September 13, 2026
Pentecost 16 / Proper 19, Year A
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Exodus 14:19-31 ~ Psalm 114 ~ Romans 14:1-12 ~ Matthew 18:21-35
In his 1999 book “No Future without Forgiveness,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu explores and explains a theology that refuses to regard as monsters the perpetrators of the worst atrocities of the apartheid era. If you can just say that someone is a brute by nature, then there is no hope of contrition, of metanoia, of turning around, of restoration and going another way. He wrote, “In this theology, we can never give up on anyone because our God was one who had a particularly soft spot for sinners.”[1] The central point for Tutu was not how we as humans might forgive someone who caused unspeakable pain and suffering, but it was just to what lengths God will go to redeem one of God’s own.
Including us.
Last week, I reminded you that the purposes of gathering the community together when someone has been wronged was not to judge whether or not to kick them out but to find a way to hold onto them so that not one would be lost. We are in the middle of a section of Matthew’s gospel called the “Discourse on the Church,” although “community” might be a better word than “church” since there wasn’t really such a thing when Matthew was writing this. I know, I know, the word “church” pops up in Matthew a number of times, but it’s a translation of the word ἐκκλησία which can be just an assembly of people or a congregation. The Church of the 1st century wasn’t quite so organized as we imagine the word “church” to imply.
Anyway, what Matthew is writing about in these chapters is about how we stick together as a collection of people following Jesus, the instructions Jesus gave them about what that meant. And that is the case this morning, too.
Our friend Peter was probably still smarting from being called Satan back in Chapter 16, but Peter is not one to give up. He’s that eager kid who gets knocked down and keeps getting up again, so after Jesus says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them,” (Matthew 18:20), Peter is ready to try again. “How many times should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (18:21), and you just know he thinks he’s going to get another gold star for this one because seven times is far more than the law would require. And I can just see his face when Jesus says “seventy-seven” or “seventy times seven” or whatever way he puts it. Poor Peter. His jaw drops, his face falls, he slumps his shoulders and begins to walk away.
But wait! Jesus has a story.
Our tendency is to go to the punch line at the end when the unforgiving one gets his due, but I want to start at the beginning.
The first slave whose account the king wants to settle owes 10,000 talents. Do you know how much money that is? A talent was about 130 pounds of silver and would take 15 years for a slave to earn. This slave would need to work 150,000 years to pay it off.
So, before we even before we get to the rest of the story, we need to stop and ask ourselves, “what was that king doing loaning that much money to one of his slaves?” It is an unimaginable sum, incalculable generosity, and that is precisely the point.
We cannot even fathom the abundance God has given us. All that we are and all that we have is a gift from the God who created us and loves us without measure.
Now, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that the only proper response to that kind of magnanimity is to share some of that with those around us.
This first slave’s error was in forgetting the generosity of the first part and responding to the debt of the second part in a way that did not reflect that generosity.
Now as I said, we are all quick to go to the punishment part at the end of the parable where that unforgiving servant really gets it, but you have to go back to the “not one being lost” bit from last week to understand the ending of this one. If this king is a stand in for God, he knows that no amount of punishment is going to get that money back, and why does it say we are supposed to forgive if this king in our story gets off without being forgiving? And don’t forget, it was the king who started all this in the first place by giving 150,000 years wages to an enslaved man. Who does such a thing as that?
God does. And not only that, nothing is expected in return. We ought all of us to be wandering around saying to each other, “Can you believe this?,” and responding from that place of astonishment and gratitude.
As we gather for a new season of worship and study and fellowship and service as the people of St. John’s, it is just this kind of awareness of how blessed we are, individually and as a community of faith, and living our life that way, that I hope to be a commitment, a promise, we make to each other.
Desmond Tutu urged the people of South Africa to move beyond the hurt and pain and resentment they had suffered. It was a big ask. Telling a victim of violence to forgive in the absence of confession or restitution might even seem abusive, inconsiderate of the wounds of the victims. But he was driven by a deep conviction that God’s free gift of salvation is not ours to withhold or deny. He wrote
What we are, what we have, even our salvation, all is gift, all is grace, not to be achieved but to be received as a gift freely given. God’s bias in favor of sinners is so immense that it is said we will be surprised at those we find in heaven whom we had not expected to encounter there…Ultimately, no one is an irredeemable cause devoid of all hope. No situation in this theology is irredeemable and devoid of hope.[2]
There was nothing cheap or easy in this theology that Tutu affirmed with such determination. He knew it was hard. He knew that for some it might not be possible. But he also knew that the abundance of God’s grace and generosity to each one of us was too great for us to imagine that it was ours alone.
The time that I spent with the “Arch” as he was affectionately known were some of the most joy-filled, impactful days I have ever experienced. To watch him interact with others as if they were the most beloved friend in the world was a marvel to behold. To have that gaze turned on me was almost more than I could bear. His gentleness was real, as was his ferocity when standing against injustice. But that fierceness never became hate, never hardened into unforgiveness because he knew that the only way forward was through forgiving as we have been forgiven. We pray it ever time we gather – forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Scottish musician and faith leader from the Iona Community, John Bell, set to music one of the prayers from Desmond Tutu’s “An African Prayer Book.” I find myself humming it every time I think of him.
Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death.
Vict’ry is ours, vict’ry is ours
through him who loved us.
Vict’ry is ours, vict’ry is ours
through him who loved us.
Amen.
[1] Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999) 84.
[2] Tutu, 85.