Matthew 18.21-35 Common English Bible
Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?”
Jesus said,
“Not just seven times, but rather as many as seventy-seven times.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him ten thousand bags of gold. Because the servant didn’t have enough to pay it back, the master ordered that he should be sold, along with his wife and children and everything he had, and that the proceeds should be used as payment. But the servant fell down, kneeled before him, and said, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ The master had compassion on that servant, released him, and forgave the loan.
When that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred coins. He grabbed him around the throat and said, ‘Pay me back what you owe me.’ “Then his fellow servant fell down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he threw him into prison until he paid back his debt.
When his fellow servants saw what happened, they were deeply offended. They came and told their master all that happened. His master called the first servant and said, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you appealed to me. Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ His master was furious and handed him over to the guard responsible for punishing prisoners, until he had paid the whole debt.
My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
***
Then the disciple said to Jesus, “Lord, how many times should I forgive my sibling who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times?” Jesus said, “Not just seven times, but rather, as many as seventy-seven times.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a president who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, they brought to him a servant who owed him ten thousand bags of gold, which was equal to sixty-million days of wages. While it was inconceivable that anyone could owe more days of labor than they had lived, it meant that the President’s servant had not only squandered his own days, but added to his debt, days of unfair labor of others.
This particular servant of the president worked as a sheriff in Arizona. For decades this sheriff had been known for human rights abuses, racial profiling, and discrimination against Latinos, such that his officers were directed to pick up anyone who spoke Spanish, or looked, “dirty.” “One study showed that Latinos in the…county, were nine times more likely to be pulled over for the same infractions as other drivers,” but this racial profiling was not making the community safer and was possibly making it less safe by ignoring more prevalent crimes committed by whites. “Charles Katz, a professor of criminology at Arizona State University, who conducted annual studies on crime in the county, said, “Illegal immigrants make up less than ten percent of those arrested. They’re involved in less criminal activity than native-born Americans. Illegal immigrants, the studies show, are, (also)…half as likely to use illegal drugs – yet thanks to the sheriff’s tactics, they're far more likely to be arrested for drug offenses.” Yet it was not only undocumented immigrants whom the sheriff targeted. According to the Justice Department, this sheriff, “frequently arrested and detained U.S. citizens and legal residents of Latino origin, including children, for hours at a time without a charge or a warrant.” Moreover, because of the sheriff’s myopic view, he ignored other parts of his job. The same article pointed out, “(He) is so obsessed with the often illusory crimes of immigrants that he ignored more than four-hundred cases of sexual abuse he was responsible for investigating, including assaults on children.” So between the people whom he should have been investigating but didn’t and those he shouldn’t have but did egregiously, the sheriff added millions of days to his debt by both ignoring and stealing the days of others.
Inside, the sheriff’s jails were comprised of thousands of prisoners in open air tent cities blistering in the dirt and hundred and forty degree Arizona desert. “According to the federal lawsuit brought against him, guards referred to Latino inmates as "wetbacks," "Mexican bitches,” "stupid Mexicans" and “fucking Mexicans." Female prisoners, the suit claimed, were forced to sleep in their own menstrual blood; and officers refused to respond to the inmates' pleas if they were made in Spanish. ” And while it would be one thing if this tough on crime stance deterred crime or was less costly, its ability to deter was never proven and the costs were astronomical. The newly elected sheriff, “Paul Penzone said a methodical review found that counter to Arpaio's claims, there's no evidence that Tent City Jail and its tough reputation made people less likely to commit crimes. In fact, he said, it had become a "preferred location and a choice" for the inmates.” And so these human rights abuses, and ineffective prison management were another piece of the servant sheriff’s debt of sixty million days of labor for the people he forced into such hellish conditions in his ineffective prison.
So all these days of sin combined, was how this servant of the president acquired a debt of sixty-million days of labor, a debt equal to the days he spent working for the devil and forcing others working under him to ignore the kingdom of heaven by make even innocents live behind the gates of hell. And so, the president called in the sheriff, to account for his debt, which read, “A federal district judge hearing the case ordered the sheriff in 2011 to stop detaining people based solely on suspicion of their immigration status when there was no evidence that a state law had been broken. Yet, the sheriff insisted that his tactics were legal and that he would continue employing them. He was convicted last month of criminal contempt of court for defying the order, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail,” or in the master’s record sixty-million days and that, along with his wife and children, he would be sold into his own slavery, of a tent city in Maricopa County, and everything he had be sold that the proceeds should be used as payment.
Now in that month between his conviction and punishment, the president let the sheriff sit for awhile, like a time out where he could think about what he had done, and what was going to happen. Though this lawful punishment fit the crime, the sheriff used that time for pleading his case and sweet talked the president, “‘Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.’” Now the sheriff had a lot of political clout from inciting people, especially the white retirees in his community, to be afraid of those who looked different than they. He slandered the Latinos and was publicly proud that, “they,” “were leaving his town,” out of fear. Cunningly, the sheriff hadn’t gone after the white farm owners who hired the migrants, or the store and restaurant employers who hired the immigrants under the table to work in the back. The sheriff didn’t go against those with the power to speak against him, only twice in his jurisdiction had he brought forth the employers whose need for workers supplied the demanded the need. Instead he went after those without much of a voice, and some without a vote, and this made the sheriff strong politically and the president saw this. The president eventually had compassion on the sheriff, and released him, and forgave the loan by way of a Presidential Pardon, which even former prisoner of war, Senator John McCain disagreed, “No one is above the law,” he said, “and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers, should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold,” (New York Times). But this sheriff had been granted forgiveness above the law, he had been given a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven’s forgiveness, which is not bound by human laws but by Jesus’ law of grace and love. This law sought show a new way forward for humanity, and for the sheriff, a way that responded to acts of evil with acts of love and grace, thus extending forgiveness and love beyond human measure. It made the sheriff’s actions no less wrong, but it gave him an opportunity to right his wrongs instead of merely pay for them. And so the sheriff was sent off, that the grace he received might be forwarded in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Today this sheriff has gone out, and I wonder what he, now forgiven, will do if he finds one of his fellow servants who owes him one-hundred days of labor. Will the sheriff send out his officers to grab the servant around the neck and say, “Pay me back what you owe me?” When his fellow servant falls down and begs him, “Be patient with me and I’ll pay you back,” will the sheriff refuse and throw the debtor into the prison tent camp or to immigration officials without even knowing their status. Then will the other servants cry out, saying he has not learned his lesson, and still is dismantling the kingdom of God. Then will master be furious and hand him over to the guard responsible for punishing prisoners in the hundred and forty degree heat until the sheriff pays the whole debt? Will the sheriff be admonished along with the disciples, saying, my heavenly father will also do the same to you if you don’t forgive your bother of sister from the heart. Is this what will happen?
Or will the grace Jesus promises us in the scripture fall upon that sheriff in fullness? Might that sheriff go out into the world knowing that it wasn’t his world at all, or Maricopa Co., or Arizona, or even the United States of America, and instead that he is walking in the Master’s world, one which extended beyond borders and pervades even the highest walls? Might that sheriff go out among the people, knowing that they were not his people, but the Master’s, and under such designation will he call them siblings in their own tongue, “hermano, hermosa, familia” brother, sister, family. Might that sheriff go out humbled by his wrongs, and inspired by the forgiveness of his Master, and walk into those tent cities with a word of good news, that their sin and prison sentence is neither their story, nor their destiny, but that theirs too is the story of forgiveness, grace and love. Maybe that sheriff, will tell of a debt that was paid for him, such that when one servant comes owing 100 coins, the sheriff will praise Jesus for the opportunity to pay it forward by forgiving it all?
I hope so. I hope so. Because to hope in such forgiveness is to know the grace and power of God, a God that is above all, and through all, and in all, despite our greatest failings. A God with the power to redeem even the depths of wickedness, a God with mercy and love. I hope so, I hope so, because Jesus has given us not just seven times, but seventy-seven. Therefore, let us believe again.
