8 November 2020
Text: Matt 18:21-35
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
The Christian life is not about being perfect. Rather it is about forgiveness: God forgiving us for our sins, and we forgiving those who sin against us.
This is not easy, dear friends. For our own sense of justice resists forgiveness, because it seems like someone is getting away with something. When we are wronged, we demand justice. Forgiveness – at least when we have been wronged – seems like injustice. But then again, when we are the ones needing forgiveness, we see it entirely differently, don’t we?
Our Lord’s parable makes the connection between being forgiven, and forgiving others. He explains that you cannot have one without the other.
This story that Jesus tells is in response to St. Peter’s strange question, “How often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?” In other words, Peter is asking what is the maximum number of times that I have to engage in the distasteful act of forgiving someone who sins against me. He then suggests a number: “As many as seven times?” Peter knows that it is his duty to forgive. And forgiving someone seven times seems like quite a lot. But Peter is looking to find a nice legalistic solution that limits the amount of forgiving that he has to do. He is hoping that our Lord will tell him that once you get to seven, you can then just refuse forgiveness from then on.
But in response to Peter’s self-serving question, our Lord gives a shocking answer: “Seventy times seven.” In other words, the number of times you are to forgive someone who has offended you is infinite. There really is no magic number. It is beyond counting. You forgive because that is what you are called to do. It is in your new nature to forgive: the new Adam that emerges from your baptism. And because of this baptismal new man, dear friends, we forgive because we have first been forgiven –by God Himself. Do you think that you have committed more than 490 sins in your life? What if God were to limit His forgiveness to your first 490 sins? Who would possibly have salvation?
Does the blood of Christ run out of power after a certain number? Does the love of God shut down after reaching a certain level of forgiveness? And if God’s mercy is boundless, how can we justify limiting the forgiveness we show to others – especially when they ask for pardon, mercy, and reconciliation?
For think about what our Lord endured on the cross – His agony, His humiliation, and His death – death even though He is God, even though He is sinless, even though His punishment was truly unjust. Think about the power of the blood of Christ, shed for you, offered as a sacrifice crying out to the Father for your sake. Is there a magic number that limits the amount of sins that God forgives in you? In fact, it isn’t simply “sins” that are forgiven, dear friends, rather it is “sin” – the broken condition we all suffer that leads to us committing individual sins. Jesus has borne all of that for us, out of love. And He calls upon us to love others by forgiving them in the same way.
And so, in the parable, a servant of a king owes a debt to his master that is so large that it is really impossible to grasp its size. Of course, there is no way that he can ever hope to pay it back. And so the king resolves to cut his own losses by selling the servant and his family into slavery. The servant pleads for mercy. Who wouldn’t? Can you imagine being sold, being separated from spouse and family, having all of your property sold off, and you become someone’s property?
And so the servant “fell on his knees” and begged the king for “patience” – even promising to pay the debt, a debt so large that he could never actually pay it. The king is moved by “pity” and he “forgave him the debt.”
But this same recipient of the king’s grace finds a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller debt. He demands immediate payment. He even chokes him and berates him. And when that servant falls to his knees and pleads for patience, the one who had been forgiven the large debt by the king refuses to show any patience or mercy or forgiveness at all to his fellow servant.
In the Lord’s story, the king finds out about it, and is furious. He revokes the offer of forgiveness, and he puts the ungrateful servant in prison.
Our Lord offers this terrifying warning: “So also My Heavenly Father will do every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother with your heart.”
This story takes away our ability to justify our own ingratitude to God and our own self-righteousness toward others. For in the story, we see our actions in the person of the servant. There are no excuses for this behavior, no justification for refusing mercy to others when the Lord has been merciful to us.
St. Peter’s question is an attempt to both keep the Law and to withhold forgiveness from someone seeking it. Our Lord shows him that we are not saved by ticking off the forgiveness box seven times. There is no minimum bar of good works to leap over, after which we have done what is expected for salvation.
The Christian life is not about keeping score, finding out what the requirement is, and meeting it. For there is no such number. We are to live our lives as forgiven sinners, grateful to God, knowing that we have been forgiven by God’s grace and mercy. Therefore, we should forgive those who trespass against us from our hearts. We don’t do it to check a box or meet a criterion. Rather, we do it because it is our nature to forgive, being forgiven ourselves.
It is a matter of humility, dear friends. For when we know that we are sinners in need of forgiveness, we will empathize with those who need forgiveness from us – even our enemies.
And just as there is no limit to our Lord’s forgiveness, there is no limit to our forgiveness of our fellow sinners who sin against us. We forgive because we have first been forgiven. Thanks be to God! Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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