Bible Reading: Matthew 18:21-35.

I’ve never been to St Gwynno’s church in the village of Vaynor. It’s a quiet, rural place within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, yet only about three miles, as the crow flies, from the industrial world of Merthyr Tydfil. In the churchyard there is a huge gravestone, reputed to weigh ten tons and surrounded by railings. It’s the last resting place of Robert Thompson Crawshay, who inherited his family’s Cyfartha ironmaking business after his brother drowned in the River Severn.

Crawshay was totally unsuited to his unforeseen role and failed to give the energetic leadership that was necessary if the business were to prosper. Steel was replacing iron, but Robert would not purchase the expensive Bessemer Converters needed to make it. The business declined, the workers’ wages were cut, the contrast between their atrocious living conditions and the luxury of life at Cyfartha Castle became more and more marked; Crawshay romanticized their plight rather than helping them. He remained inflexible, closing the works for a time when the men threatened to strike. His home life was no better. He drifted apart from his wife who was an intelligent and forward-thinking woman. He forced his daughter to assist him in his hobby of photography (which she hated); and, when she fell in love, he refused to attend her wedding and disinherited her children.

Why am I telling you this? It’s because of Crawshay’s grave which bears the short epitaph that he himself wrote: “God forgive me”. But what did that mean? Was he finally showing remorse for the misery his family had inflicted on so many working people across the years, an admission of guilt for his role in creating Merthyr’s hell on earth? Was he apologising to his family for being a poor husband and father? We’ll never know; nor can we know how his final prayer was answered.

Today’s story is Jesus’ response to Peter who asks, “How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?” A corrupt servant is found to owe money to his king: ten thousand talents, a laughably huge sum equivalent to millions or billions of pounds. We’re clearly dealing with embezzlement on a grand scale, and this wicked treasurer has been caught with his hands in the safe. The king naturally wants to recover the money that he is owed: as Birmingham City Council know all too well, a shortfall of that size will have major consequences for his country and people. However the servant will clearly never be able to pay back even a tiny part of it. He pleads with the king who – surprisingly – shows mercy; his debt is cancelled and he avoids punishment. But did he still have a job the next day?

The man has been let off amazingly lightly; but he hasn’t learned his lesson. For he knows a fellow-slave who, in turn, owes him some money: a smaller amount yet not trivial, something like three months wages. We don’t know how this debt was incurred but we can be sure that it won’t be easy to pay back. The corrupt servant does all he can to make the poor wretch pay up who, despite pleas for clemency,  is threatened with violence and banished to the debtors’ jail. Everyone who witnesses this is sickened and horrified; word eventually gets back to the king who hauls his servant before him once again. This time he is treated without leniency. He becomes liable to the whole amount he stole, he is thrown into prison, he is tortured, the bailiffs strip his home bare. This cruel man’s entire family, totally innocent of any crime, are dragged down by his selfish and unforgiving actions. He himself will stay behind bars until his dying day.

Now we mustn’t push this (or any) parable too far. Yes, we might ask to what extent the king resembles God; or how much we should think of ourselves as his slaves; or if we will we be truly punished for our unforgiving spirits. These are big questions which can’t be ignored, but which may divert us from the story’s central theme. For Jesus makes his message clear: his followers are to be forgiving people, even when dreadful wrong has been done against them. This isn’t just God’s will, it’s the way he himself acts – “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. Indeed, he finds it impossible to forgive someone who is unwilling to forgive their fellow-human. That attitude puts a fatal spanner in God’s ability to have mercy.

I’d like to draw out a few themes from this tale. The obvious one is that it enjoins us not to adopt a cold or calculating attitude to forgiveness, not to keep a record of “how many times I’ve forgiven them” and “how many times they’ve forgiven me”, nor to look back and hold onto past hurts which can be brought out to score points in the present. Peter asks how often one should forgive, and thinks he’s being pretty gracious when he’s suggesting that it could be as many as seven times – after all, the Rabbis of the day only said that you had to do it three times! But Jesus blows him out of the water with his reply; whether translated as “77” or “70 times 7” times, it’s an enormous, even ridiculous number, one which is quite impossible to keep track of, beyond limit or calculation. The inference is clear: we simply must keep on forgiving and never get to the point of saying, “That’s it! I’m simply not prepared to forgive them even one more time”. After all, that’s not how God operates – fortunately for us!

I think that something interesting is happening here. As I’ve said, Peter is looking for a number, a limit: he’s thinking of forgiveness in terms of a law or of some kind of obligation. Once that number has been passed, forgiveness can be forgotten about. But Jesus is saying something quite different. Not only is he saying that our forgiveness should be unlimited and unmeasured, but that it should become so ingrained within us that it occurs naturally, almost without thinking. Or, to put it the opposite way round, vengeance and our desire to prove that we were in the right should stop being our reflex action or automatic response. Forgiveness becomes habitual; letting go and deliberately forgetting wrongs become part of our nature.

This raises two further points. One is that forgiveness is difficult, especially if we think that someone has done us a great wrong. We hold our distance from that person, we wait for them to come to us and make amends, we say, “I’m not going to make the first move; I’m in the right here and I don’t see why I should grovel”. It’s hard for us to swallow our pride and ask for forgiveness when we have caused offence; but it’s even harder to grant forgiveness when offence has been caused to us. Yes, we may say that we forgive; but we’re still tempted to smugly assert our moral superiority by saying, “Well, just make sure you don’t do it again!” And, of course, we far too easily store away wrongdoings in the back of our minds for future use as bargaining chips in future disputes. Christians, says Jesus, need to have a radically different approach. After all, didn’t he show it himself when he forgave the men who accused and crucified him?

The other point is whether some sin or pain is simply impossible to forgive. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive”. So if a drunk driver mows down my wife and leaves her in a wheelchair, if a terrorist massacres my entire family before my eyes, if a conman tricks me out of my life savings: does there come a point when I say, “That’s simply too big a thing to forgive, I just can’t do it”? If I do say that, I’m being honest; yet Jesus clearly tells us that there can be no such limit.

And what if we’ve been wronged, not just by a person, but also by an organization? Three recent news items come to mind. After Lucy Letby had been convicted of murdering of seven babies and the attempted murder of six others, the Countess of Chester hospital issued a statement. It said, “How deeply saddened and appalled we are at Lucy Letby’s crimes. We are extremely sorry that these crimes were committed at our hospital and our thoughts continue to be with all the families and loved ones of the babies who came to harm or died. We cannot begin to understand what they have been through”. Yes, one person carried out the crimes; but the families must surely point fingers at management who ignored the warnings of senior staff.

Again, Network Rail made a statement after it had pleaded guilty to safety failings which led to the Carmont disaster: “To the families of those who lost their lives, we would say how deeply sorry we are that this tragedy was able to happen. To those survivors who were injured, we are very sorry for the pain and distress caused. Since the accident, we have been working hard to make our railway safer and to learn lessons from it”. Those are fine words; but lives have been changed, the bereaved will never again see their loved ones: the £6.7m fine that Network Rail must pay will be of no comfort to them.

Finally, we heard on Thursday about Child Q, a black schoolgirl of 15 who was suspected of carrying cannabis (but wasn’t) and was strip-searched by four Metropolitan Police officers even though she was having her period. After an investigation which lasted for two years, the officers are to be charged with gross misconduct for not following basic guidelines. Steve Norman, the director of the Police Complaints Office, stated: “Any person subject to a search involving the exposure of intimate body parts is in a vulnerable position and they are entitled to be treated with respect and courtesy” while a senior police officer in the borough where the strip-search took place, said: “This experience should never have happened and was truly regrettable”. I suppose that’s an apology of sorts; and Met bosses have been told they should write formal letters of apology to Child Q and her mother. But will their apologies be accepted? Words can never undo this girl’s trauma.

An even bigger question about forgiveness and the repayment of debts arises when we think about the legacy of Empire, colonialism and slavery. We cannot ignore the fact that the wealth and success of countries such as Spain, Portugal, France and of course Britain was based on bleeding dry the resources, both physical and human, of nations in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. Millions of people were displaced, cruelly treated and died so that Europeans could benefit from sugar, cotton, tobacco and spices; many countries’ assets were plundered. History can’t be rewritten and I realise that what I’ve said simplifies a complex issue. But we cannot deny that the colonial system has had immense and lasting effects on our world. As the African-American novelist and playwright James Baldwin has said, “History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we are criminals”.

Many have called for apologies and reparations. For instance our Baptist Union has issued an “Apology for Slavery” which includes these words: “We speak as those who have shared in and suffered from the legacy of slavery and its appalling consequences for God’s world. We offer our apology to God and to our brothers and sisters for all that has created and still perpetuates the hurt which originated from the horror of slavery. We repent of the hurt we have caused, the divisions we have created, our reluctance to face up to the sin of the past, our unwillingness to listen to the pain of our black sisters and brothers, and our silence in the face of racism and injustice today”.

Similarly the President of the Jamaica Baptist Union has spoken of reparations “based on justice, which presupposes the equality of all races and equity for the disadvantaged [and] seeks a reasonable, effective and prompt remedy for gross violations of international human rights law – under British slavery – through available and appropriate resources”. We may ask if people today really can apologise for the deeds of their forebears; we can debate about the practicality or size of reparations; we may wonder if those who still bear the memory of suffering can forgive. But Christian morality surely tells us that these painful and difficult issues mustn’t just be brushed under the carpet.

I’m sure that Peter never thought of these massive questions! I want to finish by asking one more – and it’s a biggie: can we forgive God if we think he’s wronged us or let us down? That might seem a strange, even blasphemous, thing to say; but let’s stop and think. The people in Morocco and Turkey whose lives have been devastated by earthquakes this year, or the people in Canada, Greece and Hawaii whose houses and families have been burned to cinders, or the folk in Hong Kong, Italy and now Libya whose cities have been wrecked by floods – are they shaking their fists in anger at God and saying, “Why does the world you made give us so much grief and pain?” or “Why did my children die when those next door were spared?” If you were in their shoes, would you be blaming God and seeking his apology? And would you be able to forgive him if no apology was forthcoming?

We’ve left many questions hanging in the air. But we must conclude with Jesus’ final, chilling, verdict, which is clear and simple. If we are prepared to forgive people, honestly and without crowing about it, then God can forgive our sins. But if we do not forgive, then we cannot expect to be forgiven – and that might have eternal consequences. We can keep people bound to us by history, or we can set them free to make a fresh start. According to Jesus, forgiveness isn’t optional and doesn’t depend on the attitude of the other person or people involved. God’s forgiveness and forgetfulness are complete. But are ours?