“Cash flow” is a term that has been coined in recent year. The old way of thinking was to put your money in a bank for safe keeping. Now we put our money in financial institutions so that it will keep flowing, being invested and growing. We don’t want our money to grow “stale” on us.
Jesus advised a kind of “cash flow” when he talked about forgiveness. It all began when Peter posed a question to him (Matthew 18:21-35).
“Peter approached Jesus and asked him, ‘Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seventy times? Jesus answered, ‘I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”
We wonder what prompted Peter to bring up the question in the first place. Was he having trouble with one of his brothers who kept annoying him or taking advantage of him? Was he following Jesus’ exhortation to forgive, but wondering how long he had to keep doing this? Seven was the number of completion. God, for example, finished his work of creation in seven days. It would be more than reasonable to expect the most tolerant person in the world to quit after seven times. I’m sure Peter expected Jesus to agree with him. Instead, Jesus upped the ante to “seventy-seven” times. This, in effect, was “beyond completion.” There was to be no end to the flow of forgiveness coming from the hearts of his disciples.
How could this possibly be? Because they had received an infinite amount of forgiveness from the Father.
“That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who had decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold… At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him his loan.”
This servant had been taking advantage of the master’s generosity. He had been borrowing money indiscriminately and his debt became more than he could ever pay back. Knowing he was in trouble, he begged for mercy, and the compassionate King forgave him the entire debt, no strings attached.
This is a story of abundant forgiveness. It seems the servant was not really deserving of any forgiveness of debt at all, considering how he was so imprudent in accumulating debt. Then he promised he would pay it back, which was a lie. He knew that he would never be able to pay off such a huge amount.
This king dumped an infinite amount of forgiveness upon the servant and expected that it would “flow” through him to others. Instead, when the forgiven servant ran into a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money, he started to choke him and demanded he pay back the money.
“Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers.”
If we want to get God angry, chose not to forgive someone. In light of the infinite amount of forgiveness God has shown us, we have no excuse for stopping the flow of love and holding out in forgiving another person. We continue in Lent by remembering how God has forgiven us, and choosing to forgive who has ever hurt us, including ourselves.
“Good and upright is the Lord; thus, he shows sinners the way” (Ps 25:8).
