Forgive and Forgive Again

Matthew 18:15-22

“Forgive and Forgive Again”

Why does Jesus call us to forgive and forgive again after giving instructions for dealing with those in the church who will not admit wrongdoing in Matthew?

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September 6th, 2026. Our primary scripture reading is Gospel of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 15 through 22. Who keeps on trusting you when you've been cheating and spending your nights on the town? And who keeps on saying that he still wants you when you're through running around? And who keeps on loving you? When you've been lying, saying things ain't what they seem? God does, but I don't. God will, but I won't. And that's the difference between God and me. I love these lyrics by Lyle, love it. I have shared these with many of you before. These lyrics came to mind last week with a dinner conversation with some bonus kids. My child might be off at university, but we do have teens and 20-somethings that come around our house every week for a meal or two. Bonus kids. This week is about forgiveness. Forgiveness. God will. And I am supposed to. Even if we aren't Christian, we grow up learning Christians are supposed to forgive. Here in our reading, we learn we are supposed to do it 77 times. 77 times. We try to walk the path of Jesus. So we try to forgive 77 times. And we try to let God worry about the score. Our job is to get on with whatever we should be getting on with, not ensuring people get what they deserve. We try. Because Jesus says forgive and forgive again. But that thing, that thing that crushed a tender part of your own soul with sudden violence or slow pressure, that moment, those years will always be with you. Always. It happened to you. That thing could be something you did. Something awful. Maybe something done to you, something inflicted upon you. Or perhaps a mix of regret and wounding. The memory still flickers behind your eyes. Perhaps its ache remains in your heart. There are some things we never tell a soul. Maybe this is it. But that thing casts shadows and hue across the landscape of your life. Every human heart, mind, and body is eventually marked by betrayal. And I love this Lyle Lovett song because it walks right up to the edge of that chasm, naming both a betrayal and the impossibility of spanning the distance with a bridge. A bridge of human forgiveness. And Lyle Lovet names it without name-calling or apology. I can't get across this gap. Jesus tells us to forgive and forgive again. We have been in the lectionary year of Matthew as our primary gospel reading. I've kept repeating the idea that Matthew crafts his gospel to drive home the point that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. We see this even in how he structures his text. Jesus' five main teaching times mirror the teachings of the Torah. The instructions and teachings of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 point back to the instructions and teachings of Exodus. Teachings on how to organize evangelism and mission in Matthew 10 point back to the organization of the tribes of Israel in the book of Numbers. Jesus' parable teachings in chapter 13 speak to sorting, boundaries, and the nitty-gritty of living. And so does Leviticus. And interestingly, in Matt 13, Jesus tells parables that point at the underlying principles of the kingdom of heaven, while Leviticus is more prescriptive. Today the teachings here in Matt 18 are about how to establish faithful community. And they remind us of how Genesis is the story of the establishment of the Jewish people. Soon we revisit the Mount Olivet teachings in Matt 24 through 25, full of farewell advice and warnings from Jesus, just as Deuteronomy shared farewell advice and warnings from Moses. Matthew wants listeners to notice that the story of Jesus is the story of God. So Jesus' major teachings are presented in five blocks with themes that mirror those five books of Moses. Some scholars believe that Matt intended his gospel to be a Christian lectionary. They think it is meant to align with and complement the Jewish Torah portion each week for those early Jewish followers of Jesus. And I think that idea is delightful. So I've been yammering on this idea all year long that Matthew is writing his gospel to align with the Torah so these early Christians could understand Jesus is the Messiah, whose life fulfills scripture. The five teaching times of Jesus map to the five books of the Torah pretty well. But today, although we can argue that Matt 18 carried along similar themes of establishment of community found in Genesis, today's scripture, Matt 18, verses 15 through 22, has Jesus picking up threads from across the Torah. Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers. And Jesus is weaving those threads together so seamlessly. It is clear he knows these books by heart. It's like how when you banter with a friend or a spouse who has known you for years, you can pull in little callbacks to adventures you have had or dumb things you have said. When you know people well, you have a shorthand language of inside jokes. Jesus knows the Torah like an old friend. Let's walk through it. First, Jesus is giving instructions for people in community. He is not saying you must engage someone who has harmed you as a general rule. He is saying that if you are in an ongoing relationship with someone who is doing harm, you really need to make a good faith effort. Here in Matt 18, 15, Jesus says, If your brother or sister sins against you, go and correct them when you're alone together. If they listen to you, well then you've won over your brother or sister. Leviticus 19, 16 through 17 says, Do not go around slandering people. Do not stand by while your neighbor's blood is shed. I am the Lord. You must not hate your fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your fellow Israelite strongly so you don't become responsible for his sin. So the Leviticus passage is both the setup and the response. Don't hurt people. Don't ignore when someone is harmful either. Go talk to them. The call here in Leviticus is to neither tolerate the harm caused by lies and violence, nor remain silent and seething. We are called to act in good faith, to confront behavior that harms the community, while preserving the relationship if possible, you know? Second, in Matt 18, 16, Jesus sets up a mechanism to bring bad behavior to light, following the pattern of Deuteronomy. Jesus says, But if they won't listen, take with you one or two others, so that every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses. Deuteronomy 19, 15 says, a solitary witness against someone in any crime, wrongdoing, or in any sort of misdeed that might be done is not sufficient. The decision must stand by two or three witnesses. The whole witness thing also pulls from Leviticus. Leviticus says, Rebuke your fellow Israelite strongly so you don't become responsible for his sin. Rebuke is a hard word, but only by clearly and publicly stating that we are not okay with harmful action can we distance ourselves from it. People's reputations get harmed by association. Jesus' advice to bring witnesses protects you and protects your community from bad actors. Third, in Matt 18, 17, the next level of escalation is ostracism and excommunication. This picks up a thread from Genesis 4, which will become clearer in a moment. In Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother. In response, he hides himself from God. He flees from his community. God then ensures that his punishment ends there, with excommunication. Fourth, we have this bit about binding and unbinding, fastening and unfastening in Matt 18, 18 through 19. And we heard a little bit about this before in Matthew 16. Exodus 28 uses the language of fastening to indicate the construction of sacred clothing and how people who wear that clothing are bound to their task. Incidentally, I wear a stole, and a stole represents a yoke, the yoke of Christ. So when I am wearing my stole, I am representing that I am bound by the yoke of Christ. Sacred clothing matters. Numbers 30 uses this language of binding to indicate a pledge, debt, or contract. Here, Jesus says our commitments, debts, contracts, those that we incur in this world, we can release in this world. But all of them impact our relationship with God. Of course they do. Cain excommunicated himself. Finally, we have all the forgiving detailed in Matt 18, 21 through 22. Then Peter said to Jesus, Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Should I forgive as many as seven times? Jesus said. This conversation is being lifted from Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Abel. Genesis 4 tells us Adam and Eve had three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth. Genesis 5 4 also mentions other sons and daughters, but the only names we know are Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain was a farmer. Abel was a herder. Cain was jealous that God valued Abel's contributions more than his and killed him. At this point, Cain realizes he can't stay put on his farm and will need to become a fugitive. But God steps in. Genesis 4.15 says, God announces, a revenge killing won't happen. Anyone who kills Cain will be paid back seven times. The Lord put a sign on Cain so that no one who found him would assault him. God's protection forces Cain to live in the shadow of his past. That punishment is great enough that anyone who disrupts it will incur seven times the penalty of an ordinary murder. Later, we'll see that Cain's great great-great-grandson notes that Cain paid seven times the harm caused, and that he who has murdered two people is lamenting his penalty as 77 times the harm caused. So again, this little bit, this seven times the penalty, 77 times the pain. That is what Jesus is pulling forward when he talks about forgiveness. Jesus deftly weaves the stories of the Jewish Bible into his teachings. Across seven sentences, Jesus is picking up threads from across the entire Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Numbers. And again, Jesus weaves these things together so seamlessly, they become a whole cloth. They become a bigger idea. Forgiveness. Jesus is picking up the idea in Genesis that the debt incurred by harming another is a multiplication of suffering. Harm begets harm. Injury begets injury. And then Jesus tells us we cannot harm our way to peace. We can't. We can't harm our way to the peace that surpasses understanding. If we insist that the canes of the world pay for their actions, we will be forever raising the next generation of canes. And the intergenerational harm rolls on. Jesus says no. The answer is forgiveness. The answer is to forgive and forgive and forgive again. But as this story illustrates, forgiveness is not reconciliation. Forgiveness can look like disengagement. It can look like making a good faith effort and then allowing that person to be like a tax collector or gentile to you, like Cain, separated from his farm and wandering. Forgiveness is releasing a debt. Forgiveness is unbinding a person from your heart. If you have done what you could, if you have said what needs to be said, if you have been public and clear about the harm, if you have sought a path forward that was declined, you have the option to release someone from your community. You have the opportunity to move on without any ill will. This is biblical forgiveness. It might take you 77 times to get there, but this scripture in Matt 18 gives you permission to keep on trying. Forgiveness is dropping the hot coal. But that's not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness isn't a renewed relationship. It doesn't return things to how they were. And in either of these cases, you are not obliged to continue to engage. We are not always able to forgive. Terrible things have happened to you. And I know they have.