Relationship Sunday: God at the Heart of Our Relationships
Sirach 27:30–28:7; Romans 14:7–9; Matthew 18:21–35
“You do good, you do for yourself; you do bad, you do for yourself!”
This saying summarizes beautifully the message of our readings this Sunday. It comes from the story of a man whom children nicknamed Mr. Do-Good. That was not his real name. He was a beggar, and whenever someone gave him something, instead of saying “thank you,” he would simply say: “You do good, you do for yourself; you do bad, you do for yourself.”
At first, his words may sound strange. Yet they contain profound wisdom: the good we do to others ultimately enriches us, while the evil we inflict upon others eventually wounds us. How does Mr. Do-Good’s wisdom apply to our lives as Christians?
When we look at today’s readings through the lens of relationship, we discover that nothing we do or say is entirely private. Our actions affect others, and what affects others ultimately affects our relationship with God. Sirach asks:
“Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself and seek pardon for his own sins?” (Sirach 28:3–4)
These questions reveal an important Christian truth: our lives are intertwined. We form a triangle—God, my neighbor, and I. We may try to break that triangle, but we cannot. At most, we can deceive ourselves into pretending that we do not need one another.
Indeed, every human being is a debtor. We are debtors to God because we did not create ourselves; life itself is a gift. As Christians, we are also debtors to God for the gift of redemption in Jesus Christ. And we are debtors to other human beings because none of us arrived where we are entirely by our own efforts. Parents, families, teachers, friends, neighbors, strangers, and countless others have contributed something to our lives.
Our indebtedness to God and to one another creates relationship—an inescapable relationship.
Love is a relationship, but hatred is also a relationship. The difference is that love liberates, while hatred imprisons. The person who loves can move forward in freedom; the person who refuses to forgive remains chained to the injury, continually carrying yesterday’s wound into today. Resentment allows the person who hurt us to continue occupying space in our minds and hearts.
Forgiveness, therefore, is not simply something we do for the offender. Forgiveness is also an act of liberation for the one who forgives.
This brings us directly to today’s Gospel.
Peter approaches Jesus with what seems like a generous proposal:
“Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
Peter probably expected Jesus to congratulate him. Seven times sounded extraordinarily generous. But Jesus overturns Peter’s calculation: forgiveness cannot be reduced to arithmetic. Whether translated “seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven,” the meaning is clear: stop counting.
Jesus then tells the parable of the unforgiving servant.
A servant owes his master an enormous debt—a debt so great that repayment is practically impossible. He begs for mercy, and astonishingly, the master cancels the entire debt.
Imagine his joy! He walks away free. A crushing burden has disappeared.
But then he meets a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller amount. Instead of remembering the mercy he has just received, he grabs his fellow servant and demands repayment. The man pleads with almost the same words that he himself had used before the master, but he refuses to listen. He has received mercy but refuses to become merciful.
That is the tragedy of the parable.
He remembers what another owes him but forgets what he himself has been forgiven.
When the master hears what happened, the forgiven debt is reinstated and the servant is handed over to punishment. The man who had walked out free returns to imprisonment because he refused to extend to another the mercy that had liberated him.
There lies one of the deepest lessons of today’s Gospel: mercy received must become mercy given.
This is where Mr. Do-Good’s saying returns with even greater force: “You do good, you do for yourself; you do bad, you do for yourself.” The unforgiving servant thought he was punishing his fellow servant. In reality, he was constructing his own prison.
We do something similar whenever we refuse reconciliation and allow resentment, vengeance, envy, pride, or bitterness to govern our relationships. We may think we are punishing the other person, but hatred frequently punishes the hater first.
This principle also extends beyond individual relationships into society. Wherever a small number enjoy abundance while others struggle for the necessities of life, relationships become fractured. Extreme inequality, indifference, exploitation, and injustice eventually produce insecurity, resentment, distrust, and social conflict. When we refuse to recognize our responsibility for one another, nobody truly wins. Once again: “You do good, you do for yourself; you do bad, you do for yourself.”
Saint Paul provides the theological foundation for all of this in our second reading:
“None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord.” (Romans 14:7–8)
No one lives for oneself.
Those words challenge the radical individualism of our age. Christianity is fundamentally relational. We belong to Christ, and because we belong to Christ, we belong to one another. Jesus himself demonstrates this truth: he gives himself for us before we deserve it and before we can repay him.
The Christian question, therefore, cannot simply be: “What does this person owe me?”
We must also ask: “What have I received—from God and from others?”
That change of question transforms relationships.
Peter asked Jesus, “How often must I forgive?” Perhaps a better question would have been: “How often do I need to be forgiven?”
Once I recognize how often I need mercy—from God and from other people—it becomes much more difficult to place strict limits on the mercy I offer others.
This does not mean pretending that wrongdoing never happened. Forgiveness is not approval of abuse, injustice, or evil. Nor does forgiveness always mean immediately restoring a relationship to exactly what it was before. Reconciliation may require repentance, truth, justice, healing, and appropriate boundaries. But the Christian cannot make hatred a permanent home.
That is why we may call this Relationship Sunday.
Today God invites us to examine the relationships of our lives. Where envy has divided us, let us seek healing. Where pride prevents us from speaking, let us become humble. Where greed has made us indifferent, let us become generous. Where anger has hardened our hearts, let us seek the grace to forgive. Where gossip has destroyed another person’s reputation, let us become defenders rather than assassins of character.
Above all, we must resist the temptation always to identify the other person as the problem. Sometimes the transformation of a relationship begins when I stop asking, “When will that person change?” and begin asking, “Lord, what must change in me?”
Someone must take the first step. Why not me?
Someone must speak the first word of peace. Why not me?
Someone must stop counting offenses. Why not me?
Someone must choose love over resentment. Why not me?
God has already taken the first step toward us. In Jesus Christ, God has forgiven a debt we could never repay. Having received such mercy, we cannot spend our lives keeping accounts of everybody else’s debts.
So this week, remember Mr. Do-Good:
“You do good, you do for yourself; you do bad, you do for yourself.”
Choose mercy, and you choose freedom. Choose forgiveness, and you begin healing. Choose reconciliation where it is possible, and you help rebuild the civilization of love.
Assignment for the Week
Think of one broken relationship in your life. Pray about it, and where it is safe and appropriate, take one concrete step toward healing it.