Liberation Shared

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Liberation Shared

Herb Montgomery | September 11, 2026

If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.  Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 

“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 

“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18:21-34)

Our reading this week begins with Jesus’ instruction to forgive “seventy-seven times” (sometimes translated “seventy times seven” or 490 times). This teaching is often understood as being about unlimited personal forgiveness. Yet within the larger context of Jesus’ ministry, the command can also be read as a radical challenge to social patterns that allow resentment, retaliation, exclusion, and cycles of violence to define human relationships. Jesus is not simply asking individuals to be more patient with one another; he is imagining a community organized around restoration rather than revenge.

The teaching comes in response to Peter’s question about how many times one should forgive someone who repeatedly sins against them. Peter’s suggestion of seven times already sounds generous, but Jesus dramatically expands the number. His point is not that forgiveness has a mathematical limit. Traditional interpretations of this passage teach that forgiveness is to become our way of life: that we should refuse to keep a ledger of offenses and reject the assumption that every injury must be repaid.

I want to consider this passage instead through the lens of justice work. Societies often preserve injustice through cycles of punishment and retaliation. Individuals and communities remember wounds, inherit grievances, and pass anger from one generation to another. Political and religious systems can even use these grievances to justify exclusion, domination, and violence. Jesus’ teaching has the potential to interrupt that cycle by insisting that the future does not have to be controlled by the injuries of the past.

But, most importantly, forgiveness should never be confused with ignoring injustice, excusing abuse, or demanding that victims simply endure continued harm. We can understand Jesus’ forgiveness instead as refusing to allow wrongdoing to have the final word. We can create possibilities for accountability, reconciliation, and transformation without making vengeance the foundation of communal life.

In this sense, Jesus’ command to forgive seventy-seven times is also profoundly political. It calls communities to imagine justice not as mere punishment for wrongdoing but as restoration of relationships and creation of conditions in which people can change. Forgiveness becomes an act of resistance against cycles of hatred and retaliation, and it includes a commitment to a different kind of social order, one grounded in mercy, dignity, reconciliation, and hope.

A word of caution about forgiveness is necessary here. Forgiveness can be a profound act of healing, but requiring forgiveness and reconciliation from those who have been harmed without first providing restitution, accountability, or reparations can itself become a form of oppression. 

When religious communities or even our larger society tell victims to “forgive and move on” while perpetrators retain their power, wealth, status, or privilege, forgiveness is no longer freely chosen. It becomes a demand placed on the wounded for the comfort of those who caused or benefited from their harm.

Reconciliation without justice can preserve the very conditions that produced injustice. If stolen property is not returned, if exploited communities receive no restoration or reparations, if institutions responsible for discrimination face no accountability, and if those who suffered are expected simply to forgive, then reconciliation can become a mechanism for erasing history rather than repairing it. This kind of reconciliation asks the injured to bear the continuing consequences of wrongdoing while relieving the wrongdoer of the responsibility to make things right.

But true reconciliation requires more than an emotional transformation in the victim. It also requires transformation of relationships, structures, and material conditions. Apologies matter, but an apology without changed behavior is empty rhetoric. Confession matters, but confession without accountability is another way of avoiding responsibility. And forgiveness may eventually be possible, but it cannot be demanded as the price of being heard or respected.

There is a profound difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. A person may forgive while still maintaining boundaries, demanding justice, or refusing to restore a relationship that is still unsafe or exploitative. Reconciliation requires mutual participation. It cannot be created unilaterally by asking the harmed person to surrender their legitimate claims.

So justice asks a prior question first: What must be repaired? Restitution, reparations, truth-telling, accountability, institutional change, and the restoration of dignity may all be necessary before reconciliation can become genuine.

Forgiveness should be an act of freedom, not another burden imposed upon the oppressed. When we demand forgiveness without justice, the language of reconciliation can become one more tool by which the powerful ask the wounded to absorb the cost of their wrongdoing.

In our reading, though, Jesus tells a story about a king and a servant who owes an enormous debt. This story is not simply a lesson about personal forgiveness. It is a powerful critique of economic injustice, unequal power, and a social order in which debt can become a weapon against human dignity.

The first servant owes the king an amount so enormous that repayment is essentially impossible. His debt has placed his entire family at risk: the king orders that the servant, his wife, his children, and everything he owns be sold. This is what happens when financial obligation is valued above human life: people become less important than their debts. Jesus’ story exposes the cruelty of an economic system in which poverty is treated as a moral failure and indebted people are punished rather than restored.

The king, however, does something radical. He cancels the man’s debt. He does not merely reduce the payment or extend the deadline. He releases the servant completely from an obligation he could never have realistically repaid. Mercy breaks the power of debt. The king embraces a kind of Jubilee for this debtor.

But the story takes a disturbing turn. The same servant who has been liberated from an un-payable debt encounters someone who owes him a much smaller amount. Instead of extending the mercy he has received, he grabs the man, demands payment from him, and has him imprisoned. The contrast is intentional. The servant has experienced liberation but refuses to become an agent of liberation for anyone else.

Jesus therefore exposes a profound injustice: those who have been forgiven by systems of power can sometimes become defenders of those same systems after gaining a little power themselves. In the story, the servant moves from victim to oppressor. His experience of mercy does not transform him because he understands mercy as something only he deserves, not as something he owes to others.

The outrage of the other servants is equally important. They see the injustice and refuse to remain silent, and they report what happened to the king. Social justice requires more than private compassion; it also requires communities willing to recognize exploitation, name it, and confront it.

The story challenges the idea that forgiveness means allowing injustice to continue. The servant who refuses mercy is held accountable because forgiveness does not erase the responsibility to confront exploitation. Indeed, as the story suggests, mercy and accountability belong together. The king’s cancellation of the first debt creates an expectation that the recipient will participate in a community governed by mercy rather than domination.

Jesus concludes by calling his followers to forgive “from your heart.” In a justice reading, this means refusing to reproduce systems of punishment, humiliation, and exclusion against those who are vulnerable. It means recognizing that human beings are more valuable than what they owe.

The deeper challenge of the parable is therefore not simply, “Can you forgive someone who hurt you?” This parable asks us: What kind of society will you help create because you have experienced mercy? Will you use whatever power you possess to collect debts, enforce punishment, and preserve hierarchy? Or will you use it to release people from burdens they cannot bear?

Jesus’ kingdom is a community where mercy interrupts the machinery of debt, where human dignity is greater than financial obligation, and where liberation received becomes liberation shared.

Discussion Group Questions

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.

2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, today? Share and discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone? 

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate. 

My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.

As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. 

If you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

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New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast

A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice. 

This week:

Season 3 Episode 38: Liberation Shared

Matthew 18:21-34

The story challenges the idea that forgiveness means allowing injustice to continue. The servant who refuses mercy is held accountable because forgiveness does not erase the responsibility to confront exploitation. Indeed, as the story suggests, mercy and accountability belong together. The king’s cancellation of the first debt creates an expectation that the recipient will participate in a community governed by mercy rather than domination. Jesus’ kingdom is a community where mercy interrupts the machinery of debt, where human dignity is greater than financial obligation, and where liberation received becomes liberation shared.

Available on major podcast carriers and at:

https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/liberation-shared

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Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.

 

by Herb Montgomery

Available now on Amazon!

In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.

Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.

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