How Many Times?

 Matthew 18 21-35

Forgive Thy Brother
Scott Erickson

September 13, 2026

 

So Peter asks, 

“How many times should we forgive someone?

seven times?"

He probably thought he was being 

generous with that.

But Jesus says No, a lot more than that.

Try seventy and seven times.

 

Jesus didn’t just pick these numbers out of the air.

Their linked to an important reference in Genesis.

After Cain kills his brother Abel,

Cain is banished from his home and

sent to wander around the earth.

Cain tells God that he won’t survive that punishment

someone will surely kill him. So God protects him

with a seven times vengeance against anyone who does.

 

Cain remains an outcast, not counted in

Adam’s official lineage, but he marries

and has a family of his own and Cain’s great, great grandson

Lamech, is born. He has two wives, and through the years he maintains

this protective status

but he takes advantage of the protected status God gave him.

He kills another man just for wounding him.

And his protection stands.

Then he brags about it. He says.

²⁴ If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

That’s where that number comes from.

 

Instead of being thankful for God’s protection,

Lamech was vengeful. He received protection,

but he used it and would seek vengeance.

He didn’t give others the grace

that he and his family were given.

  

It important to remember that in Jesus time

and before, revenge was a way of life.

If someone did something to you or your family,

you didn’t just brood over it, and internalize it

and stopped talking to the person or leave the neighborhood.

You didn’t let law enforcement do its work,

since there was no law enforcement as we understand it now.

You got back at the person who did it.

It was your right and obligation.

If you didn’t, you and your family’s honor was at stake.

 

It was supposed to work like a code of honor,

but you could see how it could easily out of hand – and it did.

Someone could kill you or punish you for something that

your grandfather did 50 years earlier. Or someone could

be mad at someone or want some of their property

and use the excuse that their ancestors

had hurt someone else a centuries earlier.

Leviticus 24, kind of tries to temper it:

“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”

In other words, just keep it to one eye for one eye.

And one tooth for one tooth. Don’t go crazy with this retribution thing.

 

And then in Matthew 5, Jesus says,

“You have heard that it was said,

‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 

But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also”

In other words, stop the cycle of violence and retribution.

 

And today, we hear Jesus call for forgiveness.

Jesus says that the call of his followers is not 

seventy-seven fold vengeance like Lamech, but seventy-seven fold forgiveness.

Jesus is calling for his disciples to undo the curse of Cain

and the vengeance of Lamech that has trapped humanity

in endless cycles of hate, vengeance, and violence over generations.

Jesus is calling his disciples to be different from our ancestors

and to take another path a path of life, not death.

Now a days, we’re more sophisticated than they were in Jesus time,

we like our retribution for sins taken care of by our institutions,

we like our justice departments, we like our revenge meted

out by prison sentences, solitary confinement and the death penalty.

We like our debts counted by credit agencies and payday loan companies.  

We let the courts handle our retribution.

We relish in the suffering of people we decide are at fault.

Some have taken this even as a Christian trait.

Forgetting Jesus words in Matthew 5 and this parable.

Like the slave, we’ve forgotten about our own forgiveness.

 

Truthfully, the cycle of sin and retribution and revenge,

is harmful to everyone.

Even though it’s lasted for thousands of years,

we can’t sustain ourselves like this.

As someone said, “If everyone took an eye for an eye,

the whole world will go blind.”

 

And that is why Jesus made forgiveness front and center of his

ministry. Forgiveness is our secret super-power 

that we have been given as Christians, even though so many Christians forget to use it.

And that’s why God’s forgiveness has come first.

It sets us free so we can pass it on and  create

a new reality in our community.

 

A society that is build around revenge and getting even

cannot move on. It cannot sustain itself, it will eventually blow itself up

or guns, or bombs. Or with a alienation depression, or addiction.

Jesus wants to overthrow this system with our forgiveness and love.

 

And the truth is, forgiveness makes a new reality in our own lives.

Hate and anger can derail us.

It can burn in our hearts and take our focus and our thoughts.

Anger and vengeance can make us do things we never would have thought of doing. 

Forgiveness releases us primarily.

Forgiveness does not necessarily release the offender from responsibility, it’s releases ourselves

from the burden of resentment, bitterness, and past pain.

Some people say that those who forgive  

are “being doormats” and inviting in more abuse.

But forgiveness is not endorsement of bad behavior.

it doesn’t minimize the wrong.

It’s not necessarily releasing the offender of responsibility.

Forgiveness releases the burden of

emotional debt that the victim can be laden with.

 

In 2014 I was involved in a discussion with a bunch of clergy

and a group called Sandy Hook Promise. They were there to get us

involved with their programs. It was started by the parents of the victims 

of the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012 where 26 people were killed,

20 of them first graders.  Two of the parents of the children were there 

talking to us, it was just two years after their children were killed.

They made a foundation who’s purpose was to curb school shootings.

 

One arm of their foundation works on reasonable gun control

and all of those safety precautions as you’d expect.

 

But their other primary focus is in making sure every child is loved.

They called it “Parenting our whole community.” They explained it this way. 

They know that the young man, who killed their children,

Adam Lanza, was, like a lot of other mass shooters, he was called a loner.

No one knew him, or knew his name even though he had attended Sandy Hook elementary. 

They wanted to work to correct that in schools so that other

young people would not take the path that he did.

In the presentation, they used Adam Lanza repeatedly. Not in anger.

They kind of saw him as another victim.

 

They had two programs:

“No Child Eats Alone”, which encourages children and staff to go and eat with other children who are eating alone.

And “Know Me Know My Name” an effort for every staff teacher and administrative person to know every child’s name and use it regularly.

One of the parents there said that his son Ethan, who was killed that day,  

was a person who would go and sit with a child who was alone or was crying.

 And he said to us,  “If more children like my son were there for Adam Lanza, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

Which I thought was an amazing statement.

This man who had every right to be bitter and angry and spiteful even,

but instead he had compassion for the person who murdered his child.

That is forgiveness. They were releasing themselves of the emotional debt owed by the offender.

 

Of course, since it was a bunch of pastors, we were interested in the program 

but we really wanted to know how they came to the place of forgiveness. 

Were they all people of deep faith?

He said some were, and some were not.

 

What he did say was that as they were starting to work together

they were meeting with other people who had gone through

similar shootings. They now belonged to a group no one wanted to

belong to, but they found wisdom and comfort there.

 

And he said there were so many people who talked with them 

who were five, ten and 20 years on, who had not released the emotional debt. 

They noticed that these people’s lives had been consumed

by this one awful moment. Many had lost their marriages, jobs.

Their surviving children suffered. They were focused with getting even, 

finding retribution, even revenge, and it had destroyed their remaining life. 

He said they all made a conscious decision to take another path.

 

He said that the forgiveness was a process for him,

it came and it went.  Some days he was angry.

But overall having compassion instead of hate

had done a lot of work to heal his pain.  

And even just two years after the shooting he felt that he was 

in a better place than some of the people who were decades past the trauma.

Instead of picking at the scab over and over, it allowed the wound to heal. 

The scar was still there. But the wound was healing.

  

Forgiveness is hard. We’re bound not to do it perfectly.

And sometimes we won’t do it at all.

And yet we are still we are forgiven by God.

And those times when we can do it, we are made better.

But what if forgiveness was the goal with every bad

or hurtful incident that we had? Intentional or accidental.

What if, as Christians, we led with that super-power

that we have been given by Jesus?

Seventy Times Seven.

 

What if we could do this in our own lives?

What if we could do this in our own churches and communities?

What if we could do this in our countries and our world?

It could change everything, everything we’ve ever known.

 

Forgiveness starts with remembering we are forgiven.

In Jesus parable, the first thing that happens is that the

king forgives the servant everything. He is released and freed.

He could have started a new day and a new life.

But the servant forgot that, and that’s where the trouble began.

 

We who have been given so much, and released of so much,

have been asked to give those debts that we hold

against other people, back to God.

And in the process, the debts we used to hold

will no longer have a hold over us anymore.

In forgiveness, we are freed.

And our forgiveness can also show God’s grace to the world.

 

Jesus, How many times should we forgive?

Seven times? Seven times might seem like a lot, but more than seven.

Seventy times seven. Keep doing it.

Keep practicing, keep trying and keep failing and keep trying again.

Do it with your family, your church, and community,

and then do it with others.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.

Until God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.

Point Out the Fault While the Two of You are Alone

 Matthew 18:15-20

September 6, 2026

 

Where Two Or Three are Gathered
Theresa Duaghtry

A pastor from Texas told me this story.

He had just started a new call at a church in a small town.

Soon after he started, he was in a grocery store.

One of the members of his church saw him from down the aisle.

He was right behind him, he said “hello, Pastor”

a couple of times. He had to have heard him.

The pastor ignores him.

He acts like he didn’t see him and scoots quickly down the aisle.

The member is offended.

 

The member tells his wife: the new pastor ignored me.

He saw me and avoided me. Maybe he’s mad at me.

She tells her friend who is on the council.

Do you know how much money we give to this church?

The council talks. We have seen signs. The new pastor is not friendly.

Other church members are told.

Maybe we made a mistake in calling him.

There’s phone calls and quiet discussions.

Yes, we noticed it too. City people. He thinks he’s better than us.

 

Sunday, people seem cold to him, the pastor doesn’t know why.

The pastor doesn’t find out until after church when

one “concerned” spokesperson comes to talk to him.

“Some people are not happy.”

(Always a good line to hear on a Sunday morning.)

Well, what’s the problem?

You didn’t say hello to Joe in the grocery store.

Why did you ignore Joe in the grocery store?

  

The pastor is caught unaware.

The pastor thinks, that doesn’t sound like me.

After a little thinking he remembers:

the battery in one of the pastor’s hearing aids gave out,

so he didn’t wear them to the store that day.

If he doesn’t wear his hearing aids, he can’t hear.

He never heard Joe.

He explained it to Joe, and then to the congregation,

and apparently they worked it all out because

the pastor was there for the next 20 years.

 

This story is true.

Well, this is how it was told to me by the pastor.

And I believe it, because this happens a lot.

I’m sure we all have a story or two like this.

Some a lot more destructive than this one.

People complaining to other people instead

of to the person their complaining about.

It happens in families, at work, in organizations

and definitely in churches

maybe most often in churches.

 

I think it might happen in the church even more

than other organizations because we’re supposed to be nice.

We get this impression that we’re supposed

to be of one mind and one opinion and thought.

We think that to be church means that we’re

supposed to only be sweet in front of one another.

To show no disagreement. So when we do disagree with someone,

when we’re frustrated we couldn’t possibly tell them.

That wouldn’t be nice. That could be rude. That could create conflict.

So, we just tell someone else. Maybe even innocently, concerned.

We have parking lot discussions and share gossip.

I have surely participated in it.

I bet most of us have.

  

If it helps at all, we obviously haven’t been

the first people to do it this.

We’re in Matthew 18 this week.

The whole concept of the church has just been brought up 

for the first time in chapter 16 when Jesus tells Peter that

he was going to build his church on him.

And here Jesus is, two chapters later,

telling them how to deal with disagreements.

Almost instantly, after church, there was church conflict.

 

Matthew 18.

This is maybe the most directly applicable,

and the most practical advice we’re given in the whole bible:

If someone sins against you, if someone does something to you,

like snubs you in a grocery store,

the first step is to talk to the other person directly. Alone.

 

Don’t tell a bunch of other people first.

Don’t tell them in the middle of a meeting.

Or in the middle of the Narthex where other people can hear.

Don’t copy everyone in an email to them about their problem.

Don’t tell their spouse or their friend about it.

Don’t publicly scold them on social media.

Go to them.

And give them the chance to fix it.

 

So much in the church and the world would be solved

if we just went to that first step.

We wouldn’t have any comedies if we did that.

But it would solve a lot of problems.

 

And if that first step doesn’t work, there are other practical steps outlined too: 

Take a couple of people and talk to the other person.

(Of course, there’s always a chance the other

two people might disagree with you.)

And if that doesn’t work, then tell the church.

Then bring it up in a meeting. And if all that doesn’t work,

then treat them as a Gentile or a tax collector.

Of course, we know how Jesus treated Gentiles and Tax Collectors.

This gospel was, of course, written by Matthew-

the Tax Collector – a disciple chosen and loved by Jesus.

 

So this is simple advice.

If you’ve got a problem, go directly to that person and talk to them.

Simple. So why don’t we do it?

Why is it that churches, who have this in our scriptures,

forget to do it so often?

 

The fact is, the steps might be simple and clear,

but they are very, very hard.

They leave us very vulnerable.

Telling other people, individually, that they’re behaving in a way

we don’t like, having an honest discussion with them,

and not walking off in a huff is difficult.

Staying connected with someone you disagree with is difficult.

 

They could get angry, they could tell you something about yourself in response, 

they could stop talking to you all together.

Whenever I have to do it, I know I get a knot in my stomach

and it worries me for days.

 

This is often what, I think, turns people off of the church.

It turns people off of organized religion.

When it goes wrong, it’s a den of gossip and endless

parking lot complaints.

But if we actually do it the right way –

and in accordance with this advice from Jesus himself –

it can be extremely difficult and uncomfortable.

 

Have you ever told someone that you were involved in the church

and they told you that they were “Spiritual but not religious”

They just don’t like all that church stuff?

 

A UCC pastor named Lillian Daniel wrote a great little blog entry

more than 10 years ago called:

“Spiritual But not religious? Stop boring me.”

She complains about the people that she meets on planes

when they find she’s a minister,

most people tell her that “they’re spiritual but not religious.”

She writes:

 

Such a person will always share this

as if it is some kind of daring insight,

unique to them, bold in its rebellion

against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets.

These people always find God in the sunsets.

And in walks on the beach.

Sometimes I think these people never leave

the beach or the mountains,

what with all the communing with God they do

on hilltops, hiking trails and . . .

did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset!

 

What she goes on basically to say is that being spiritual by yourself

with nature that doesn’t talk back, doesn’t have it’s own opinions,

doesn’t change its mind, doesn’t have a bad day, doesn’t have 

any baggage, or hurts, or history is really unchallenging and,

in her estimation, kind of boring.

It’s comfortable to be spiritual but not religious. It’s safe.

Religion is people who experience the spiritual together.

It’s people. And really, people are the problem here.

 

I guess I don’t BLAME people who have decided to leave

religion and the people that come with it.

Church life is difficult, community is tough, people are complicated.

Religion, and all of its humanness can be infuriating.

We have to deal with institutions that we didn’t create ourselves,

with traditions that might be very important, or irrelevant,

and we have to decide which is which.

 

We have to deal with people with different experiences,

different upbringings, different backgrounds,

different temperaments, and often very different opinions.

And we have to come together to experience something

that is nebulous, vague, unclear, amorphous

(I used a thesaurus for those words)

 

Sunsets, in comparison, are simple. No attitudes.

no different opinions, they don’t talk back,

they don’t question your methods or motives.

That vein doesn’t pop up in the side of their head when they’re mad at you. 

Because sunsets are never mad at you.

Sunsets don’t want you to be anything different than you already are.

They don’t want you to grow or learn.

Sunsets don’t ask anything of you at all.

 

Sure, sunsets and mountains and beaches are

beautiful and can rest your body, mind, and soul,

but is that all that God is? Rest?

I think God can be rest, but God is also challenge,

God is questions, God is restlessness, God is opinions,

God is sleepless nights, God is messy.

 

God is more complicated than sunsets and beaches.

And church is a reflection of that.

Church is not for the faint of heart.

Community is not for the faint of heart.

I say people, like all of us, who are willing to get in

and get messy, with each other, we are the bold and daring ones.

Sunsets are simple. People are hard.

On the other hand – I think that people also get turned

off from church because people are told they can’t voice

their opinions and things tend to fester and burn.

Challenges and complaints are looked down on.

Then things are swept under the rug.

Sins and offenses are allowed to go on and grow

We use forgiveness as an excuse for avoidance.

Then any type of conflict is ignored until it becomes unbearable,

and then it becomes an all out fight or division.

 

In Ohio, I was on the synod team that dealt with

churches that were in conflict and

I have been to congregational meetings that have

been so destructive, and the words so spiteful

that I have had a crisis of faith myself.

 

You get that microphone set up in the

fellowship hall and people who are normally very

reasonable people suddenly sound like professional wrestlers

challenging the champ to a fight next Saturday night.

 

I have left those meetings thinking that a sunset would

be a much better option.

 

The advice that Jesus gives this week doesn’t say,

“when someone sins against you just deal with it and keep it to yourself.”

or “Just forgive them in your heart and everything will be okay.”

Or “just wait and air all your emotions out at a public meeting”

 

Jesus says talk to that person one on one.

Get involved. Be engaged. Talk to each other directly.

Be vulnerable. Of course, again, this requires us to be uncomfortable.

 

A lot of those public fights at meetings could have been avoided

if there were conversations that were had earlier.

Sometimes 10 or 15 years earlier. This works on the personal level, 

it works on the church level, and call me naive, 

but I think Jesus advice would work on the international level too.

In my work on the conflict team I saw some terrible things,

but I have also seen miraculous and beautiful things.

 

Sometimes things are untenable, and

sometimes the best thing is for one of the parties

to remove themselves from the situation.

But sometimes conversations are had, and agreements

are made, and reconciliation happens.

Relationships that were broken are repaired.

 

When this happens at this micro-level, we can see

what God can do. And what God will do, in big ways.

We become signs of God’s grace, love and power.

I will trade a sunset in for that experience any day.

 

God is fixing and repairing and rebuilding all the time.

God is reconciling, and renewing, and resurrecting everywhere.

And we, as church people, get to be partners in that work.

In our own hearts and in our own messy petri dishes

of challenge, conflict, death, and rebirth, which is the church.

 

Sunsets are fine.

But God’s real miracles happen

when we find God’s image in other people,

people that think different than us,

that have different experiences,

different cultures and backgrounds,

different opinions and understandings.

And especially maybe, in those who disagree with us.

 

Because where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name –

when we can support one another, work together,

across differences and still serve God and serve our community—

it is a miracle!

And we know that God is with us.