Mercy for Me and For Thee
In Matthew 18:21-35, Peter asks Jesus if he should forgive someone up to seven times. Jesus’s response exceeds Peter’s expectations and our own when he says in so many words that we should place no limits on forgiveness. He adds color to this teaching by telling the parable of a king who forgave the immense debt of one of his servants. Disturbingly, this servant would not offer this same mercy to another servant who owed him a comparably very small debt. In turn, the king rescinds the cancellation of debt and imprisons the servant. The message? The Father has shown immense mercy to every disciple and so every disciple must show mercy to others.
It is easy for us to overlook or warp Christ’s teaching here. Suffering from an acute case of tunnel vision, the Christian may only perceive mercy within the frame of his or her relationship with God, as something which he needs from God, and maybe from others, but not something which he must likewise offer to others. Selectively hearing Christ, he exchanges the full symphony for a bare note of what God intends to do.
As he does elsewhere, Jesus roots his instruction to the disciples in the context of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom encompasses the community of God’s people and cannot be reduced to the individual’s relationship with God, even while it certainly includes it. The mercy by which you are saved is not intended for you alone, but for many others with you besides. To reject mercy for others is to also reject it for myself.
This collective reality takes us beyond the mere principle of reciprocity which is most apparent in Christ’s teaching. Of course, if you will be forgiven you yourself must be ready to forgive others. Yet it is one thing to do this begrudgingly under the burden of principle and another thing entirely to do this with the joy of the Father who desires to show mercy to all. To have that joy, you must be taken beyond yourself and be given over completely to the agenda of the Kingdom.
What is the agenda of the Kingdom? It is that all may enter in. Jesus’s proclamation is “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[1] To repent is to turn from the path of sin and death and to take up the Kingdom path. We are left with no doubts as to God’s desire when Peter writes in his later letter that the Lord “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”[2]
It is not the case that all will repent and be saved, but that is the divine desire. To share in the divine desire is to desire repentance and restoration for yourself and others. Accordingly, it is more than unfair to withhold mercy from the one who has wronged you but who now repents. Refusing to forgive, you desert the Father. You put yourself at odds with his purpose; you lock the gate he opens wide. You take up the mark of a traitor.
The Father’s mercy has paved a way back home. Jesus Christ is that Way, God’s mercy made flesh. This is for you, but not only for you. It is also for the people who have hurt you. Your and their sins differ in the details but have a common denominator: the betrayal of your Creator. So long as you discriminate over trifling details, you deny your common rot and are far from the Father’s heart. Redemption is only found together, in the humble company of fellow pilgrims, walking side-by-side because Christ laid down his life for us all. The extent of God’s mercy is nothing less than this; so must our mercy be.
[1] Matthew 4:17 [ESV]
[2] 2 Peter 3:9 [ESV]
Rev. Tom Loghry
Tom Loghry is the senior pastor of Rockland Community Church in North, Scituate, RI. He is a graduate of the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies, Toccoa Falls College (B.S. Pastoral Ministry), and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.A. Theology). He is continuing his graduate studies in the area of “Ethics & Society” at GCTS.
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.