Seventy Times Seven
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Season 1, Episode 30: Matthew 18.21-35
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
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Seventy Times Seven
Herb Montgomery, September 15, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This parable originated not as allegory but as an example of real life indebtedness Jesus’ audience would have been familiar with. This was not a call for the indebted to forgive their abusive creditors, but for creditors to forgive the debts of those who owed them.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
“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 18:21-35)
Even the most progressive Jesus scholars see this parable as part of the earliest oral traditions, tracing back to the historical Jesus himself. A rich man forgives ten thousand bags of gold owed by one of his slaves. Think of how much each bag would have been worth, and then multiply that by ten thousand. In compassion, the creditor simply forgives the entire debt.
Harmful interpretations of this parable teach the abused and oppressed to passively forgive their oppressor or abuser over and over again, but require no change from the one responsible for harming them.
Before we spiritualize this parable to all relationships and offenses, though, we need to step back and look at the original economic context. In the original context, oppressors, specifically creditors, are to forgive the debts of those they were oppressing based on how much the oppressors themselves had been forgiven by Jesus’ “heavenly Father.” This was not a call for the indebted to forgive their abusive creditors, but for creditors to forgive the debts of those who owed them.
Then the forgiven one runs into someone who owes him only 100 silver coins, a far lower amount. Rather than his own experience of forgiveness awakening more in him toward the person who owed him money, he seeks to exact every last coin from his own debtor.
Again, this parable originated not as allegory but as an example of real life indebtedness Jesus’ audience would have been familiar with. From the beginning of Luke’s gospel, Jesus shares a call to wealthy creditors to perform the ritual of “the year of the lord’s favor” or the year of Jubilee, where all debts would be forgiven. This was part of Jesus’ gospel: the call for economic liberation of those in debt. Debts were to be cancelled. This is how Luke’s gospel sums it up:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Matthew’s version of the lords prayer also uses economic language:
“And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)
Later in the Jesus community, this idea of forgiving debts expanded to include all offenses and trespasses, not just economic indebtedness. This is why in Luke’s later version of the same prayer no longer names the economic element but reads:
“Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” (Luke 11:4)
What once called creditors (oppressors) to forgive the debts of their debtors (the oppressed) became a universal call for everyone to forgive anyone of anything based on how much they themselves had personally been forgiven by God. What once involved the wealthy cancelling the debts of their poorer fellow Jesus followers became universalized. Social location was no longer the focus. Money owed became allegorical for general offenses. And forgiveness stopped meaning the cancelling of real, concrete debts; it became letting off the hook anyone who had done anything up to 490 times if they simply came back repeatedly and said they were sorry.
I’m not a fan of this evolution in the Jesus stories we have access to today. What it too often becomes is manipulative pressure for those who have suffered injustice or abuse to repeatedly forgive their abuses if the abuser expresses sorrow, whether they actually change or not. Some interpretations definethe one seeking forgiveness as truly changing, but if there were true, the number of times needing for forgiveness would never reach “seventy times seven.”
But if this was actually a call for creditors to practice Jubilee, repeatedly, seventy times seven, no matter how many times people became indebted, then this story takes on an economic dimension that requires social change. If the creditors who follow Jesus must forgive the concrete debts of their debtors, then before too long those creditors would be looking at the systemic causes of why folks were repeatedly being thrown into debt. As the saying goes, when you’re continually pulling people out of the water it doesn’t take long before one walks upstream to ask why those people are being thrown in the water to begin with.
What does this mean for us today?
First let’s say what it doesn’t mean. This parable doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t hold abusers accountable for the harm they inflict on others. Part of restorative justice is holding abusers accountable. Accountability is intrinsic to their own restoration and healing, too: it awakens and restores a sense of connection to their actions toward others. If there is an element of forgiveness involved, it refuses to sever the abuser from humanity, and the desire to hold them accountable comes not out of vengeance but out of a desire to see them reformed. Forgiveness should never be defined or interpreted as simply letting someone off the hook and pretending they did nothing wrong. Restoration and reparations must always be a part of the process of repairing harms committed for the life-giving well-being of all parties involved.
Yet this story still carries an economic element. How should Jesus followers relate to economic debt forgiveness? I heard many Christians voices over the last two years against student loan forgiveness. How would the Jesus of this week’s readings respond to the idea of students being forgiven the astronomical costs of becoming educated? How would he describe the predatory practices of the loan industry that takes advantage of those students. Consider the social location of those who have to seek student loans to gain an education. Considering these factors, certain Christians are grossly ignorant of how disconnected their religious worship of Jesus is from the values their Jesus taught and the themes of his gospel.
And this is just one example. In our modern, global capitalist system, indebtedness is how countries continue to colonize and enslave other countries, even “independent” countries. Sometimes this debt is connected to the drive to “develop” those countries so that they their resources can be more easily exploited by global corporations.
If we followed the economic truths of our story this week it would turn our present economic world upside down.
Maybe we could start with Christians simply forgiving the debts of their fellow Christians. There are also Christian ministries that raise funds and donations purely for the purpose of being able to pay off people’s medical debts. What a blessing to be able to say to someone they are set free from what they owed for something as vital as their own health care.
And what about debt at faith-based hospitals? Or education debt owed to Christian colleges and universities? What about the indebtedness that comes when folks fall on hard times? How could it change the world if Christians and Christians institutions simply chose to cancel the debts of other Jesus followers? I’m not suggesting this be where the practice should end, but it would be a great place for a global “year of the Lord’s” favor to begin.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do you imagine Jesus’ Jubilee Debt Forgiveness could be applied in our world 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.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at 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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Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
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Jesus and Another Story of Debt Cancellation
Herb Montgomery | September 16, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Am I prioritizing relationships with people over and above the rules that capitalism continues to try to program us with as to how to play its game? If we do this, in the end, we may make less and our net worths may be less, but our investments in people and in relationships will be greater or possibly developed in a different direction than our present capitalist system would have sent us.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Luke 16:1-13)
This week’s reading puts serving God and serving wealth in tension. “Serving God” is a phrase that should be read in the context of the reign or kingdom of God. We can understand the gospel phrase “the kingdom of God” as God’s just future here on Earth, a new iteration of our present world where there is economic, social, and political justice. In that kingdom, resources and power are distributed with equity and everyone has what they need to not just survive but also to thrive. It’s a world where the rain falls and the sun shines on all.
In this context, we can begin to understand why, intrinsically, you cannot both serve this vision for human community and serve the interests of wealth. This is difficult for us in our capitalist culture to grasp. Jesus’ economic teachings in the gospels assume that there is enough for everyone to thrive abundantly because our heavenly Parent provides for us. Wealth is created when someone begins storing up more than they need, which creates a deficit for somewhere for someone else.
There’s a slightly different lesson in the manna story in the Exodus tradition. For those who tried to store or hoard more than they needed instead of sharing with others who had gathered less, the manna “bred worms and became foul” by the next day. In this example you simply could not amass a “wealth” of manna. It was impossible.
This, along with the debt forgiveness of the Torah, is an economic Jewish tradition Jesus was standing in firmly within his own culture. For the oppressed community of the gospels for whom Jesus’ teachings held deepest meaning, it was clear that one could not serve both wealth and people because one would have to choose between individual opulence and community thriving. (Certain Indigenous traditions also speak of this contrast in their ancient wisdom. See Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation by George E. Tinker.)
Someone somewhere has to suffer loss for wealth to be created, but Jesus taught that that someone somewhere was an object of Divine Universal love for whom the sun was also shining and the rain falling (Matthew 5:45).
As the saying goes “Each day there’s enough for every person’s needs, but not every person’s greeds.” Wealth means having more of what one needs while others do not. In Jesus’ worldview, however, it’s not about everyone having the same quantity, but everyone having the same quality. Some people don’t need as much to thrive. Others need more. In a just world vision with God as the Great, Just Householder, no one has too much while others don’t have enough.
Dishonest Wealth
Our story this week is a lesson on how to use “dishonest wealth” to benefit people.
This strange story only appears in Luke’s version of the gospels and has troubled Christians from the very beginning. Based on this trouble, many of the most progressive historical Jesus scholars attribute this story to the historical, Jewish Jesus.
To be clear, I don’t interpret this story as determining the moral value of dishonest business dealing, embezzlement, or fuzzy accounting. What it does do is commend the manager for his shrewdness in using managing accounts to create relationships for him to fall back on when his current employment ends.
What I glean from this story is a call to look at my priorities within our system as I imagine and work toward a different iteration of our world. What am I prioritizing? Is wealth, creating more capital in order to create even more capital, my priority? Or am I prioritizing people, using the current world and its resources to create relationships with others? Am I prioritizing relationships with people over and above the rules that capitalism continues to try to program us with as to how to play its game? If we do this, in the end, we may make less and our net worths may be less, but our investments in people and in relationships will be greater or possibly developed in a different direction than our present capitalist system would have sent us.
I mentioned Biden’s modest student loan forgiveness program last week. For some parts of the country, Biden’s approval ratings have shot up as a result of him doing exactly what we read about in this week’s story. In the story, a steward told people who owed money to cancel portions of their debts to increase his favor with them, and the manager doing this was not moralistically scolded but commended as being wise.
The uproar among some Christians about Biden’s recent actions reminds me of how this story attributed to Jesus has troubled wealthy Jesus followers from the start. But to those scratching out an existence in the 1st Century and the economically marginalized who comprised most of the early Jesus movement, this story must have resonated deeply. It was this demographic, like today, who deeply wished someone would step in and simply cancel or forgive their debt.
I like that we have an example from our sacred stories of Jesus that mirrors what we see happening around us in our modern society here in the U.S. It’s nice to see our U.S. government economically doing something I actually agree with, which is a rarity. I like the idea of forgiving debt for people who are victims of predatory loans for something as valuable as an education. I wish all of it was forgiven! I want to live in a more educated society and support using part of our society’s wealth to create a more educated populace. It encourages me that despite those Christian friends who are up in arms about this small amount of loan forgiveness, this week’s story tells us this is exactly the kind of thing we should favor as Jesus followers.
So which value system have we allowed to shape us more: Are we capitalists first or are we Jesus followers first? Have we allowed the values and ethics of the Jesus story that we hold so dear to shape the kinds of people we are becoming, or have we allowed the value system of capitalism to shape how we see the world.
These questions are far more than partisan politics. They help me to question what it is that I’m choosing to shape the way I live.
What is shaping you?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What other possible applications or lessons do you glean from this week’s parable? 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 remind you, that you can find us here at Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so you can follow us on any of those social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, consider taking some time to give us a review on whichever podcast platform you use. This helps others find our podcast content as well.
If you’d like to reach us, you can always drop us a message here.
That’s all for this week.
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
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice.
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A Preferential Option and Student Debt Forgiveness
Herb Montgomery | September 9, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“In a society that privileges certain ones from pushing others to the edges and undersides of their society, we have to practice a preferential option for those being marginalized to bring things back into balance. This is a way to remediate the harmful preference that is already being shown.”
Our reading this week comes from the gospel of Luke:
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:1-10)
This week’s reading includes arguably two of the most famous stories associated with Jesus today: the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Many progressive historical Jesus scholar also consider these stories original to the historical, Jewish Jesus.
There’s a parallel to the story of the lost sheep in the book of Matthew:
What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost. (Matthew 18:12-14)
We also find a version of this saying in the non-canonical gospel of Thomas:
Jesus said, The kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, ‘I love you more than the ninety- nine.’ (Thomas 107)
A quick word about the derogatory light Luke’s story casts the Pharisees in. This way of speaking about Pharisees has a long antisemitic history that we at RHM don’t support. The Pharisees, who followed the teachings of Hillel, had much in common with Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah through a lens of loving one’s neighbor. Even the more conservative interpretive school of Shammai (which this passage may be blanketly referring to) sided with Jesus on divorce.
Neither group agreed with Jesus’ stance on debt forgiveness, which is interesting given the comments I see many politically conservative Christians making about Biden’s modest student loan forgiveness plan. I’d say to them, just be thankful it’s Biden and not your Jesus doing it, or all of the debt would be cancelled. The gospels use the phrase “the year of the Lord’s favor”, referring to the year of jubilee, a time when all debts would be cancelled (Luke 4:18-19). The contradiction is telling.
If this idea that Jesus agreed with various schools of Pharisaical interpretation is new to you, I recommend the classic, well researched book: Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus by Harvey Falk.
But for now let’s take a closer look at the story of the lost sheep. The idea of prioritizing one sheep over ninety-nine is a fundamental tenet of various forms of liberation theology. In those schools of interpretation, “a preferential option” for the one being harmed, excluded, and/or oppressed is foundational.
This week’s story includes a preference for the one sheep lost rather than for the ninety-nine sheep that remain, much as an urgent care medical facility prioritizes people in life-threatening circumstances over others whose cases are less severe.
As a parent, I understand. I love all of my kids. And as they were growing up, each of them had times when they would receive a priority of attention because of something they were facing. Whether they were sick, or having a challenge at school, or something was happening in their social lives, their need at the time governed whether our family centered or preferred them. The term “preferential” constitutes favor or privilege, and in our context this week, it’s about centering those being marginalized over those our society is choosing to privilege.
For example, in Latin liberation theology we encounter a preferential option for the poor, especially people of color around the world. Black liberation theology offers a preferential option for people who are Black. Feminist liberation theology gives us a preferential option for those who are not men. Womanist liberation theology points to a preferential option for Black women, their families and communities. In environmental liberation theology, we encounter a preferential option for the planet, and in queer liberation theology, we encounter a preferential option for LGBTQ people. In a liberatory theology of disability, we encounter a preferential option for people living with disabilities. As a result, in each of these examples we encounter a rich diversity of focuses, assumptions and scope.
Each of these theologies attempts to prioritize those being harmed by their society in a way that parallels Jesus’ ethical practice, the practice being defended by the Jesus of the gospels in the stories we’re reading this week. Those benefited in this society, especially if their benefits come at the expense of others, will always push back against this. It is this pushback that we are seeing Jesus respond to in this week’s stories.
The word “option” in the phrase “preferential option” doesn’t mean this is optional for Jesus followers. Option means that every day we can choose to follow Jesus, to practice preferring those being harmed rather than those benefiting from their harm.
This is a deep theme in the Jewish wisdom and prophetic traditions:
The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. (Psalms 103:6)
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:24)
In a society that privileges certain ones from pushing others to the edges and undersides of their society, we have to practice a preferential option for those being marginalized to bring things back into balance. This is a way to remediate the harmful preference that is already being shown.
Parts of the early Jesus movement also valued this practice. Consider this passage from the book of James:
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? (James 2:1-7, emphasis added.)
All of this calls to me to continually reassess my own practice. Who is it that I’m practicing a preferential option for? Our society practices privilege. Who does our society disenfranchise or exclude? When there are efforts to bring things into balance, whose voices speak against favoring those suffering harm?
The recent debate over student loan forgiveness is just an example. I don’t think Biden’s plan goes far enough. I’m thankful for what it does do; it’s a good start. But anyone who understands the predatory nature of student loans understands that some people and companies are benefitting by harming students financially. We need a preferential option now to restore balance. It never ceases to surprise me when I hear people in my circle of friends who are against such efforts. I’m thankful that two out of three folks in our society see the wisdom in a preferential option for people in debt. And we can do even more.
Who is the Jesus story calling you to practice a preferential option for this week?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What community is the Jesus story calling you to practice a preferential option for this week? 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.
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
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice.
Go to renewedheartministries.com and click “sign up.”
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https://renewedheartministries.com/Contact-forms?form=EmailSignUp
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