On Conflict, Forgiveness, and the Hard Work of Love
Rev. Joyce Rodgers
March 22, 2026
Wandering Heart — Week 4 | Matthew 18:15-22
We talk a lot about peace in the church. We sing about it. We pray for it. We work hard to keep it. But I wonder sometimes if the peace we’re keeping is really peace at all — or if it’s just the quiet that settles in when everyone agrees not to say the hard thing.
Today’s text sits at the heart of our Wandering Heart Lenten series on Peter — and while the first five verses and the last two are often read as separate stories, I want us to hold them together. Because they belong together. Reconciliation and forgiveness aren’t two different topics. They’re two movements in the same song: how we go toward the person who has hurt us, and what we do with the hurt once we get there.
We Don’t Do This Well
I can’t speak for every culture, but I can speak for American culture, and we are not great at this. When we find ourselves in conflict with someone, we tend to do one of two things: we look away and pretend there’s no problem, or we walk away and end the relationship entirely.
Neither one works. When we look away, the person who hurt us never gets the opportunity to resolve it. There’s no conversation. No chance to clear up a misunderstanding. No space for growth or change. And repressing the hurt doesn’t make the hurt disappear — it just builds up until you can’t hold it anymore. By the time you reach that point, a productive, healing conversation is usually off the table. So, you end up sliding right into option two.
Walking away might feel like it solves the problem. There’s no more conflict. We can pretend there’s peace. But that kind of resolution leaves behind broken relationships and a lot of space for regret. Philip Yancey once wrote about a woman who survived a horrific childhood of abuse. When she finally got out, she left that story behind — or thought she did. She became an abusive mother. Her daughter did the same. That daughter grew into a respected Bible teacher and a beloved church member — and an abusive mother to two boys. One son cut ties and fell into depression and addiction. The other -Yancey himself — became a prolific Christian writer, but still maintaining only a strained and tenuous relationship with his mother.
The way we leave broken relationships matters — not just for the person who caused the harm, but for us.
Jesus Offers a Better Way
I’ll be honest with you: I am a hardcore conflict avoider. I avoid it like the plague. When someone hurts me, my first instinct is to pretend it didn’t happen or remove myself from the situation. So, when I tell you that Jesus offers a better way, I’m not speaking from a place of natural ease. I’m speaking from a place of practice — and the slow, ongoing work of learning to trust that the Holy Spirit will hold me up when I choose to do the hard thing.
Here’s what Jesus says: when someone sins against you or the community, you go to them privately first. If they won’t hear you, you bring one or two more people who care for them. If they still won’t hear it, you bring it before the whole community. And only if they refuse even that do you step back — and even then, you leave the door open for repentance and return.
Notice what Jesus – is not saying. He’s not telling us to make a scene. He’s not saying to expose someone’s failures to score points. He says, “Go and win them back.” That phrase changes everything. Confrontation, in the kingdom of God, is an act of love.
What Winning Someone Back Looks Like
The basketball movie, Hoosiers, gives us a glimpse of this. There’s a character named Wilbur Flatch — Shooter — who is essentially the town drunk, stuck in his glory days as a basketball star, showing up to his son’s games embarrassingly intoxicated. Everyone in town has written him off. The coach, Norman, doesn’t.
Norman goes to Shooter’s house and offers him the assistant coaching position — with one condition: he stays sober. Shooter sends him away. Norman keeps the door open. Eventually, Shooter shows up in a jacket and tie, ready to try. He finds accountability. He finds community. And when he relapses, that community doesn’t disappear — it calls him toward the help he needs. When Shooter finally goes to the hospital, there’s a path back. There’s restoration waiting for him.
That is what Jesus was talking about. At every stage, Norman was working to win Shooter back.
We made promises about this when we joined the church. Our baptismal and membership vows ask us to nurture one another in Christian faith and life and include each other in our care. We vow to surround one another with a community of love and forgiveness, to pray for each other, to live according to the example of Christ. A lot of times, when conflict comes, we forget those words and handle things according to the culture rather than the scripture.
But Jesus is calling us to something different. We confront — not to make a point, but for the purpose of restoration. We do the hard thing because we care enough about the person to say something. Confrontation is an act of love.
Peter’s Question — and Ours
None of what Jesus has just described works without forgiveness. So, Peter asks the practical question: How many times? He offers seven. In his culture, the accepted answer was three times — so Peter is being generous. And seven doesn’t just mean seven. Seven means the perfect number. Peter is asking: if I forgive perfectly, at what point am I done?
Jesus says: not even the perfect number of times is enough. Seventy-seven. Always.
This connects directly back to the Lord’s Prayer we say together every week: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are called to match God’s grace with our own — not because we’re capable of that in our own strength, but because that is what we’re aiming for.
Before I go further, I want to say a few things that I think are really important — because forgiveness is often misunderstood, and those misunderstandings can cause harm.
What Forgiveness Is — and What It Isn’t
1. Forgiveness does not mean maintaining a harmful relationship.
There are situations where someone has caused such significant harm that separation is necessary and right. This scripture should never be used to suggest that someone in an abusive relationship should remain in a dangerous situation. Forgiveness doesn’t free anyone from consequences — if someone has committed a crime, they may still face legal accountability; if someone has violated trust, trust must be rebuilt. Forgiveness is not a free pass. Forgiveness is letting go of the need to get even.
2. Forgiving is not forgetting.
We say “forgive and forget” as if the two go hand in hand. But harm has been done, and forgiveness doesn’t erase that. It releases the need for payback. Depending on the extent of the harm, there may be memories that linger. Forgiveness is a crucial first step in your own healing, but it may not be the last step. Counseling, community support, time — you may need more. Forgiveness opens the door; it doesn’t automatically close the wound.
3. Forgiveness cannot be done apart from the Holy Spirit.
All that is good and right does not start with us. It comes from the Holy Spirit working through us. To have the strength to forgive, we need God’s grace. To extend forgiveness in a way that communicates love rather than contempt requires us to have received God’s grace first, so that we can pour it out toward others. We can’t give what we haven’t received.
4. Forgiveness sometimes needs to be offered to people who don’t want it.
There are plenty of people in this world who are not ready to receive grace. Forgiveness isn’t something we do only for the person we’re forgiving. Forgiveness is a sanctifying act that we do for ourselves.
I’ve heard it said that refusing to forgive is like drinking poison hoping the other person will die. When we hold on to hurt like it’s a balance due, it causes corrosion inside us. It keeps us from experiencing God’s grace. God is offering it, but we block ourselves from receiving it. There are people who go about their lives feeling just fine whether you forgive them or not — but holding on to that debt changes you. It costs you.
Sometimes forgiving someone looks like going out in the woods and yelling it out. Sometimes it’s a letter you write but never mail. Sometimes it’s a conversation with a counselor who gives you space to say what needs to be said so you can let it go. Whatever it takes — it is never too late. It is never too let go of the hurt. It is never too late to forgive.
5. Sometimes the person you need to forgive is yourself.
We don’t talk about this enough. Even when God has forgiven us, sometimes we refuse to accept that forgiveness. We keep holding onto shame and guilt. It’s right to feel remorse for harm we’ve done. But rejecting God’s forgiveness keeps us from growing in grace or moving forward.
Years ago I was involved in a ministry for incarcerated youth in Richmond. Throughout the weekend experience, the young people were invited to make a forgiveness list — people they needed to forgive. On the final day, they had a chance to nail that list to a cross, giving the hurt to Jesus and letting it go. But before those lists went on the cross, they were invited to add themselves.
These were young adults — sixteen to twenty-two years old — who had done terrible things and had terrible things done to them. Shame had convinced them that they were only their worst moment. That they were beyond God’s reach. The hardest name to add to the list was often their own.
When they finally let go of both the hurt and the shame — something shifted. You could see it in their faces. Smiles. Laughter. Hugs. It was like watching someone set down a weight they’d been carrying so long they forgot it was there. Shame is a heavy burden, and that is not what God desires for us.
God has already forgiven you. Whatever it is. It isn’t a question of whether God is able. The question is whether you will accept the gift.
6. Forgiveness isn’t easy — and sometimes it takes many tries.
There will be times when you thought you’d forgiven someone, and then that feeling surfaces again. When that happens, we forgive again. As I was preparing this message, the Holy Spirit offered me a new way to read Jesus’ words to Peter.
Maybe when Jesus said “seventy-seven times,” he wasn’t saying the other person would need to be forgiven for seventy-seven different things. Maybe he was saying that it might take us that many tries to actually forgive. Peter asks how many times — and Jesus says: keep going. Keep trying. Keep forgiving. Over and over.
The process of forgiveness isn’t necessarily about getting it right. It’s about continuing to dive into God’s grace, making ourselves available to be transformed through love.
The Peace That Actually Is Peace
Rocking the boat, making waves, refusing to let sleeping dogs lie — this is not what we are conditioned to do. We are inclined to do whatever we have to in order to keep the peace. But Jesus is telling us that love sometimes means causing a ruckus, because the peace we’re keeping isn’t really peace at all.
Relationship is the cornerstone of God’s story with humanity. Relationship between us and God, yes — but also relationship between us and each other. Resentment and unforgiveness damage both. They block the flow of grace to us and through us.
But when we do the hard things — when we go toward the person with love, when we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into forgiveness, when we accept God’s grace for ourselves — something opens. We get a glimpse of the Kingdom of God, present here, right now.
Since I’ve been in pastoral ministry, I’ve been working on this. I’ve been learning that when I avoid the confrontation, I don’t just preserve myself from discomfort — I close off space for forgiveness – For my sake and for others’. It is hard. It is hard to do well. But it is worth doing.
Let’s do the hard thing together.
