Pentecost 18, 09/14/2008

Sermon on Matthew 18:21-35, by David Zersen

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him millions of dollars was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay back every thing." The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go." But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and began to choke him. "Pay back what you owe me," he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me and I will pay you back." But he refused. Instead, he went out and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in." You wicked servant," he said. "I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" In anger, his master turned him over to the jailers, to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (NIV)

LIVING TO HEAL RELATIONSHIPS

A recent TV documentary sought to answer some questions that many of us have had about the end result of atrocities that take place in countries where genocide has occurred. Although most of us throughout the world have never experienced the horrors involved in places like Croatia or Turkey or Rwanda over the years, we are nevertheless repulsed by the mass rapes, the looting and burning, and the executions with machete knives that have characterized the defiance and hostility in these countries. Cries for vengeance or justice are expressed through human rights groups or newspaper editorials. What can finally happen in these settings, or in any setting, where things are not set to rights and anger, hatred and prejudice continue to smolder?

Recently, the Armenians and the Turks played a soccer game together in the hopes of breaching decades of silence over the genocide against the Armenians that the Turks still refuse to acknowledge today. No one asked for forgiveness and none was proposed. Just a soccer match.

More promising is the current judicial process now taking place in Rwanda. A unique traditional settlement technique has identified over one million cases of personal injury and property loss. Settlements can include restitution, jail sentences and even expressions of forgiveness if both parties are open to such a resolution. If forgiveness is offered and accepted, the process seeking justice comes to an end.

Interestingly, the TV documentary made it clear that some of the Hutus who were offered forgiveness refused it, believing that their attempt to eradicate the country of the Tutsi minority was just. They got jail sentences. The Chief Justice of the Rwanda Supreme Court, representing of course a secular institution, believed that significant healing had been brought by this traditional reconciling process to a country seriously divided over hatred, guilt, shame and a desire for revenge.

Accepting sin

With this background information, our Gospel lesson takes on contemporary relevance. Jesus is telling a story about relationships that have gone wrong, but he takes it a step farther than the secular Rwandan process. And, of course, we would expect him to, because Jesus is dealing with spiritual matters, matters of the heart and mind that beg for deeper resolution than secular reconciliation processes can allow.

A man forgives his servant a debt of millions of dollars, but that servant won't even forgive a fellow servant a debt of a few dollars. This is a story of hyperbole, a deliberate exaggeration by Jesus to make a point. There is torture and the impractical matter of throwing a person into prison until he comes up with the money. Jesus' point, however, is that the servant who fails to forgive is looking in the wrong direction. He fails to look at his own shortcomings and instead focuses on those of another. There are other New Testament stories like this: The man who picks at the splinters in a brother's eye, but fails to see the big log in his own; a man who denigrates Samaritans, but fails to have as much compassion himself; the man who looks down at tax collectors, but fails to see that his own self-righteousness separates him from God.

There is something profoundly theological going on here and we have to understand it from the perspective of the cross. Jesus expends himself on physical illnesses, on spiritual isolation and on human despair. In doing so, he provides a resource for God's people that the religious leaders of his day have ignored. They are more interested in getting people to follow rules and regulations that meet their own needs for recognition and authority. When the people follow Jesus gladly, the religious leadership lashes out with jealousy and plotting. We already know how this story ends, with the death of Jesus and, perhaps, from the standpoint of the religious leadership, the end of contests for authority.

However, there is more to this story than the Pharisees assumed. What was at stake here was the very nature of authentic spiritual existence. Humans, from God's standpoint, are meant to draw insight and direction from Jesus' lifestyle. Just as he focused on the needs and hopes of human beings, so we too are to provide for physical necessities, create reconciling relationships and point to a life that is more than accumulating things and chalking up successes. We have been created, Augustine once pointed out, to fulfill God's expectations for human potential, and our hearts are forever restless until they rest within God's intent.

For this reason, God would never accept the death of Jesus as a human attempt to get control of what speaks so seductively to the human heart-authority and legalism. God said "no" to the death of Jesus and insisted that such a life must live as the only source for our self-understanding. Lives that use deceit, greed, and hatred will never have the upper hand where God's spirit seeks to have its way. Jesus' death is the last death that ever needs to happen as a result of the jealous scheming of misguided power brokers and zealots.

In place of such death, God offers life, life in rich and full abundance, life that lasts. He gave it to Jesus by raising him from death and he assures Christians everywhere that just as we drown the fallen nature within us in baptism, putting to death a life that might have been, so we are raised with Christ to live the life into which he invites us. It is a life that is built on care and consideration for one another and for all those who inhabit this planet.

Why is this insight akin to the marvelous reconciling process of the Rwandan's, but also more profound than any secular reconciling process can be? Because, as in the story of the master and the servant that Jesus tells us, we need to look back before we look forward. We cannotI just accept forgiveness because it's offered as a free gift. We first recognize our failure, our guilt, our shame and all that separates us from a loving God. We know of the debt, the enormous debt, that we ought to repay. We understand as did the Prodigal that forgiveness is neither to be expected nor deserved. We therefore accept our sin, spelled with a capital "S," and we approach the One and the ones we have wronged with trembling heart and hands. It's called repentance. At such a moment we dare believe that the cross has personal meaning for us and can lead to a new beginning for us. At such a moment, we God invites us to trust that the promise of tomorrow and next year and all eternity is the gift of a loving and forgiving God.

Canceling debt

All of that is heavy theological talk. But, if you stay with me for a moment, let me try to explain why this understanding is essential for us as Christians. It has do with profound matters like canceling vendettas between tribal mentalities and stopping the mouth of a friend or relative who insists that when tragedy strikes, somebody is going to have to pay.

Our spiritual understanding has been invaded by views that seep out of our fallen humanity and tempt us to accept them. Where did such ideas come from? Ideas like justice never being served unless we can point a finger at a perpetrator other than ourselves? Ideas like the loss of a loved one demanding some kind of compensation, perhaps ultimately from God himself? Ideas like negative deeds on the part of others deserving full-scale retaliation on our part?

The result of such mentality is ongoing hostility, never-ending vendettas, and burdens to our consciences from which there is no human escape. We know all the phrases: payback time; getting even, vengeance is sweet, somebody's going to pay.

And we also know how many sleepless nights, long walks, agonizing drives around the block, stiff drinks and talks to the wall have not resolved the breakdowns in relationships which result from stupid arguments, failed plots and dead-end ideas. From a human standpoint, we are victims of our own solutions.

At some point, I need to realize that I have created this situation. I kneed to know that my own fault has resulted in a debt. Or that I have created a resentment for which I need to apologize. Or that the guilt I bear needs to be confessed somewhere and to someone.

Some years ago I bought a piece of art that struck me from a distance. It was a shadowy rectangle in a frame and floating in the shadowed area was the hint of a cross. But as I moved very close to the picture, I realized that it was computer-generated art and that the shadowy area was created by hundreds of little 70 x 7s. In the artist's own way, she was hinting at the need to look at this idea up close, to try to comprehend something completely incomprehensible. Here in numbers and symbols was the message of our text, a messagae generous masters and undeserving servants. It was a message about a God whose very essence is extravagant kindness.

When I get philosophical, I dream of a world of harmony, wholeness, and health. Wouldn't you? And I don't know that one needs to be a religious person to desire that. I do think, however, that I need to be a spiritual person to recognize that our world can never have harmony, wholeness and health as long as we humans think we are the solution to other's problems. When I recognize that I myself need a new spirit and a new orientation to break the demonic power that holds me in bondage to cycles of vengeance and retaliation, then I stand at a threshold that makes me ready to accept a solution from beyond myself. It is a solution that sets me free.

It is a solution that prepares me to begin anew by listening to Jesus' voice: "70 x 7."

It is a voice that is saying, "You should have mercy on others just as I had on you."

"70 x 7." It is a voice telling you that you have the power to cancel debts because yours have been cancelled first.

"70 x 7." It is the word of a new creation in which we are called to heal relationships, not destroy them.

"70 x 7." You belong to this world. Live in it joyfully and fulfill its potential now.

"70 x 7." You are Christ's own creation commissioned to make all things new.

Prof. Dr. Dr.; President Emeritus David Zersen
Concordia University Texas
Austin, Texas

E-Mail: djzersen@aol.com

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