What we have in our passage is the contrast between a theology of grace and a theology of keeping score. The first is the one Jesus espouses in this text. The second is the one Peter is pushing and, by the way, the one our world has bought into for centuries.

Anne Herbert once suggested that the whole thing started in Eden when Adam and Eve began keeping score. Certainly it was carried on in their children when Cain’s anger over Abel’s higher giving score finally led to murder. Anyway, God got so angry with Adam and Eve for worrying about their scores and which one had the bigger house or the newer car that he just kicked them out of Eden. It was, of course, the serpent who taught them how to keep score in the first place.

So, concludes Anne Herbert’s parable (publisher unknown), “Really, it…