September 18, 2026
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A) on September 13, 2026 at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Chicago, IL. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Sirach 27:30 – 28:7; Psalm 103; Romans 14:7-9; and Matthew 18:21-35.
Once again today, the Church invites us to consider our obligation to forgive one another. Sirach ties together two ideas that Jesus will connect again hundreds of years later: forgiveness of others’ sins and the forgiveness of our own sins. Paul speaks of how baptism obligates us to care for one another. Our gospel passage is a forceful command for us to forgive one another unceasingly.
But we must make an important side note: for anyone caught in an abusive relationship, the Church wants to help those victims get to safety first. Once people are out of harm’s way, then we can explore the idea of forgiveness.
To me, the key words in our readings today are kindness, mercy, forgiveness, healing, and, most of all,compassion. In order for us to extend compassion to others, let us ask God to make us more aware of the mercy he has extended to each one of us.
Lord Jesus, you forgive us our sins: Lord, have mercy.
You call us to forgive others as you forgive us: Christ, have mercy.
You respond with compassion to all who seek your mercy: Lord, have mercy.
I used to be an engineer. If I start talking about something technical around Paulist Fr. Larry Rice, he will protest, “I was told that there would be no math.” Well, for you artistic types here today: I have bad news for you. We have some math to do.
There are three numerical phrases in today’s gospel that our translation glosses over. The first one is Jesus’ command of how many times we are to forgive one another. Our translation says it’s seventy-seven times; perhaps you’ve heard other translations say seventy times seven. Actually, the original Greek can mean either. But the point is this: if we’re counting the number of times we’ve forgiven someone—whether it’s 77 times or 490 times – we aren’t really forgiving them.
The next numerical phrase takes a bit more work. The “huge amount” that the first servant owed to the king is actually ten thousand talents. A talent was roughly the equivalent of 15 years’ wages for a manual laborer. Ten thousand was the largest number in the Greco-Roman world. Ten thousand talents isn’t just a “huge amount” — it’s a ridiculous, incomprehensibly large amount. So, when the first servant promises to pay the king back, both he and the king know that this is not possible.
This is not the only time that Jesus uses debt as an analogy to explain sin. Jesus makes it clear that the greater we have sinned in the past, the more we will realize how merciful God is to us. Ten years ago, a spiritual director challenged me that every time we pray “Lord, have mercy” at Mass, I should ask the Holy Spirit to make me more aware of my sins. That way, I am also more aware of the immensity of the forgiveness God has granted me.
Back to our third and final math problem. The “much smaller amount” that the second servant owes to the first servant is about 100 days’ wages. That’s not an amount to sneeze at: about 1/3 of a year’s salary. If we’re equating sin to debt, 1/3 of a year’s salary is still a substantial transgression against us, but it’s infinitely smaller than what the first servant owes the king.
That’s the end of the math, but we need to point out an oddity in the way Matthew tells the story. I think Matthew has conflated two important teachings of Jesus, one in which the king represents God’s infinite compassion, and the other in which the king is a flawed human being who reneges on his promises and resorts to torture. Let’s be clear: God does not renege on his promises to us, even if the king does.
When we put this all together, we must be careful that we don’t reach the wrong conclusion. Matthew’s Jesus is saying that we must forgive others as God has forgiven us. Jesus is not saying: once you’ve forgiven someone seventy-seven times for hurting you, then you can exact vengeance on that person. Instead, we must realize that we are all sinners who have been forgiven by God. If we cannot forgive others, can we truly bear the title of “Christian”?
Most of my favorite novels and movies focus on people who find ways to live out the best of Christian values even when facing the worst of humanity. In Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, the protagonist is Stephen, a humble Zulu pastor who lives in the South African countryside. Although Stephen cannot undo the fatal consequences of the sin committed by his son, he remains both faithful to God and compassionate towards his family. At the end of the novel, after escaping the squalor and corruption in the city of Johannesburg, Stephen makes a pilgrimage to the mountain where he has twice traveled before to offer the most intense prayers of his life. Stephen begins by reflecting on his sins and asking God for absolution. Then, despite all the corruption he has witnessed and all the hurt and loss he has experienced, he finds himself able to give profound thanks to God for all that he has received.
Let us take 30 seconds in silence to close our eyes and imagine ourselves praying alone on a mountaintop, looking off into the infinite horizon. Let us give thanks for the mercy we have received from God, no matter how sinful we may be. [Pause 30 seconds.] Alan Paton writes:
Might not another man returning to another valley, have found none of these things? Why was it given to one man to have his pain transmuted into gladness? Why was it given to one man to have such an awareness of God? And might not another, having no such awareness, live with pain that never ended?
God’s love endures forever. May we show that same compassion to one another!