Proper 19-A (9/14/08)             Gen 50:15-21; Rom 14:1-12; Mt 18:21-35

St. Luke’s, Kalamazoo                                                Fr. Joseph Neiman

Theme: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (BCP p. 364; Mt 6:12))

“You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (Mt 18:32-33).

These powerful words from the parable told by Jesus, as Matthew tells us, sound so ominous when we hear them, and yet we hear this formula regularly in other words when we pray: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (BCP p. 364; Mt 6:12). We use this prayer when we plead with God for mercy in some difficult situations not fully realizing, perhaps, that this is exactly what this parable is about: the power of forgiveness in our lives and in our relationships with one another.

There is evil in this world, and as we heard two weeks ago, each of us can become “Satan” for another by our words and deeds just as Peter did in trying to keep Jesus from going into Jerusalem. Jesus said to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mt. 16:22). Peter was saying what he thought was “right,” but he was judging the situation in common cultural terms: the opposition to Jesus was growing, and going to Jerusalem might put Jesus in personal danger. Do we also base our words and deeds on what others say is “right,” or on what we know to be truly right deep in our hearts which have been nourished by our relationship with the risen Lord?

There is great power in forgiveness. Our whole country was aware of the power of forgiveness two years ago next month. On October 2, 2006 word spread over the media that Charles Carl Roberts “carried his guns and his rage into an Amish schoolhouse near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Five school girls died that day, and five others were seriously wounded.”[1] Roberts first told the girls he captured: “I’m angry with God and I need to punish some Christian girls to get even with Him.”[2]

“He was angry at God, he said, for the death of their firstborn daughter, Elise, who had lived for only twenty minutes after her birth nine years earlier. In the note to his wife, Amy, Roberts had written: “I’m not worthy of you, you are the perfect wife, you deserve so much better…. I’m filled with so much hate towards myself, hate towards God, and an unimaginable emptiness.”[3]

The Amish community was surprised by the response of the general public to their tragedy when thousands of letters and gifts came to them. The public in turn was surprised by the acts of forgiveness the Amish community extended to Roberts family. “The Amish quickly realized that Roberts’ widow and children were also victims of the shooting – victims who had lost not only a husband and father, but also their privacy.”[4] The grandfather of two of the slain girls was confronted by a TV crew who asked: “Do you have any anger toward the gunman’s family?” No, he replied. “Have you already forgiven them?” “In my heart, yes” he answered. “How is that possible?” “Through God’s help” he stated clearly.[5]

In all three narratives from God’s holy Word in Scripture this morning we learn about the power of forgiveness for our lives and our relationships. In Genesis Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery in ancient Egypt. Joseph said as he forgave them: “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God?” (Gen 50:19).  Paul picks up that same value in the letter to the Romans: “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Rom 14:10).

Hear the power of this parable in Matthew. A king seeks to settle his accounts. His slaves were sent out to gather the taxes owed to the king, and in this time of judgment, the king was settling accounts. So here is this slave who owes the king an enormous amount of money: ten thousand talents. “A talent was the largest amount of money known to the Near East, and ten thousand was the largest number used in counting. To a Palestinian peasant ten thousand talents would be equivalent to our ‘billions of dollars.’ The hyperbole of the parable is obvious.”[6]

Surprise! The king forgives the slave’s enormous debt rather than sell the slave and his family as most Gentile kings would customarily do. Then we get to the punch line: the forgiven slave turns around and demands payment of “a hundred denarii,” or the equivalent of a hundred days of minimum wages, from a brother slave. He has not understood forgiveness.

As you are well aware, the parable tells us that God is the king who forgives our enormous debts, and we are the forgiven slave who hold others accountable to us for a paltry amount.

Let’s review the basics because we regularly do not believe that God has forgiven us much. We are, after all, good people, and isn’t it our right to judge others who have sinned against us in word or deed?

In ancient Greek, the word for “sin” meant “off target” or “off center” or “off stage” which we can translate as “obscene.” We are called by God to walk in a path which leads us to “salvation.” In English that means we are called to walk in a path that leads us to what God has intended us to be: fully alive, creative, loving human beings in harmony with God, one another, and the earth itself. John tells us in his Gospel that Jesus said: “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). This teaching of Jesus is part of the narrative about listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd and following where he leads.

Later in John’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus taught us to love one another as He has loved us. He gave us this commandment that we might bear fruit in our lives. He said: “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (Jn 15:11). So once again, God calls us to walk in the path which leads us to the abundant, joy-filled, creative or fruitful life, and living according to the words and deeds of Jesus provide us the guide to that path.

Sin is anything, any words or deeds, which takes us off that path, and not only our own words and deeds, but also those which others might impose upon us and therefore be “satan” for us as Peter was for Jesus.

An example of where we sin. A few years ago, when I was teaching the teens at St. Mark’s, we were discussing the commandment about not worshiping idols or strange gods. Of course, they said then did not serve any idols. I reached into my pocket and pulled out $10 from my wallet and began to tear it up in front of them. They practically leaped across the table to stop me. “That’s money!” “Stop that!” “Save the pieces so we can tape them back together!” So I asked them again, do you worship any idols? Money is such an idol. Did not Jesus teach us: “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Mt 6:24)?

The great sin disease in North America is that we are possessed by our possessions. They own us. We would risk losing our life to save our car from a thief, a car which rusts and decays and is worthless in just a few short years! We buy and hoard more than we need or can use. Christmas is all too frequently an orgy of new things, which will be forgotten by the next year. Every child can readily tell you that the person who has more is of greater worth than the person who has little. How many families are divided over inheritances, over property settlements in divorces, or just over the amount of money earned or spent? What are we advised to do to fix our struggling economy: buy things! These are deeply imbedded cultural images and values, and contrary to the good news brought to us by our Lord, our Savior. (By the way the word “savior” means “chief benefactor”).

The good Lord forgives our sins, forgives us for staying off the path and damaging ourselves and our relationship with others and the things of the earth. The enormous debt which we have accumulated by our worship of  false idols, by our lies, our adulteries, our abuse of others, our greed, our anger and even our complacency and complicity with the violence and wars in our land and throughout the world. But do we in turn forgive others? Do we see the image and likeness of God in each person who touches our lives? Can we see our brothers and sisters not as enemies but as also beloved of God?

You see, in baptism, the congregation with the priest touch the one being baptized and say to him or her on behalf of God the words that Jesus heard when baptized by John: “You are my beloved son or you are my beloved daughter. In you I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17)  This is a profound message, a powerful word of affirmation. In it we hear at a deep level the affirmation that we are created in the image and likeness of God, unique, one of a kind, irreplaceable, special, a work of beauty, and a person endowed with the ability to create and to love – which are the attributes of God.

Every hour for fifteen or more minutes our television tells us we are not okay, not beloved of God, that we have to have or use something in order to make ourselves worthy or important. That is the bad news that leads us off the path on which the risen Lord seeks to guide us and into the swamp that infects us with “disease,” with “sin.”

We have been forgiven much, and so who are we to “pass judgment on our brothers and sisters” who owe us so little in comparison (Rm 14:10)? Even those who have sinned seriously against us, need to be forgiven so we can be set free from that living memory of evil. Seeking vengeance will not work. There is an old Chinese proverb that says: “He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.”

Remember in the parable and in our prayer, especially the Lord’s prayer, we learn that God will forgive us our sins in the same measure as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgiving opens up our capacity to experience God’s powerful love of us, and therefore empowers us to love others.

Two weeks ago, we heard that powerful lesson from Paul’s letter to the Romans about how to live in fruitful and faithful relationship with one another: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor…. 14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another; ….¹⁷Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God;^* for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ ….²⁰²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:9-21).

For your homework this week (I give homework and let the good Lord do the testing to see if you learned anything). Reflect on this simple saying from a wise monk which expresses this powerful teaching on forgiveness: “If we do not forgive someone, we allow that person to live in our head rent free.” Forgiveness evicts them and makes room for the risen Lord to move in and dwell with us. So let us experience God’s forgiveness as we forgive others.

God bless you and keep you this day and always. And remember that the good Lord loves you more that you can ask for or even imagine. Do you believe that?