Homily 13 September 2026
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Christina (Tina) McKinlay
September 16, 2026
‘Creation of the World'
Pentecost 16 (A) – September 17, 2023
Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114 or Exodus 15:1b-11,20-21; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Every Sunday we pray: – forgive us sins or trespasses as we forgive those who sin or trespass against us. But do we really mean it?
We know we want God’s forgiveness. Of that, we are quite sure. However, the second part of the prayer, the part about forgiving the sins and trespasses of others does not always come to us very easily.
The Psalmist says, “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.” Great news for us. We all mess up. We ask God for forgiveness. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, and so God forgives us. But… when someone does us wrong, when someone does us dirty, now that’s another story. Very often, unlike God, we are quick to anger; and kindness let alone forgiveness are more likely to be substituted for colourful language and rude gestures. Think of the last time you were cut off by someone on the Island Highway
And yet, this is how Our Lord taught us to pray – forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
In our Gospel lesson, always eager and earnest Peter comes to Jesus and asks, “Lord, if someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Peter always asks the questions that we would like to ask. He wants so much to do the right thing. But Peter also always seems to be getting it wrong. He had heard Jesus talk about forgiveness, so he wants to know more. And Peter must have done his homework, too. There is an ancient rabbinic tradition that says a person should forgive another who has sinned against him as many as four times. So, earnest and eager Peter, tries to be even more extravagant than the rabbis, and he adds three more times. He asks, “Should I forgive a person even up to seven times?”
Seven times is a lot. It’s three more than the rabbis. It is a lot of times to turn and forgive someone who has sinned against you. Perhaps Peter was expecting Jesus to praise him for even suggesting such extravagant forgiveness. Perhaps Peter was hoping for a pat on the back, a gold star for the day, or an A+ on his forgiveness exam.
This doesn’t happen. Rather, Jesus turns and says, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” This is an enormous number, a number so big that we can’t begin to calculate it in terms of forgiveness. Peter wants a rule, a measurement, so he holds wide his hands and says, “This much, Lord? Should I forgive even this much?” And Jesus, like the psalmist responds, “No, much more than that. You’re not even using the right scale. As far as the east is from the west, that’s how much you should forgive.” It’s such an enormous amount of forgiveness, it would be senseless to try to calculate how much or how often.
Many of us sympathize with Peter. It seems we need to some way to assess whether we are living up to Jesus’ expectations of us. He tells us to forgive those who have sinned against us. He tells us to love our enemies. He says our righteousness ought to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Okay—but what does this really mean? How do we know if we measure up to what Jesus requires of us?
Unfortunately, that question may be part of the problem. The spiritual danger is that when we focus on our own virtue and character strengths, we may become a bit too preoccupied with ourselves. And the real danger happens when we start thinking of our character strengths as accomplishments of our noble, virtuous, righteous selves. Here, we can too easily slide into self-righteousness, the smug attitude that knows what real forgiveness is, who is a truly forgiving person and who is not, who deserves forgiveness and who does not, and maybe even the extent and limits of forgiveness: “seven times seems about right.” With such smugness tends to come a sense of superiority, a sense that we have the right to judge others.
Too easily we forget that, while our character strengths and virtues may indeed glorify God, when it comes to the Gospel, our Lord doesn’t just deal with parts of us, the noble bits that we would like to put on display, but rather God seeks a relationship with whole human beings, every thought, word, and deed, everything, absolutely everything, that we are and we do. And when we remember this, none of us, saints or sinners, people who are off the charts on the forgiveness scale and those of us who still struggle to forgive, have a leg to stand on. We are all utterly dependent on the unconditional, unmerited grace and mercy of Christ, who has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west.
When it comes to forgiveness, we are all like servants, in the gospel story that follows today’s passage, who owe our Lord and King more than we can imagine. Try as we may to repay our debt through our character strengths or our virtues or our willingness to forgive as many as seven times, we will never be able to pay back all that we owe to God. But the good news is that despite our inability to ever give back to God everything we ought, God forgives us anyway, completely. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has taken upon Godself all our burdens and sins and debts and has forgiven them.
Completely, irrevocably, utterly forgiven and healed by Jesus. God is the God who forgives.
We forgive, then, because God forgives. The forgiveness that we are to pass on to others is the forgiveness we have in union with Christ. Not because we are moral heroes or because we seek our own wellbeing, but because we are forgiven sinners.
And so, we pray: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
Amen.