A few years ago a movie came out called "Pay It Forward." In the movie the main character, an elementary age boy, comes up with the concept that he labels "pay it forward." The idea is that if someone does something good for you, instead of paying them back by doing something good for them in return, you do something good for two or three other people. You pay the good deed forward. The boy calculated how these good deeds would multiply as the people sought to pay it forward. A core group of ten people advocating for paying good deeds forward could easily reach thousands and then millions of people.

As the movie progressed, you could see how the boy was imagining all of the good deeds that were being enacted because of the concept he had created. That’s kind of what I see the king in the scripture passage calling his servant to do.

In the parable that Jesus tells we have a servant who has received a good deed by being forgiven of his debt. If we were to put the debt that this servant has racked up into our modern dollars it would be about 1.5 billion dollars! This is a huge debt and the king simply forgives it – he writes it off. He has mercy when the servant requested mercy.

But no sooner does the servant leave the king’s presence than he comes upon an opportunity to pay the good deed forward. When he comes upon another servant who owes him money and a small amount at that, instead of forgiving the debt owed he takes the servant by the neck and demands repayment of the money he owes.

The second servant uses the same words that the first servant used with the king, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you." While when the first servant said this to the king it was far from possible. There was no way that the servant could pay back the billions of dollars he owed. However, with this second servant the sum he owed could have relatively easily been paid back. But instead of paying forward the forgiveness he received, the first servant has the second servant thrown into debtor’s prison.

Well of course when the king gets wind of what the servant has done he gets angry and has him thrown into prison. Then Jesus gives what could be called the punch line of the story. "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

You see, we have already been extended a great amount of grace and forgiveness. Through the work of Christ, God has offered us forgiveness on top of forgiveness. We have truly received a good deed. It is up to us to pay it forward.

But then let’s go back to Peter’s question that started this whole thing. Peter asked how many times we should offer forgiveness. His suggestion of seven times must have sounded very gracious indeed especially considering that the tradition at the time only required three. But in Jesus’ response he blows Peter’s paltry number of seven out of the water. Not seven times, Peter, but seventy-seven times or seventy times seven. Either way you read it, Jesus is saying that if you only forgive seven times, you have only scratched the surface of what is required.

With his statement of calling for forgiveness 77 or 490 times, Jesus is telling Peter that forgiveness isn’t about keeping score. We aren’t to keep a tally sheet on everyone we have ever forgiven and when they reach some mark, withhold forgiveness. Jesus is saying throw out the tally sheet and just keep on forgiving. And the reasoning for that is that God has already thrown out our tally sheets. God isn’t keeping score so why should we?

There are echoes of Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer at work in this passage. And in this instance, it is Matthew’s version that we follow. "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." If we want God to forgive all the ways we have fallen short of God’s expectations for us then we had better get started forgiving others for the ways they have fallen short of what we have expected from them.

There are so many powerful examples of people who have forgiven others from the parent of a child killed in the Oklahoma City bombing befriending Timothy McVey’s parents and advocating against the death penalty for him to the forgiveness the Amish community in Pennsylvania extended to the man who killed many of the children there.

When I see these huge examples of forgiveness I cannot help but feel inadequate to the task. You see in the secular culture we do not follow this idea of forgiveness. Instead of advocating for forgiveness all of the influences from our culture advocate for revenge. I’ve seen a bumper sticker that says, "Don’t get mad, get even." That seems to be the type of behavior that is accepted and indeed expected from our culture.

We celebrate movies with titles like "V is for Vendetta." I recently saw advertised a video game called "Mercenary" whose premise is that the mercenary doesn’t get paid so he seeks revenge on those who did not pay him and says he won’t stop his terrorism until they pay him. I’m not quite sure what the goal of such a game could be other than to wreak as much havoc as possible. I must admit that I get so mad at this commercial that I change the channel or mute the television rather than listen to it.

How can we as Christians advocate for forgiveness in a world hostile to the idea? How can we as Christians stand up to these celebrated images of revenge that are so prevalent in our culture and stand for a different way?

There has been a theme that I hear running throughout the gospels as I read and preach from them. Following Christ is not easy. The things that Christ asks his followers to do – from taking up a cross to constant forgiveness – are hard.

Forgiveness is not easy – but when is following Christ the easiest path to take? Let me be clear on what forgiveness is and is not. Forgiveness is not acting as though the offense never happened. Nothing can erase the past and indeed we shouldn’t try to pretend as though nothing happened. Forgiving someone also doesn’t mean that you place yourself in danger again.

Forgiveness is also not a one-time deal. I remember reading an interview with one of the members of the Amish community after the murders there. The reporter was very intrigued at how the members of the community could say mere hours after the event that they had forgiven the perpetrator. This member of the Amish community talked about forgiveness not as a one-time over-and-done-with event. Instead he talked about forgiveness as a process. We forgive but many times the next morning we have the same feelings of resentment and anger so we forgive again. Then later on in the day those feelings may boil up again but once again we forgive. Forgiveness isn’t a neatly encapsulated event – it is a way of living – a process.

Each Sunday we come to worship and we confess our sins. We come to this place and lay it all out before God. We confess together the way that we as a community have fallen short of what God has called us to do. We confess individually of the ways we have individually fallen short of who God calls us to be. Each week we ask for God’s mercy and forgiveness. And each week we are assured of the forgiveness extended to us through Christ.

We keep coming back each week because each week we are in need of the assurance of God’s forgiveness. And each week we are reminded that God isn’t keeping score. God isn’t keeping a tally of all of our wrongs. Because we have been extended grace upon grace we are called to emulate God, as best we can, and throw out our own scorecards and, as Tom Long put it, dole out forgiveness with a fire hose rather than an eyedropper.

Forgiveness is about healing wounded relationships. When you get a wound, the flesh that heals over the wound is different from the surrounding flesh. In horses, flesh that has been wounded comes back darker than the rest of the flesh. In horses, they call this "proud flesh." This scar tissue is also stronger than the other tissue. When a relationship has been wounded and true forgiveness takes place the hope is that as forgiveness takes place, and the wound is healed that the relationship will be stronger.

We have received grace upon grace. We have been forgiven a debt that we could never repay. Because we have been recipients of such mercy as this, we are called to pay it forward and offer forgiveness on top of forgiveness and grace upon grace. It won’t happen overnight and even after forgiveness is given, we may still need to forgive again. Forgiveness isn’t a one-time deal but is a way of living.

If we are to live as Christ would have us live, forgiveness will become like breathing to us. With each breath we exhale we forgive one another, with each breath we take in we are reminded of the forgiveness that God has given us. We cannot take in any more of God’s forgiveness until we exhale forgiveness to one another. Our lungs can only take in another breath once the previous one have been released. If we withhold forgiveness to others we will suffocate – unable to take in any more of God’s forgiving and life-giving spirit.

Throw out your scorecards. Pay it forward. Breathe in God’s forgiveness and breathe out forgiveness to those around you. May God guide us and walk with us as we journey through life with forgiveness as our way of living.