The duty of forgiving the offenses of others was a part of Jewish doctrine and life, but the rabbinic schools debated over how often one was required to pardon. The number usually varied for different types of people: one must forgive a wife so many times, children so many times, brothers so many times, etc. Seven, as symbolic of fullness, seems to have been the maximum number of times required by most schools of thought. In this sense, seven really means an indefinite number, but it also gives parsimonious nitpickers a way out —after a symbolic seven (carefully counted), one could say enough to forgiveness, and refuse further pardon.

Jesus’ answer (v 22) does not literally mean 490 times. Leading into the parable about the king and his official, Jesus proclaims that the number of times to forgive is not even a worthy question for his followers to ask. They are to forgive as they have been forgiven. Pardon is not a matter of moral obligation that can be classified, graded, enumerated, and analyzed — as the rabbinical schools had done. It is rather the necessary result of realizing one’s own sinfulness, and the immensity of God’s forgiveness.

Notice that the question of strict justice does not even enter into the parable. The unforgiving servant could make a good legal case for his position. Just because his own debt was canceled, he wasn’t thereby obliged in justice to remit his debtors. But God’s kingdom is not a business proposition or a court of law. God’s kingdom is totally his gift, and only those who recognize the giftedness of his pardon and mercy, and seek to imitate it and share in it, can be participants.

It is a sobering thought that our own judgment will be based more on how well we forgive others than on how well we keep the rules.

The book of Sirach was written about two centuries before the time of Jesus by a learned rabbi in Jerusalem named Jesus ben (son of) Eleazar ben Sirach. It gives a summary of Jewish history and religious traditions and proverbs for the people of his day. As a deutero-canonical (apocryphal) work, it is not included in the Hebrew Bible nor in Protestant Bibles, but it has been accepted as inspired and canonical by the Catholic Church from the earliest times.

This passage expresses the summit of Jewish thinking about the obligation and reason for mutual pardon. The law of retribution ("an eye for an eye") still underlies much of Sirach’s teaching. We should abstain from vengeance because we fear God’s vengeance (vv 1-3). We should pardon others because we hope that God will pardon us (vv 2, 4-5). Jesus’ teaching brings forgiveness into a whole new dimension. We do not forgive merely because we hope to be forgiven; we forgive because we are aware that God has already immeasurably forgiven us. We love even enemies not in a self-righteous and condescending way, but because we realize that we too have been just as unfaithful to God, and have received his mercy.

Although God is the Creator and Lord of all, his loving care is seen as the greatest of all his works. Response: "The Lord is kind and merciful; slow to anger, and rich in compassion."

Paul had to face a situation in which diversity of practice characterized the Christian community, similar in many respects to the diversity within the Church today. Unless they attack the essentials of faith or stand in the way of the spread of the Gospel, these differences should not only be tolerated but encouraged among those who share the same faith. The same Lord of life and death, in whom all are equal, is being honored. Rather than be a source of conflict and dissension, these differences should be a source of enrichment and strengthening. Genuine mutual appreciation is the obligation of all Christians united in the love of the same Lord.

Two further excerpts from the concluding section of Romans are found in the Sunday lectionary: 15:4-9 on the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A; and 16:25-27 on the fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B.

1. What happens if you don’t feel that you have been forgiven, of don’t feel you need forgiveness?

2. Read all of Romans 14:1-11. What does the passage about life and death have to do with the rest?