Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

If someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

A leopard can't change his spots.

Past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.

Fool me once, shame on you.

You know the rest.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Now, growing up in South Georgia, to me, all of these make good common sense.

These are things that you can use and help guide you through life and make sure you don't get hurt or taken advantage of.

You learn your lesson when someone treats you a certain way.

That's not going to happen again.

That all makes good sense to me.

But then Jesus has to weigh in.

Jesus has to share a very different, actually quite radical wisdom that's very much at odds with the natural assumptions that we might make.

In today's gospel lesson, Peter asked Jesus, how many times should I forgive a member of the church who sins against me? And Peter, thinking he's being super generous, says as many as seven times.

And Jesus says, no, not seven, but 77.

In some translations, Jesus says 70 times seven.

Either way, this is a crazy number.

This is a number that is more than we can actually track.

That many times we've been wronged.

I would offer that the number is intended to basically be infinity, a number that we can't wrap our minds around.

How could we forgive someone that many times? But I think to understand this conversation that is happening, it's important to see the context of the larger conversation that Jesus is having with his disciples as we pick up with Peter's question about how many times should I forgive.