The teaching gospels and the focus on forgiving others

I owe an explanation for the category "the teaching gospels." It's more common that we classify the four New Testament accounts of Jesus' life based on whether they are "synoptic" (giving a synopsis or summary of his life). In that classification Matthew, Mark, and Luke are categorized as synoptics, and the Gospel of John is the outlier here as the last-written, with more focus on details not recorded elsewhere. But in some cases I find the category "teaching gospels" more useful: it is the books of Matthew, Luke, and John that give more of Jesus' sayings and teachings, while here the Gospel of Mark is the outlier in being more focused on events, even when some events are included as the context for sayings. 

While all four canonical gospels give some focus to forgiveness, the teaching gospels each have a key teaching or a key event which challenges the reader to shift their ideas about forgiveness and righteousness. If anyone has clear ideas about right and wrong, it's easy -- almost natural -- to think that score-keeping is useful, helpful, or good. Each of the canonical gospels questions that assumption. 

Matthew's gospel records the parable of the unmerciful servant, in which the master forgives a servant the amount of an unpayable debt owed, but the servant then refuses to forgive a petty debt owed to him. In that parable, the servant's original debt is reinstated. Wouldn't the servant have done better to write off the petty debt? Did he think his own excuses were that special and unique compared to everyone else's, that he was somehow worthy of mercy instead of receiving it as a gift? 

Luke's gospel records the parable of the unjust steward (or shrewd manager, as it's sometimes called). Here the steward is commended for his shrewdness in writing off his master's debts because it opens doors for him. Jesus invites his hearers to consider how worldly people can be savvier than the children of the kingdom in that respect. 

John's gospel records an event where a woman was caught in the act of adultery, where the law was clear on the consequences, and certain people in the crowd wanted Jesus to own whatever happened next. Jesus invited the person who was without sin to throw the first stone. The crowd all eventually figured it out and left. Do we insist on being the ones waiting around with the rock, unwilling to drop it and walk away? Which sins tempt us to keep hold of that rock? 

In each case, the people holding onto the debt perceived themselves as right. In each gospel, Jesus challenges our ideas of whether refusing to forgive is actually standing up for what is right. To be fair to the Gospel of Mark, it does also repeat the part of the Lord's prayer that is more familiar from the gospels of Matthew and Luke: 

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)

Jesus' teachings, recorded so consistently by different authors in different settings, can help me get the point. Even when we are right, even when the other person is wrong, even when they owe us something, we are not in a position to be keeping score.