Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19A)

September 13, 2020

Text: Matt. 18:21-35

            “Pastor, I just can’t forgive that person for what he did to me.”  Now, I’m not quoting any one of you in particular.  I’m quoting a whole bunch of you in particular.  Which is to say, this is a common struggle for Christians.  You know you should forgive.  There is the Commandment in red letters in your Bible, from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself: When it comes to forgiving your neighbor who sins against you, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22; ESV).  And the point is not to keep track until your neighbor has sinned against you 490 times, and then you’re off the hook.  The point is, don’t keep track.  Your supply of forgiveness for your neighbor should be bottomless, as your Lord’s is for you.  But that’s a tall order.  It isn’t easy.  In fact, it’s downright impossible.  Some wounds are so deep, they simply hurt no matter how hard you try to get past the offense.  You have all the good intentions in the world.  You want to forgive.  You want to get past it.  But the pain won’t go away.  So, “Pastor, I just can’t do it.  It’s impossible.”

            And you know what?  You’re right!  You can’t!  Not by your own power.  Not by any amount of effort on your part.  I mean, yes, you can form the words to say to your neighbor, “I forgive you,” and you should say those words.  But deep down, where the hurt resides, you know you’re having trouble with it.  And Jesus’ command is absolute: “forgive your brother from your heart” (v. 35; emphasis added)!  Beloved, I’m not going to mince words when it comes to the Law in this text.  You should and you must forgive your neighbor who sins against you, from your heart, from the deepest part of you, as your Lord has forgiven you.  Insofar as you have not, or will not forgive, that is sin.  Repent.  Turn.  Confess it to Jesus.  And then hear and believe what He says to you in response: “I forgive you… I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.” 

            The Commandment gives you no power to do what it says.  But this Holy Absolution does.  For when God forgives you all your sins, fully and freely, for Christ’s sake, the whole situation has been transformed.  Everything has changed.  Including and most especially you.  You have been re-created.  You have been brought to new life.  After all, remember that Confession and Absolution is always a return to the baptismal font where the old you is drowned and the new you emerges and arises to live in Christ.  It is rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says (Titus 3:5).  The you that cannot or will not forgive is the old you, whom you crucify daily in repentance.  The you in Christ, forgiven of all sin, now lives in that forgiveness.  And that is an entirely new situation.  That is the new way of life in God’s Kingdom.  And that now defines all your relationships: your relationship to God, your relationship to others. 

            Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant to illustrate this point.  The King… that is, God… wishes to settle accounts with His servants… that is, you at the Judgment.  Now we zero in on one servant in particular.  He owed the Master, the King, ten thousand talents.  The amount has been variously calculated by scholars, and it is hard to find agreement, but the best estimation I’ve read is that a talent equals about twenty years’ wages for a laborer.  So think about that.  Ten thousand talents equals about 200,000 years of labor!  And the point is, there’s no hope of working this debt off in a lifetime, no matter how hard or long you work!  The servant, obviously, has earned hard time in slavery or debtors’ prison, the Master’s condemnation, which is to say, hell.  And that is you, isn’t it?  Your sins have placed you in unimaginable debt to God!  You couldn’t pay it if you lived 200,000 years and worked every moment of it.  So if the debt is to be dealt with, there is only one solution.  Forgiveness!  And that is what God does.  He cancels the debt.  For you.  For all.  He wipes the slate clean.  With the very blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.  What a relief!  What freedom!  What joy!  You shall not die, but live.  And not a cent is required of you.  All is forgiven.  Your account has been paid in full.  By God.  By grace alone.

            But the servant in the parable is an example of what you don’t do with such grace.  He goes and finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii.  Now, this is no small amount.  A denarius is a day’s wage, so a hundred denarii is a hundred days of labor.  But it’s not unpayable.  I went to college, and then seminary, so I’ve been in for that much several times over.  There are various ways you could calculate this using the average daily wage in America, but let’s say a hundred days’ pay is about $12-13 thousand.  Well, you can hardly buy a decent used car for that.  So, the point is, the debt is payable given time, unlike the first servant’s debt, which the Master has forgiven.  But this ungrateful servant will not forgive the smaller, manageable debt of his fellow-servant.  He chokes him and demands immediate payment.  And even though the fellow-servant uses the same words as the first servant, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you” (Matt. 18:29), he refuses and throws the poor guy into prison until the debt is paid.  And the thing about debtors’ prison is, the keepers have ways of motivating family and others who care about the prisoner to come up with the money.  Hard labor, of course.  Starvation.  Torture.  So this is a pretty cruel thing. 

            So what is going on with that first servant?  He is refusing to live in the new reality created by the Master where sins are forgiven and debts are released.  He doesn’t understand how extraordinary the Master’s mercy is toward him.  If he did, it would mold and shape his dealings with others.  He would go and extend that same mercy toward his neighbor.  He would say to himself, “Here I am, and my Master has totally forgiven my unimaginable debt that I could never hope to repay, and not only that, He continues to take care of me, and even gives me a place in His home and His Kingdom as a member of the family.  Therefore, surely I can extend the same mercy toward those who are in debt to me.  I can forgive, as I have been forgiven.”  But he doesn’t.  He won’t.  And what is the result?  “You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.  And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” (vv. 32-33).  There is only one alternative now.  If you will not live in the new reality of mercy and forgiveness, then you must live in the old reality of exacting justice.  To prison with you, and you will not get out until you pay the last penny!  Which is to say, never.  He’s condemned to the prison forever, because he’ll die before he’s able to pay!

            Don’t be like him!  Look, you live in the new reality created by your Master, our God, who erases your debt with the blood and death of Jesus Christ.  Your sins are forgiven!  All of them!  And it is an unimaginable debt.  Not just 200,000 years’ worth.  An eternity’s worth!  But it’s all gone, taken by Jesus, who fulfilled the Law for you, who suffered and died for your sins, who is risen from the dead and declares you righteous with His own righteousness.  And if that is not enough, He gives you His own status as God’s own child, a citizen of God’s Kingdom, with a place in His House and at His Table.  You call God, “Father,” and Jesus is your Brother.  That is a pretty amazing thing. 

            Whatever your neighbor has done against you, it pales in comparison with the debt God has forgiven you.  I know you are hurting.  I understand you struggle to let go and move on.  But you can do it, and you should.  Because you now live in the new reality of the crucified and risen Jesus.  You are baptized into Christ.  God’s forgiveness changes who you are: You are one who is forgiven for Christ’s sake.  You are one who forgives for Christ’s sake.

            But how to do that, practically… that is the difficulty, isn’t it?  Well, the first thing to recognize is that forgiveness is not a feeling.  Certainly, your feelings should catch up with forgiveness, and bad feelings toward another person are sinful and you should repent of them.  But feelings are not the essence of forgiveness.  That is why you should simply start by saying the words: “I forgive you.”  Because the word of Absolution is the essence of forgiveness.  It is a declaration, a decision, followed by action.  This is simply what you say in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  As I’ve said to you many times, when you pray this petition, you are not telling God to follow your example in forgiving you as you have forgiven others, nor are you earning God’s forgiveness by forgiving others.  In the Prayer, you are asking God to forgive you, and announcing that as a result of God’s forgiveness, you hereby forgive all those who have sinned against you.  You actually absolve your neighbor every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer.  That is one reason it is especially important that we pray this Prayer before we go to Communion together.  We are declaring that we don’t hold anything against anyone else in this congregation.  We are one Body, at peace in Christ. 

            And then you follow up the words with action.  You love and serve your neighbor.  Yes, even the one who hurt you.  You pray for him.  You seek his good.  You speak well of him, and refuse to speak evil of him.  You don’t give him the cold shoulder.  Even when you feel like it.  You extend to him the kindness and mercy you yourself have received from Christ.  This is not to say there may not be some earthly consequences to your neighbor’s sin.  If someone, God-forbid, hurts your child, you’re not going to ask him to babysit next week.  There may be civil penalties for some sins, like fines and jail time.  Nor is it to say you’ve forgotten it, as in, you can’t even remember it.  Of course you are aware that the thing happened.  But it is to say, you seek peace with the person, and as far as possible you do not hold their sin against them.  You don’t keep bringing it up.  You ask God to do what is best for all concerned, including the offender, and that is what you seek in your words and actions. 

            Now, you will struggle with this in this earthly life, and that is especially true when it comes to your emotions.  Forgiving your neighbor from your heart takes a lifetime of practice.  But that’s just it.  Forgiveness is not a one-and-done action or event.  It is a totally new way of life.  It is an all-new you.  So when you have trouble forgiving someone, here is what you are to do.  Look at a crucifix, or read our Lord’s Passion in the Gospels.  He suffered all that for you, and He suffered it for your neighbor.  You are both forgiven in Christ.  And that frees you from all that binds you up.  Pray the Lord’s Prayer with your neighbor in mind, and then say the words to him: “I forgive you for Jesus’ sake.” 

            Recognizing that you are both fellow servants in the Master’s Kingdom, both sinners forgiven an unimaginable debt, changes your whole perspective.  It is a new, cross-shaped reality.  God forgives you all your sins.  That is the vertical reality.  Therefore you forgive one another.  That is the horizontal reality.  And so your whole life is marked by the cross and lived under the shadow of your Lord’s outstretched arms.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.