“‘Harvard Thinking’: Forgiving what you can’t forget.”
The readings for the 16th Sunday After Pentecost, Yr. A were: Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103:1-13, Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35. This sermon was preached at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church in Palmyra, VA on September 13, 2026.
Beneath the shadows of the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9-11, we gather this morning to contemplate forgiveness. Today’s readings were assigned in the 1980s with the creation of the Revised Common Lectionary, long before that event occurred. And yet providentially, they always remain fresh, for humanity always struggles with forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.
Thus, the theme of forgiveness and reconciliation echoes throughout our holy texts. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, they were shown mercy. God did not cast them into the abyss. God continued to love then. They were sent out of Paradise together, clothed by God including within the divine intention for humanity’s ultimate restoration. And God continues to work within history to save us.
Through the lives of those remembered within Genesis, we see this divine trendline of activity continue to grow more clear. Contrasting with Cain’s murder of Able, the brothers Ishmael and Isaac reunite to lay their father Abraham to rest (25:8–19), and Esau graciously welcomes Jacob back home after years of bitterness (33:4–15).[i] The family dysfunction displayed is quite incredible and sometimes scandalous, and reconciliation does not prove always perfect or long-lasting. Yet the division and sin seen is never brushed over or forgotten. God’s grace can be found visibly at work in response; trying to heal and unify all those God loves.
Indeed, all of Genesis – with the Fall, murder, sexual offenses, and all kinds of selfish acts – comes to a head in Joseph’s own story of betrayal shared this morning. As Genesis closes, Joseph’s brothers fear righteous anger and retribution. They deserved it after all. They had abused their brother’s love and sold him into slavery.
Yet, they and what would become the Twelve Tribes of Israel were welcomed as strangers only because Joseph ended up in Egypt and allowed it. This doesn’t erase their sin. It doesn’t heal all the very real wounds created. Joseph certainly recalls what they did and failed to do. Yet, he also remembers God’s own faithfulness to him through it all saying, “Even though you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (50:20). God would make good come from evil once again.
Here, Joseph demonstrates a kind of hesed (also spelled in English as chesed). This term “communicates loyalty or faithfulness within a relationship,”[ii] but more so, it describes selfless, unconditional kindness – a going above and beyond what the law requires.[iii] A Rabbi explains, “…though many texts translate [hesed] loosely as ‘loving kindness,’ this is only an approximation. A more complete definition can be broken down to three components:
- Choosing to feel and/or hear another person’s pain or hurt.
- Choosing to act to heal that person’s pain or hurt.
- Doing the above without any expectation of reward or calculation.”[iv]
Hesed shifts focus away from oneself toward the love of others. It is the opposition and antidote to what Martin Luther declared the essence of our fallen nature – being bent inward upon ourselves. Thus, Joseph is seen to be acting similarly to God in offering mercy and forgiveness.
Centuries later as Jesus teaches during the Sermon on the Mount “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” Jesus understood that God wills to forgive. And as Jesus gives his disciples the keys to the kingdom, the authority of binding and loosing, God’s own forgiveness proved foundational to understanding that sacred authority. Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus reflected hesed in mind and heart. Through his teachings and example, he asks us to strive to become more like our God who loves us even when we stray, for God longs to forgive us and be reconciled.
Remembering our own deliverance and ongoing need, we should remain thankful for what God has done in Christ, is doing now, and will yet do on Judgement Day. God will not repay us according to our own sins, but because of God’s hesed, because of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, by grace through faith, we will deserve condemnation but be looked upon as righteous. What was lost through Adam and Eve will be fully redeemed and restored as pure gift.
You have heard it said, forgive and forget. Yet that’s not godliness. In fact, that can prove gravely dangerous. If someone is a threat to themselves or others, or has a tendency for temptation, it is ok to realize it. For God sees us as we are in our own sin, but as God does with us, we should treat them with love them, treat them with respect and kindness, and offer forgiveness from our hearts. After Jesus’ teaching on how to seek justice and make amends, Peter has a question. How often should one forgive? Jesus famously says, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times” (see verse 21-22). Or, it reads seven times seventy in some ancient manuscripts.
In this answer, Jesus remembers what has come before. Cain’s descendant, Lamech, would boast about his ability to seek revenge and honor seventy-sevenfold for wrongs done against him. (See Genesis 4.) Today in stark contrast, Jesus teaches us to forgive seventy-sevenfold, a number signifying without any limits. This echo is likely intentional. Jesus is seeking to move us away from our fallen nature and what seems reasonable in the eyes of humanity toward holiness.
To illustrate, Jesus tells us of a servant forgiven of immense debt. If God is willing to forgive the greater, countless sins of humanity, how much more should we forgive? As commentaries note, “Jesus concludes that his disciples should be willing to forgive their neighbors if they expect God to forgive them.”[v] This understanding was not lost on everyone in the Second Temple period. In fact, in the wisdom of Sirach, a man who lived a bit before Jesus asked, he asks incredulously, “If people have no mercy toward those like themselves, can they then seek pardon for their own sins? (Sirach 28:1–4).[vi]
Yes, the Jewish people of Matthew’s time understood the economy of the Temple well. You were expected to offer something in exchange for God’s forgiveness. In short, you owed God for your accumulation of debt (or sin). Yet, Matthew recalls that Jesus came to “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). At the Last Supper, Christ says that his own “blood” will be “poured out” for the “forgiveness of sins” (26:28). And Jesus will “give his life as a ransom for many” on the cross (20:28), namely a ransom payment to God for his people’s sin-debt.[vii]
By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, we no longer need to offer anything for our salvation. Our debt has been paid, and we are only asked to trust in Jesus. And yet consequently, we are expected to love others in return as we have been loved. We are to remember all the Gospel laden stories within the pages of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures.[viii] We are to remember to forgive as we have been forgiven. And yet that remains difficult because life in a fallen world is complicated.
Long ago when I was a police officer, I met a woman on a domestic violence call. Her left cheek was swollen as large as a grapefruit. I was back in the Church by then after years of wondering, and I had wrestled with my own struggles to forgive others. As I spoke to her and offered resources, I also encouraged her to seek safety elsewhere even if that meant separation from the one whom she loved. Such violence tends to continue. Yet she answered, “I can’t leave him. I have to forgive him.” Despite her swollen face and labored speech, I heard her clearly say, “Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek.”
In response, I felt obligated to share other teachings of scripture to remind her that she was a beloved child of God. Her understanding of scripture fell far short of God’s love for her. For certainly, Jesus doesn’t always require us to be martyred. And as beloved children, he longs for our safety, happiness, and abundant life. We need to be smart in a Fallen World, even as we are generous. We need to discern not rigidly but with a healthy love for ourselves as we respond to every offense. We need to love others as ourselves, not better than ourselves, while never blinding ourselves to our own wrongs, selfishness, or part in any conflict.
So, in life, we often have more than one possible response to the wrongs we face. When Jesus’ disciples were denied hospitality, he counseled them to dust off their sandals and walk to another town where they would be welcomed. We can redefine boundaries, too. And when he taught us to love others as ourselves, this included treating people as we wish to be treated. I don’t know about you, but if I was a threat to another person or myself, I would hope someone would stop me. Indeed, I have been thanked by people who I’ve arrested before…both for the way I treated them and the second chance my arrest gave them. And at times when nothing seems perfectly right, we can do our best to love trusting that God can correct and forgive our errors in this as well.
When we turn the other cheek, we don’t have to stay. We can walk away. Yet that doesn’t mean that we stop caring about others or hoping for peace. It infers that we should continue to pray for them and their repentance. It requires that we remain open to reconciliation. Realizing that it takes two people to reconcile, we should fully do so only if it is safe or as called by God to risk sacrifice. For, Jesus also taught us to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. He knew life and people are dangerously complicated at times.
And although the people we wish to forgive might never change nor ever care, we will discover a path to freedom for ourselves rather than gallows. Forgiveness can prove a process lasting a lifetime, but just striving to forgive (asking God’s help in prayer, talking to counselors and spiritual advisors, seeking to repent and make amends for our part in the mess that we find ourselves stuck in), we begin to heal and thus our world heals along with us. As we find peace, more options might even open to us.
As verse threatened at the close of Jesus’ parable (v. 34), it is gravely important that we forgive others. Yet by grace we remain saved even as we struggle to forgive. Forgiveness is difficult, and we aren’t God. S Jesus does not expect our perfection. He asks only that we try…that we orient our own hearts toward his. With Peter, we have the hope of growing into our practice of forgiveness. For when we seek to forgive, we are stepping off the roads of our Fallen World and starting to follow Jesus into new territory. A whole new world will open before us, and we begin to remember who we were created to be…children of God. Amen.
[i] Walls, N. (September 2026). Commentary on Genesis 50:15-21.
[ii] Got Questions. (u.d.) What is the meaning of the Hebrew word hesed? Downloaded at https://www.gotquestions.org/meaning-of-hesed.html on September 12, 2026.
[iii] Kaye, L. (u.d.) Kindness (Chesed).
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Schaser, N.J. (September 2026). Commentary on Matthew 18:21-35.
[vi] As quoted in Schaser, N.J. (September 2026). Commentary on Matthew 18:21-35.
[vii] See Nathan Eubank, Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew’s Gospel (De Gruyter, 2013). As cited in Schaser, N.J. (September 2026). Commentary on Matthew 18:21-35.
[viii] A Lutheran hermeneutic asks us to look for both Law and Gospel in every text of scripture.
Below, please find a video of our worship service. The sermon starts at about the 21:44 minute mark.
© 2026 The Rev. Louis Florio. All content not held under another’s copyright may not be used without permission of the author unless under terms of fair use and properly attributed. Scripture passages when used are from the NRSVue translation unless otherwise indicated.
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