Sermon text:
Forgiveness can be difficult. It can be complicated. If I
accidentally bump into you as we are passing by each other, that’s not hard to
forgive. Not all forgiveness is like that. In fact, I don’t know if that really
is forgiveness. It’s more like politeness. Forgiveness is more serious.
Being polite is easier than forgiving. Since politeness is
easier than forgiveness we often try to have politeness be considered a
sufficient substitute for actual forgiveness. There’s a phrase that’s common,
“I will forgive, but I won’t forget.” That’s like a forewarning for how you’re
going to treat the person—coldly and fiercely politely. The recipient of this
coldness gets the message quite clearly. He or she knows that they are not
forgiven. There’s no forgiveness from the heart.
So when Jesus says at the end of our reading, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if
you do not forgive your brother from your heart,” we should not think
that our cold avoidance of the one with whom we have our beef is sufficient.
That’s not forgiveness. It also isn’t fulfilling what Jesus says at the
beginning of our reading when Peter came to him with a question. Peter thought
that he was being quite generous when he asked Jesus, “How
many times should my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven
times?” “No,” Jesus says, “not seven times but seventy times seven.”
So how do we forgive? How do we forgive from the heart? I
can’t pretend that I have some secret formula. We do have Jesus’s parable,
though, and that might help if we are willing to receive instruction from him. I
won’t hold my breath, though, because being willing to receive instruction particularly
about forgiveness is not automatic. Here’s another phrase: “blind with rage.” A
person can go blind from anger, not literally, but in the sense that the person
is so angry that he or she won’t take anything else in. Don’t talk to them
about forgiveness because they won’t have it. You have no idea how badly
they’ve been hurt. So it’s not automatic that people will listen to Jesus’s
parable, but maybe today’s the day.
Jesus’s parable is pretty straightforward. There was a man
who owed a huge sum of money to the king. He couldn’t pay the debt. He was
going to be sold together with his family into slavery until the debt was paid.
However, because the man pleaded with the king, and because the king had pity
on him, the king forgave the entire debt.
Then this same man goes out and find somebody who owes him
some money. He took him by the throat and demanded repayment. This debtor said
the very same words that the one who was forgiven had just said, but instead of
forgiving the man he throws him into prison until he should pay back what was
owed.
This was highly distressing to those who heard it. The
hypocrisy of it, the cruelty of it, made them make their petitions to the king.
When the king found out about it he called the man in. “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, and you couldn’t have
mercy on the one who owed you?” And he threw him into prison until he
should pay back the last penny.
As we consider this parable, what I’d like to convince you
of is that we are all like the man whose debt was forgiven. It might seem
extraordinary that he is so blind to his hypocrisy—that he can’t forgive as he
has been forgiven—but that’s not that hard if you have the perspective that
comes so easily to us. The perspective that comes so easily to us is always to be
looking out for ourselves: How can I get ahead? How can I have more? How can I
get without having to give? With this perspective the man’s debt being forgiven
was a huge boon. Here he got to spend all that money, and now he doesn’t have
to pay it back. Good for him!
When he left the king and found the fellow who owed him
money he simply continued to be the way he always was. He continued to look out
for himself. Here were some more riches he could accumulate for himself if only
he could somehow get the man to pay. With the perspective we’ve been
considering, we have to say, “Good for him!” He was just being a good
businessman. As every good businessman knows, you have to pay as little as you
possibly can, and you have to get as much as you possibly can. Maybe this man’s
greed and lack of compassion was what he prided himself most on. It’s the way
that he had gotten so far ahead in life, you see.
So I don’t think this fellow who was forgiven by the king
was even thinking about what he was doing. He was just doing what he had always
done. He’d always looked out for himself. He’d always done what was best for
himself. If this fool king wants to forgive him his debt, okay. A fool and his
money are soon parted. But this fellow was no fool. He knew how to get ahead in
life, and it wasn’t by forgiving debts!
This way of living is extremely common. It’s the default,
natural way. Lots of people think there’s nothing wrong with it. Maybe you
don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. It wouldn’t be hard to find some
people who give lectures and write books who would argue that this way of
living is good for one’s self and it’s good for society. With every last person
competing for every last resource we have managed to bring about our glorious
modern world with all of its abundance. Selfishness has supposedly produced
this miracle. And, as well all know, everybody’s so happy these days too,
right? So, according to them, we don’t need less self-centeredness, we need
more of it.
But if this is the way you will live your life, then you
will never forgive. You can’t forgive, you see, because forgiving is against
the rule that you’ve made for yourself. The rule you’ve made for yourself is
that you are only going to do what is good for you, what enriches you, what
feels good for you. Forgiveness is quite different from all that. Forgiveness
is costly.
Think of this king. He lost billions of dollars when he
forgave the debt. That’s what this debt would be in today’s money—literally
billions, not millions, billions. Such a debt would drag almost all our
billionaires into the poor house. He went from being rich to poor. Think of
what he could have purchased with those billions of dollars.
And the same thing is true with the fellow who was forgiven,
but who didn’t want to forgive his fellow servant. That forgiveness would have
been costly too. 100 denarii is probably about $20,000 in today’s money. If a
person doesn’t collect on a debt like that, that hurts. It means you can’t buy
what you would have otherwise like to have bought. You can’t go on a trip that
you otherwise would have liked to have gone on.
But it’s not always money that we lose with forgiveness.
Sometimes it’s costlier things like our pride. We like to be right. You were
right, of course, with that person with whom you’ve had your beef. You’ve
always been right. They’ve always been wrong. So how could you give up your
claims against them? They need to give up their claims against you!
Or maybe someone has dragged you or your family down into
shame. They’ve wrecked your good name. Or maybe they’ve wrecked your
livelihood. Or maybe they’ve wrecked your peace and happiness. These are very
serious, costly things—often irreplaceable, irreparable things.
If you live your life in such a way that you are always
going to come first, it is impossible let go of such costly things. Never,
ever, in a million years will you forgive—at least not from the heart. Maybe
you’ll be polite, but you’ll never love them. You can’t love them because they
broke your #1 commandment: You shall not harm me.
One of the most surprising things that Christianity teaches
us is that there are worse things than being harmed. There are worse things
than suffering. The fear of harm, the fear of suffering is at the root of so
many evils like lying, greed, anger, and so on. But suffering is not the worst
thing.
Our God suffered to bring about our redemption. How can
anyone say that that suffering was bad? The suffering of God in our Lord Jesus
Christ was the highest and holiest thing that ever was or ever shall be.
This is reflected in the lives we are given to live as
Christians. Jesus has left us with a remembrance of this suffering of God in
the Lord’s Supper. We are to do this Lord’s Supper “often,”
Jesus says, “in remembrance of him.” In
remembrance of what? Of God’s suffering. Paul says in another place, “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you
proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This sacrament is to remind
us of Jesus’s death, God’s suffering.
Then, also, we are called to suffer. Jesus says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” To
deny yourself and take up your cross is connected to what we heard also today:
We must forgive from the heart. That is a call to suffer. Forgiveness is
costly. To reach out across the pain, not counting the cost—that is
forgiveness.
I do not have the ability to make a single one of you
forgive anyone. You, in fact, do not have the ability to forgive anyone—at
least not really, not from the heart. These precious pearls must not be cast
before swine. Only the Holy Spirit can work this. What I can do is praise forgiveness.
There is nothing nearer and dearer to our God than forgiveness. In Jesus’s
costly suffering and death he forgave the whole world! Forgiveness is good.
Therefore, also, suffering is good. Suffering is good when
it is done for love of your neighbor. I understand how we all fear suffering. I
don’t like it any more than you do. But it is good. For you to forgive those
who trespass against you is beautiful. It is more beautiful than anything that
money can buy.
So be courageous. To not be afraid of suffering takes
courage. Dare to forgive. Dare to reach out and love. By doing so you won’t
lose anything that is truly precious. You will be able to taste the true
spiritual riches of our suffering, loving God.
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