September 14, 2014 – Matthew 18:21-35
Matthew 18:21-35
Forgive As We Have Been Forgiven
14th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 24] – September 14, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
You gotta love Peter, because Peter has the courage to ask the questions we all want to ask,
but maybe are afraid to ask!
He wants to know what he needs to do be a Christian.
How many times should he forgive someone who does him wrong?
When will he have done his duty as a Christian?
When is enough?
I’m sure we all have similar questions.
What are my Christian duties?
What can I do in order to consider myself a Christian?
How often do I need to come to worship to consider myself a Christian?
How many church-related activities do I need to engage in to consider myself a Christian?
How do I conduct myself outside church-related activities in order to
consider myself a Christian?
Are there two sets of behaviours, one for church and one for outside of church?
We live in an age where the bar has been set pretty low for being a Christian.
These days if you believe certain vague things about God and pray to God to have your
needs met then you can get away with calling yourself a Christian.
It’s called Christianity Lite, and our National Bishop has called attention to this problem.
The problem of having no accountability to anyone but yourself.
The problem of low commitment, low responsibility, low expectations.
And so Peter asks – and let’s face it, we are all asking with him – what’s enough?
What’s the number?
What’s the minimum?
What do I have to do?
Peter is not exactly suggesting the easiest way out for himself.
He suggests to Jesus that maybe forgiving someone seven times is enough.
And, when you think about it, seven times does seem pretty generous – it does to me, anyway!
He’s not just giving someone a second chance.
He’s not saying, “Three strikes and you’re out.”
He’s suggesting the generous number of Seven.
To which Jesus replies with what seems like a crazy answer:
No, says Jesus, not 7, but 77 – or, in some translations, 70 times 7, or 490!
This past summer at the CLAY Youth Gathering, Caroline and the youth and I had
the pleasure of listening to a very gifted speaker whose name was Scott Evans.
I’ve been following his blog since we got back and this week he tells a story of
a childhood friend of his.
This friend who grew up in a Christian home used to keep track of
how many times his brother had done him wrong –
and used to look forward to the day when he reached the magic number . . .
so he could stop forgiving him!(http://www.scottevans.ie/blog/revolectionary-13th-sunday-after-trinity)
When you hear a story like that, you begin to realize that
Jesus is probably not really talking about numbers or limits.
And then you pay attention to the story Jesus tells, and you realize that Jesus is
definitely not talking about numbers or limits.
This is what it’s like when you are living in God’s realm, says Jesus.
It’s like a servant who owes his master ten thousand talents.
Okay: 10,000 talents. It’s a sum from a fairy tale, right?
It sounds like monopoly money to us, right? Not real.
Except it is a real amount.
One talent is about 130 pounds of silver.
Now: it would take the average person 16 years of work to earn the equivalent amount.
So: 10,000 talents? We’re talking about 160,000 years of labour at an average wage!
160,000 years of labour!
10,000 talents is, as Dr. Evil might say, 10 thousand talents.
It’s an outrageous amount – Jesus loved exaggeration right?
It’s astronomical, almost unimagineable.
Can you imagine working 160,000 years to pay off a debt?
Just for fun I did a little calculation in the office to bring this into reality for us:
if we assume a yearly wage of $25,000, and multiply that by 160,000 years,
the amount would be . . . 4 billion dollars!
And what does the king do? The king forgives it.
Now: what is the response to the slave of being forgiven?
He goes out, finds a guy who owes him a hundred denarii – and demands every penny!
You know how much 100 denarii is? About 3 months wages.
Not a small amount, but still.
About 6 grand, as opposed to 4 billion.
He can’t forgive – even as he has been forgiven.
When Jesus starts talking like this, you realize Christian living is not about the numbers.
It’s not about how much is enough.
Or how much is required. How much is reasonable.
This week the professor of preaching David Lose says it’s almost like Jesus says
in response to Peter’s question,
“Okay: you want to play the numbers game? How about this one?”
See: Jesus doesn’t want Peter to increase his quota, or reach the higher number.
Jesus wants Peter to stop keeping track altogether.
Jesus wants Peter to stop counting.(http://www.davidlose.net/2014/09/pentecost-14-a/)
In First Corinthians 13, in Paul’s famous meditation on love which we all know which begins,
Love is patient, love is kind –
in this passage the New International Version translates verse five this way:
love keeps no record of wrongs.
Paul got it.
Forgiveness is not about numbers: it is about love.
And love is never about the numbers.
If we thought of Peter’s question this way: how much should I love my neighbour we
too would get it immediately: You can’t turn love into a number.
It can’t be counted.
Forgiveness is not about numbers: it is about love.
And that’s a good thing for us: that is good news for us.
God is love, and God keeps no record of our wrongs – God simply continues to forgive us and
in that way to call us to the Divine self and to the same Divine loving ways.
I have said many times that I am quite sure we are all of us forgiven every moment of
every single day over and over and over by a gracious and loving God.
If we were honest with ourselves we would know this.
The amount we are forgiven by God is a lot – an astronomical and unimaginable amount,
every moment of every day: Jesus reveals a God to us who is unimaginable merciful.
What is our response to this? Is there a limit to how we should respond to this?
Jesus is suggesting, I think, that maybe there is not – especially in the harsh ending of his story,
which I think we need to understand as Jesus simply making a point through
one of his characteristic ways of talking –
that is with tremendous exaggeration and hyperbole.
As Scott Evans says, Jesus is essentially saying,
Peter, just start forgiving. I’ll tell you when to stop.
To be perfectly clear: forgiveness does not mean that everything continues on the same with
the person you’re in relationship with, right?
Forgiveness does not mean everything will be the same as before.
Forgiveness certainly does not give someone a free pass to keep on abusing you.
Sometimes forgiveness comes with a separating of yourself from the person who has hurt you.
Often the relationship is different than what it was.
As I’ve also said, there are three reasons to forgive biblically speaking.
Sometimes you forgive in order to let something go and free yourself from a past which is
consuming you with resentment and hatred and spite and ill-will: to be free of that,
sometimes you forgive the other person for what they have done to you:
that is an act of love for yourself.
Secondly, sometimes you forgive in order to free the other person, to let them know that
they can move on and so that they don’t have to be tied to the things they did to you
any longer – so they can move on to: that is an act of love for your neighbour.
And thirdly, sometimes, when forgiveness is really hard and next to impossible, sometimes:
you just forgive because Jesus commands us to.And that is an act of love for Jesus.
Jesus says, “blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
Jesus says, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” (Matthew 6:12)
Jesus says, “forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Jesus forgives us because Jesus is love, and as we take on his character, so will we.
So take a moment now – let’s end in prayer.
Call to mind a person you are having a hard time forgiving – and pray about it, and
if the Spirit is moving you, see if you can forgive that person for current or past wrongs.
Centre yourselves in the love of God in Christ,
and anticipate the forgiveness you will shortly receive again in Holy Communion. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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