Peter had a reasonable question.
“Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?”
Seven sounds generous.
More importantly, seven gives you something wonderfully useful:
a stopping point.
In this Sunday’s ROOK, Jake has taken the idea one step further. Ryan keeps stealing his food, so Jake has begun keeping records.
Coffee. Fries. Cookie. Pizza.
“I have documentation.”
The trouble comes when Maggie asks the obvious question:
“How do you know when you’re even?”
Jake hadn’t gotten that far.
Neither, perhaps, had Peter.
Jesus answers Peter by taking his carefully manageable number and blowing it apart: “not…until seven times: but until seventy times seven.” Then comes the parable of the servant who receives an enormous mercy but refuses to extend mercy to someone else.
The point isn’t better bookkeeping.
It’s to stop keeping the book.
That doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened. It doesn’t mean there are no consequences, boundaries, or lessons to be learned.
As Jake discovers when Ryan immediately reaches for his food again:
“Forgiveness is not permission.”
Ryan considers this.
“Worth checking.”
Maybe forgiveness begins when we stop asking how many more times we’re required to forgive—and remember how many times we’ve already been forgiven.
Sunday ROOK
A playful encounter with the Sunday Gospel.
Matthew 18:21–35 • Douay-Rheims