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. – Matthew 18:21-22

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 11, 2014): Matthew 18

Forgiveness is one of the most selfish actions that a person can take. Unfortunately, we seldom understand that fact emotionally. When we are wronged, what we want is payback. And we are willing to go to any length in order to get it. But by not forgiving someone, all we are really doing is holding ourselves hostage to the actions that someone else has taken against us. Rather than getting payback, what we really do is relive the events that have hurt us over and over again as we refuse to forgive the ones who have caused the hurt. By not forgiving, we give our enemies the power to hurt us over and over again.

Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone. And he suggests what he feels is the perfect number- seven. To be honest, even seven sounds like a lot of times to forgive someone – and that was probably exactly what Peter was thinking. But instead of jumping on Peter’s suggestion, Jesus turns the table on him. No, it is not seven times that he needed to be willing to forgive, it was seventy-seven times – or maybe even seventy times seven chances to forgive. The number of times that we need to be willing to forgive is an unthinkable number. But there is a good reason for why the number is so high. Why would we limit the number of times that we are willing to let ourselves off of the hook.

Today has become a day of remembrance in Western Culture, and especially in North America. 9/11 changed the way we think about the world. It has been thirteen years since planes crashed into twin towers in New York and into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. And the world is not a whole lot different today than it was in 2001. We still live in fear that another 9/11 may be just around the corner. Terrorists continue to seem to take a special pleasure in targeting the West. And it just might be that watching us live in terror and complaining about the continual disruption of our travel is exactly what our enemies have been hoping to achieve.

And we have tried a number of ways to get back at them, to obtain our payback, but maybe the one thing that we have not tried is simple forgiveness. Forgiveness is our selfish action that says that we are not going to let our enemies dictate the way that we live. And it might just take away one of the purposes that the terrorists are trying to achieve – provoking our anger and our terror. Is it overly simple? Definitely. But it might be exactly what Jesus would do.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: John 7

Note: Messages from VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) are available here.