
earth is coming. It will be as God intended from the beginning.
In
fact, what is thought to be the first Christian prayer is found at the end of
the last book of the Bible, in Revelation 22:20,
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
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