Graceonomics: Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35 gives us Peter's question about how many times we're supposed to forgive, and Jesus answers with a parable about a servant forgiven an impossible debt who turns around and chokes a fellow servant over pocket change. Forgiveness gets talked about with a lot of Sunday school answers, so this week we tried to get honest about what forgiveness actually is and isn't: it isn't reconciliation, it isn't forgetting, and it isn't something that has to happen all at once, but it is the cancellation of a debt we think someone owes us, whether that debt is shame, an apology, or the right to hold a grudge forever. We borrowed N.T. Wright's picture of forgiveness as breath, something we can only receive more of once we've let some of it out, and closed by just breathing together, exhaling whatever debts we're ready to cancel and inhaling the forgiveness God keeps offering us.