Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 9/13/2026
Put Down the Calculator
Mathew 18:21-35 | Sunday, September 13, 2026
St. David’s Episcopal Church, Southfield, MI
The Very Rev. Chris Yaw
Good morning!
Do many of you remember when pocket calculators came out?
Texas Instruments?
An adding machine – that multiplied, divided, did square roots – and could fit into your pocket!
All for like - $2000 – or whatever – it was pricy tho!
Now, of course – your calculator is on your phone – along with all those other apps crucial to your daily life – like Candy Crush and Solitaire…
But I want to begin this morning talking about calculators.
And not just the ones in our pockets – but the invisible ones…
The ones we carry along all day long.
So we can keep track…
I called her twice.
She hasn't called me once.
I invited them over three times.
They haven't invited us over at all.
I apologized.
He didn't.
I gave.
She took.
I remembered their birthday.
They forgot mine.
Click. Click. Click.
We are remarkably good accountants when it comes to other people's sins.
And as this morning’s Gospel suggests - Peter apparently was pretty good at it too.
He comes to Jesus and asks:
“Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
Seven!
Peter probably thinks he's being enormously generous.
Surely Jesus is going to say, “Peter, you magnificent spiritual overachiever.”
Instead, Jesus says:
Not seven. A perfect number
But Seventy-seven. Which basically means infinity.
In other words:
Peter, put down the calculator.
Because forgiveness is not arithmetic.
And the kingdom of God is not an accounting department.
Jesus tells Peter a story.
A servant owes a king ten thousand talents.
This isn't Visa-card debt.
This isn't “I got a little carried away at Costco” debt.
Those who study these things tell us this was an absurd amount of money.
An impossible amount. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The servant could work until the sun burns out and he isn't paying this thing back.
And yet he says:
“Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”
Right.
That’s after I finish teaching our cats conversational French…
The king knows the servant cannot repay him.
And then comes the astonishing part.
The king doesn't extend the payment schedule.
He doesn't reduce the interest rate.
He doesn't refinance.
He cancels the debt.
All of it.
The king puts down the calculator.
And the servant walks away free.
Except...
…he doesn't.
Because almost immediately he encounters another servant who owes him a much smaller amount – like $10.
And suddenly our man pulls out the calculator he never put away.
“Pay what you owe.”
And when the other servant can't, he has him thrown into prison.
Which makes me wonder:
Did the first servant ever really become free? Does he understand what’s going on?
His debt was gone.
The king had thrown out the books and the bookkeeping.
The king had released him into an entirely different way of living, an economy of grace.
But for that forgiven servant - his bookkeeping remained.
And the servant walked right back into the economy of debts and credits, winners and losers, offenses and repayments.
And that's where he remained imprisoned.
------
I think that's what Jesus is trying to show us.
There are two ways to live.
There is the economy of the calculator.
And there is the economy of grace.
And most of us have one foot in each.
Because forgiveness is hard.
And I want to be very clear about what forgiveness is not.
Forgiveness does not mean saying:
“You don't owe me.”
Sometimes they do.
They owe you an apology.
They owe you the truth.
They owe you restitution.
They may owe you years you can never get back.
Forgiveness doesn't mean the wound wasn't real.
Forgiveness doesn't mean automatically trusting someone again.
It doesn't mean staying in an abusive relationship.
It doesn't mean avoiding consequences.
It doesn't mean justice no longer matters.
The theologian Miroslav Volf makes this point beautifully:
Forgiveness does not negate justice.
In fact, forgiveness acknowledges that an injustice really occurred and then moves beyond simply demanding repayment.
You cannot forgive something that didn't matter.
Forgiveness begins by saying:
This mattered.
You hurt me.
This was wrong.
There really is something written in the ledger.
But forgiveness makes an astonishing decision:
What you owe me will no longer own me.
That's different.
You may owe me an apology.
But I am not spending the next twenty years standing at the collection window waiting for you to pay.
You may owe me an explanation.
But my peace will no longer depend upon receiving it.
You may owe me restitution.
And justice may still require restitution.
But I refuse to let this debt become the organizing principle of my life.
What you owe me will no longer own me.
-----
Many of you remember the story – when I lived in Battle Creek – and the rector, my boss, called to say we were going to take home communion to someone and would I go along?
Little did I know it was to a large hotel suite –
Because a man named Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in town visiting for the week –
So we celebrated Eucharist with him for the week –
And during that time got to hear him talk about his life – life in South Africa when he lived under apartheid.
And he was deeply involved in its demise.
So much so – that when apartheid ended - he chaired something called South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
He heard testimony about torture, murder, families destroyed, lives stolen and was involved in helping bring people together after horrific offenses.
What he offered – and what he talked about was not cheap forgiveness.
Tutu insisted that reconciliation involves acknowledging wrongdoing, remorse, confession, forgiveness, and often reparation.
And yet Tutu came to this remarkable conclusion:
“Without forgiveness there can be no future.”
Think about that.
No future.
Because if tomorrow is entirely determined by yesterday's debts, tomorrow simply becomes yesterday with new casualties.
And this is where today's other readings become so interesting.
Our first reading is Exodus.
Israel is enslaved.
Pharaoh has turned human beings into property.
God hears their cries.
And God says:
Enough.
The waters open.
The slaves walk through.
And what is the great biblical story of salvation?
God gets people out of bondage.
That's why our choir – so happy to have you back from summer vacation – will lead us in singing “Go Down, Moses” today:
“Let my people go.”
And the final verse makes the connection explicit:
“Let us all from bondage flee...
And let us all in Christ be free.”
God is in the liberation business.
But bondage takes many forms.
Sometimes Pharaoh has an army.
Sometimes Pharaoh has a whip.
And sometimes Pharaoh is an old wound we have carried around for fifteen years.
Sometimes Pharaoh is resentment.
Sometimes Pharaoh is our absolute determination that somebody is going to pay.
And the tragedy is that we can escape Egypt while Egypt remains inside us.
We can be released from the debt and still clutch the calculator.
------
Paul sees another version of this in Romans.
The Christians are fighting about food.
Some eat meat.
Some don't.
Some observe particular days.
Some don't.
Which sounds terribly quaint until you realize that Paul is describing a church argument.
And suddenly it sounds extremely contemporary.
Christians arguing over something and becoming absolutely convinced that God is on their side?
Hard to imagine.
Paul says:
Stop despising each other.
Stop judging each other.
“God has welcomed them.”
And then comes this magnificent sentence:
“We do not live to ourselves.”
That's it.
Christianity is fundamentally relational.
I don't belong only to myself.
You don't belong only to yourself.
We belong to Christ.
And therefore, somehow, inconveniently, maddeningly, beautifully...
we belong to one another.
Which means the Christian life cannot simply be about being right.
It has to be about repair.
Paul elsewhere gives the Church a wonderful job description:
the ministry of reconciliation.
That's us.
Repairers.
Bridge builders.
Menders.
People who walk into a world that keeps tearing relationships apart and say:
Maybe this doesn't have to end this way.
And goodness knows the world needs some repairers right now.
We live in a country heading toward another bitter election season in which contempt has become political currency.
Even the current midterm campaign is being framed in stark, apocalyptic terms about what will happen if the other side wins.
Around the world, people are keeping terrible ledgers.
You killed ours.
We'll kill yours.
You bombed us.
We'll bomb you.
You humiliated us.
We'll humiliate you.
And the calculator keeps clicking.
The prayers we will offer this morning name Gaza and Israel, Ukraine, Haiti, Sudan, gun violence, displacement, fear and vengeance, and then ask God to lead us toward “justice, safety, and peace.”
Notice that word:
justice.
Christian reconciliation is not “everybody be nice.”
It isn't pretending evil didn't happen.
It isn't telling the wounded to stop complaining.
It is truth plus mercy.
Justice plus grace.
Accountability directed toward repair rather than revenge.
We are not called to be peace-keepers nearly as much as peace-makers.
There is a difference1
We are Repairers.
And we practice it here.
Think about what we're going to do in the next twenty minutes.
First, we're going to confess.
“We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”
We're going to admit that there really is something in the ledger.
And then God forgives us.
Not because it didn't matter.
Because grace is greater.
Then what happens?
The Peace.
Forgiven people turn toward one another.
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
And then we come to this table.
One bread.
One body.
One Lord of all.
Our communion hymn actually says that although we are many, “we are one body in this one Lord.”
Do you see what the liturgy is doing to us?
Week after week?
Confession.
Forgiveness.
Peace.
Communion.
Sending.
God is training repairers.
God is teaching us to put down the calculator.
And we need the training because we'll pick the thing right back up.
Probably before that bowl of Grandparent’s Day ice cream.
That's why Jesus says seventy-seven times.
Forgiveness isn't usually one heroic spiritual moment.
Sometimes you forgive somebody on Monday...
..and Tuesday morning you remember what they did.
Click.
So you put down the calculator again.
Wednesday...
click.
Put it down.
Thursday...
click.
Put it down.
Maybe seventy-seven isn't a number.
Maybe it's a description of how forgiveness actually works.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until eventually the debt may still be real...
but it no longer owns you.
And perhaps that's why our final hymn today – the Ode to Joy - contains this wonderful description of God:
“Thou art giving and forgiving.”
Giving.
And forgiving.
And then it asks God:
“Teach us how to love each other.”
That's our work.
Not winning every argument.
Not collecting every debt.
Not making sure everyone who hurt us finally understands just how wrong they were.
Repairing.
Reconciling.
Forgiving.
Building something that can have a future.
Because at this table, God does not hand us an invoice.
God hands us bread.
God does not say:
Pay what you owe.
God says:
Take. Eat.
You are forgiven.
You are loved.
You are free.
And then God sends us back into this fractured, furious, scorekeeping world and says:
Now...
go do likewise.
Put down the calculator.
Become a repairer.
And remember:
What they owe you does not have to own you.
Amen.