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14th Sunday after Pentecost / Holy Cross Day, 09/14/2014
Sermon on Matthew 18:21-35, by Walter W. Harms
21 Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 "Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.' 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."
Why Forgive?
It's all about how many times we should forgive. Well, not really. The message today is really about why a person is to forgive someone who has done something that really hurts. In response to the question of how generous a person should be with forgiving someone, Jesus tells a story. You wouldn't think Jesus could tell such a cruel story. He speaks about a king who had servants. It was account-settling time. Kings didn't very often do this. Servants were supposed to handle everything that the king wanted to get done. The servants were to pay the money. Whether they had it or not, was not the kings problem.
Kings, when Jesus spoke about them, were absolute monarchs. They could do and did do whatever they wanted and that included everything they could get by with, without getting another king riled up.
One of this king's servants owed millions-millions to the king. This was an amount so large that it was larger than any person hearing the story could imagine. (It's liked the time I had to write a check for $350,000.00. It was a sum way over my head. It wasn't my money, but I had to write the check! Wow!) This king knew the man couldn't pay, ordered the cruelest thing-the man and his wife and children sold into slavery (the thought was repugnant to the people who heard this, as it is to us today).
The servant worshiped the king, begging him to be patient and he would pay it all back! What a load of crap! This servant could never, and I say, never pay it back. This worshipping the king by this servant was also repugnant to the Jewish hearers of the story.
Well, the king goes soft, releasing this servant from custody and wipes away the debt. I just don't know what to compare this forgiving of the debt to anything that happens in our world (I really do know what to compare it to but that is later).
This forgiven servant finds another servant, a servant like he, who owes him. In comparison to what the forgiven servant owed the king, it is about 1/60,000,000. However, just as probably this second servant wouldn't be able to pay it off either. When he asked for patience to have time to pay, the forgiven servant had him jailed until he could pay. Unless there is some kind of criminal activity, we bankrupt a person and turn that person out on the street. Perhaps jail would be better!
The servants tattle on this servant who was unmerciful. The angered king calls this unforgiving servant to him, scolds him for being such a schnook, reinstates the debt and casts him into jail until that zillion-dollar debt is paid!
What a terrible story, Jesus told. But the worst part is yet to come from the mouth of Jesus. He says his heavenly Father will do that to everyone of us, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart! It's frightening! It immediately creates fear in our hearts. Have you and I forgiven others from the heart? You know, more than just a superficially spoken word of forgiveness, but in the heart still retains the anger, the resentment, and the boiling thought of revenge or at least passive aggressive behavior toward that person?
Sometimes I wish this event from the life of Jesus, as Matthew records it was not in the Bible. Why couldn't Peter just have shut up and been quiet? It would seem to be a lot better for us, don't you think?
Why forgive? I suppose this story may lead you to forgive out of fear of final and eternal retribution for not forgiving. So we go around, us church members, forgiving because we have a God, a heavenly Father who will punish us if we misbehave in this whole matter of forgiving. Is that what this whole business of forgiving others is all about? Listen on.
I suppose there are persons who are different from me. But, then I really don't think so. I have a great deal of fondness for that passage in Holy Scripture that says: Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord! (Psalm 25:7) Many of us are still haunted today by events and actions that we were a part of or caused in our young days. We are even ashamed today to speak about them. Hideous! So harmful to others! Cruel beyond words-words and action by you, by me.
We could simply pass them all off as youthful behavior, common to many. We could say that we have never suffered anything because of them, with the exception of what has happened to our minds. We certainly cannot look at others misdeeds and say anything because we know that out of their heart and mind, as ours, come this vomit of evil, stinking up others lives and corroding our own.
I have to tell you that there is no way, no way that we can compensate anyone for what we have done. Even when there was no victim, we cannot in any sense pay for the damages we have caused, even to ourselves.
The saddest part of all this is: we continue in this noxious, lethal behavior! There is not an iota of a possibility of escaping from what we are because this is I, as it is you!
Why forgive?
What about all the stuff you and I have done in thought, word and deed that is against what the heavenly Father created me to think, say and do? What about it? I learned pretty early in life that God is "omnipresent." That means he is around all the time and he is "omniscient." That means he knows everything about me! And you!
We stand as naked as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. We try to hide but there is not hiding place from God (well, yes there is, so hear this out).
God took pity on us even after we made pitiful claims that we would do better and make amends. What we have tried to do is worse than that story of the emperor parading around in imaginary clothes. He doesn't say: "Nice try, fellas!" As in this story by Jesus, he has pity on us. We don't particularly like pity. We would like to believe we could handle our own problems by ourselves. That's part of the arrogance we have before God and others.
His pity takes bodily form. He does something we can never quite get a handle on. Creator joins the created in the person of his Son, Jesus. He does this for many reasons, not the least of which is to show us the heart of God. While absolutely rigorous in judgment, he is just as rigorous in compassion. He does this because our behavior that we could only call a disgrace to God and man has to be paid for. The debt must be paid! There is no bankruptcy court before God. It's either pay or go to prison. That's it!
We all know that the only way debts are cancelled is if you die. Death is necessary to cancel our debts. So we see this Son of God, this Jesus going through all that we have perhaps heard and seen so many times in Jerusalem on the day we call Good Friday. It is his death that pays for our behavior that is, well, there is no other way to say it but worthy of death!
But there is more to the story of God's pity on us. God didn't give us life so that it would finally peter out and we return to the earth from which we came. He created us to live, to be in a wonderful relationship to him. Dead we would have defeated his purpose of our existence in the first place.
So on a third day, the first day of the week that we celebrate even this very day, God raised his Son from death. Now we have a promise from this God who has done so much for us that as we trust in Jesus for the end of our guilt, fear, condemnation, and evil, so we shall live forever. Yes, live forever, as we were supposed to live, in a perfection that we cannot even begin to imagine.
Why forgive?
Persons have betrayed us we thought we could rust. We have received insults and insinuations that have hurt us to the core. Many of us have been abused and mistreated. Some of us have scars even now from events in our childhood. We have never been able to forget what others have done to us. But forgetting is not where forgiveness is or what it is about. Forgiveness is about doing what God has done for me. He has removed from the scale of my life all the weights that would have finally ended me in the fires of hell and giving me the blessed hope of a life with him that is now already a foretaste of the feast to come.
Forgiving is not forgetting. It is giving up the anger, the desire for revenge, and the heat of evil thoughts toward those who have injured me. I don't remember who wrote this but he said that anger is self-cannibalism. You use up energy when you are angry (notice you get hot when there is anger), you waste precious time, you accomplish absolutely nothing through anger and hatred toward others. In fact, you might well be putting yourself in the prison from which you hoped to escape.
Forgiving is not always reconciliation. Many times it cannot happen because of the nature of the evil. Forgiveness should be offered always, but we live in a horribly convoluted world where others measures must be taken before reconciliation is possible. And there are cases where in this world it may not be possible at all.
Why forgive?
As we have been, so we forgive. It's all because we trust in the powerful forgiveness of Jesus and the life after his death that is ours that we can even begin to walk the way of forgiveness.