Slideshow image

When I was in college, I took a class where we explored some of the most common plots that show up in theater, film, and literature. One that I found particularly interesting was the revenge plot.

The revenge plot is one of the oldest and most enduring motifs in storytelling, from classic Greek tragedies like Medea, to pieces of literature such as The Count of Monte Cristo and Hamlet, to Hollywood thrillers like Kill Bill, The Godfather or John Wick series.

The revenge plot is just like it sounds. It’s a story where the protagonist has been wronged, and they spend the story seeking payback against the one who has wronged them. They commit themselves to this pursuit entirely, often sacrificing their own safety, relationships, or morality in the process. And many of these stories highlight the cost of vengeance—showing that it rarely brings the peace the character hoped for, and often ends up destroying them instead.

Such revenge stories make for great action, but they can also be exhausting. By the end of volume II of Kill Bill, you’re thinking, Isn’t everyone dead yet? Who is left?! And it goes on like a game of tennis that can never be over because of all the new victims and all of the new wounds made along the way.

When we’re watching these dramas, we can see the absurdity of it all. But at the same time, it’s such a human thing. We might not be living it out at the level of a Tarantino film—I hope not—but all of us have been caught up in this kind of drama to some extent. In the ways we’ve been hurt and don’t let it go, or maybe want the other person to experience some of the same hurt that we’ve had to go through, or restore some of the damage that’s been done. Unable to let it go, we let it turn into this endless back-and-forth that can never find resolution.

If the revenge plot is emblematic of the human condition, in today’s gospel Jesus gives the way to transcend it.

In the passage we just read, Peter throws out a hypothetical question to Jesus and offers what he is sure is a brilliant answer. One that would get his teacher to say, "Oh, how wise and generous of you, Peter—to be willing to forgive that many times!"

Of course, Jesus is not so impressed, and raises his suggestion of forgiving seven times to seventy-seven times! (And it might have even been more than that, because some early manuscripts of this gospel say 70 times 7.)

But it doesn’t really matter whether it was 70 or 490. The point is that what we’re being called to is forgiving so much we can’t even keep track. No one is going to say, "I’ve forgiven you 70 times, we’re done." This forgiveness is the kind that says, "I’m going to forgive you right now, and I’m going to forgive you again tomorrow, and the day after that, and probably in five minutes." It’s forgiveness that is practiced every minute of every day.

To help his followers get a vision for it, Jesus tells a parable about a servant who owes his master money. In this case, it’s an absurd amount of money—the kind where you’d think, How on earth did he ever have access to that kind of money?! Like if I owed someone a trillion dollars or something. How would I ever pay it back?

A sum like this would’ve hurt the master financially. Yet the master overlooks it, which is a merciful and generous act.

And it makes it all the more alarming when the servant turns around to someone who owes him a very small amount—the kind that someone could pay back in a few months—and rather than giving him that option, he throws him in jail.

This infuriates the master, who has the unforgiving slave locked up and tortured. 

If we’ve been thinking of the master as God, this ending is more than a little disturbing—very consistent with a Tarantino film, but not with a God whose very being is love, whom Scripture says is abounding in steadfast love, and whose property is always to have mercy. When reading a text like this, we need to remember that parables aren’t always neat allegories in the way we would like them to be. 

Jesus uses this shocking image to make a point. He wants them to grasp and take seriously what it means to be people who are forgiven. Because when you have been given this incredible gift of salvation—freedom for your soul at the depth of your being—it does not make sense for you to turn around and be small-hearted and exacting. That’s not what you do with the gift you’ve been given.

What God wants for us is abundant life, living in harmony, not continuing to live in the constant loop of hurting ourselves and each other. That’s why we’re called to this.

Another way to look at the parable’s unsettling ending is that it isn’t about God’s punishment so much as it is a metaphor for what it’s like for us when we don’t forgive. While the king gives the sentence, really the slave is in a prison of his own making. In much the same way, when we don’t forgive, it’s like being in a prison where we’re tortured by our unforgiveness. We’re not punished for not forgiving; we are punished by it. We end up hurting ourselves by not letting go of the sadness and anger associated with the offense.

So what does it look like to do it differently? What does it look like to live lives of forgiveness?

It might help to think of some of our own examples, because forgiveness isn’t just one thing. There are so many different situations that require it. They might be significant, painful offenses where someone truly harmed us. Or they might be small things that nonetheless were painful: the careless comment, the ignored detail, the feeling of being unseen.

I’m sure we all have things that come to mind. In situations like these, it can be really hard and complicated. But that’s exactly why it’s needed.

In those places we have something we need to forgive, it might be helpful to remember that real forgiveness means having a clear sense of what it is we’re forgiving. It requires acknowledging the negative impact the injury had on our lives, and allowing ourselves to face it and feel it.

Once we have done that, in forgiveness we let go of the offense—making a conscious choice to release the other person. We also release our right to hold the offense over their head, meaning it will no longer be a barrier to the relationship. And we release our right to retaliate, choosing not to perpetuate in any way what the other person started, thus ending the cycle of violence.

While we can always ask for forgiveness, forgiveness itself must always come from the person who has been wronged. And it can be given whether it has ever been asked for or not. Which is empowering in those cases where the other is unlikely to ask for our forgiveness.

At the same time, forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning what happened. It doesn’t deny it, minimize it, or accept it as okay.

Crucially, it doesn’t mean we have to stay in the line of fire. Created in the image of God, we aren’t meant to be abused or mistreated. If someone treats us as less than a child of God, that’s not okay. We can forgive that person while also having boundaries on what kind of behavior is acceptable.

And that doesn't mean closing our hearts. You can love someone and pray for them without being in their path of destruction.

Ultimately, real forgiveness is as much for us as the other person. It’s how we release ourselves from the prison of what’s been done so it stops hurting us.

As Rabbi Harold Kushner once told a woman struggling to forgive her ex-husband: "I’m not asking you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable. It wasn’t. I’m asking you to forgive because he doesn’t deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter, angry woman… You’re not hurting him by holding on to your resentment, but you’re hurting yourself."

As the rabbi suggests, it’s in releasing others that we find ourselves released.

As Christians, we are called to live lives of forgiveness. It’s how we heal, are freed, and are made whole. It’s how we participate in healing what’s broken in the world: saying no to the revenge plot humans have been caught up in so that God’s new creation can come through, and a better story can unfold.

For truly, small acts of love and forgiveness are what flip the script. They are what chart a new plot for the human story. They are what create new possibilities for ourselves and others.

In a sermon, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "Upheaval after upheaval has reminded us that modern humanity is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction and damnation."

But, he says:

"Forgiveness is a catalyst creating the atmosphere necessary for a fresh start and a new beginning. Love, even for enemies, is the key to the solution of the problems of our world."

As we continue to reflect on this passage today, we can be thinking: 

Who or what is it that we need to forgive? 

What do we need to let go of? 

Or have God help us with where it’s been too hard to do it alone?

As we do this, we can remember that it doesn’t begin from our own willpower or even our natural desire to forgive. It flows from the infinitely merciful love of God already living inside us.

We do this with God’s help.