Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." (NIV)

Peter asks Jesus such a relatable question here; I'd guess most of us have wondered the same thing. Every time I’ve read this passage in the past, I came away feeling like I didn't have a satisfactory answer. Am I supposed to just add seventy instances of forgiveness to whatever limit I already had, or depending on the Bible translation, multiply everything by seventy? Of course, that's not the answer, but I still find myself asking, how many times should I forgive? But step back for a moment: why do we ask this rather oddly specific question? I wonder, from where inside my heart does this question come? I am suspicious of my heart's motives. I hear a voice deep inside me saying, They don't deserve a second chance, I don't want to be taken advantage of, and how many times can I bend before I break?

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Read on to verse 35 because, as it turns out, Jesus does answer this deep question of our hearts. He addresses a question far too centered on quantity with an answer much more concerned with quality. He tells a parable of a master who has pity and forgives his servant an enormous debt, showing that true forgiveness is qualitative; it is indifferent to quantity. Jesus shows us that regardless of the amount owed, forgiveness is possible, and that granting forgiveness isn't a math problem, it's a heart problem.  

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It seems that Peter and I want to know the minimum amount of forgiveness we must grant. I act like there isn't enough to go around. I see in my heart a fear of vulnerability; after being hurt, I don't want to be open in forgiveness. I may say I've forgiven a matter, when all I've really done is calmed my emotions and chosen to ignore it to pursue my own peace and self-interest. I'm willing to dole out this sort of counterfeit forgiveness, but only when it's beneficial to me. But surely a heart so focused on self-preservation is a heart that has collapsed inward, nearly incapable of reaching out in self-sacrificing love and real forgiveness.

I recently walked onto the UAA campus with this question: what is forgiveness? About half the people I asked simply didn't know, admitting they had no good answer. The other half came to the same general concept of forgiveness, that it means accepting something bad happened and choosing to move on despite it.  

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"So, it’s like when you get a stubbed toe? It hurts and you just try to move on?" I asked one student, fishing for a deeper response. "Yeah, kind of,” she said, summing up what I had heard from the others. “If someone hurts you, you have to let it go, ignore it, or you just cut them off. It’s not worth the stress, don't let it ruin your peace." At first, I was a little shocked by the coldness of such a raw and all-too-common response, and then I went away feeling convicted that my first response is often much the same. But surely, this isn't really forgiveness at all. At best, it’s simply begrudgingly giving a free pass. At worst, it’s the brutal severing of a relationship, and neither way is done out of love and charity, but instead out of pride and self-centeredness.  

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Jesus models true forgiveness in this passage and through his life. The source of Christ-following forgiveness is a heart trained by love. Forgiveness springs from a heart cultivated by love, humility and self-sacrifice. A forgiving heart can truly empathize and is capable of pity and love for the other, no matter the number of offenses. This kind of heart is ever-hopeful, focused on resolution, does not keep score, and never gives up. This is the heart of God, and this kind of forgiveness pours out to us from the cross.

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How many times should we forgive? This is simply the wrong question. The right question is how can we, humans with hearts turned ever inward, ever truly forgive? When faced with a terrible hurt, you may be asking yourself, how?  How can this be forgiven? You are asking the right question, and the distance in your heart between wanting to forgive and forgiveness is so short. The answer is, instead of looking for the minimum like Peter and I, the lowest bar to cross, we can look to the maximum, which is the heart of God. From him, we forgive as we have been forgiven. Like in Jesus’ parable, we are all the servant who has been forgiven much.

Lord Jesus, I find myself only through your mercy able to stand in the downpour of your forgiveness. I am drenched with such grace and charity that it is almost unbearable. What can I say but thank you. May we all be filled with your love and forgiveness to overflow into the lives and hearts of our dear brothers and sisters, and into the world that they too might know and have life in your real forgiveness and love. Amen.