Forgiveness [Proper 19A - Matthew 18:21-35]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Matthew 18:21-35
Forgiveness
It is a great
question – asked in just the right way.
This Peter, he knows what he is doing.
“How often should I forgive?”
That's a pretty pious inquiry.
But he doesn't stop there. “As
many as seven times?” Not one. Not two.
Not three. Not four. Not five.
Not six. But seven times. I mean,
a good man might forgive once. What
about one who would forgive seven times?
That person would have to be pretty extraordinary. And so you see, it is a great question.
Every pupil wants to
impress their teacher. Peter is no
different. He wants Jesus to be
impressed with him – impressed with the depth of his kindness and
goodness. And so he asks the question,
just knowing the answer will, of course, be something along the lines of:
“Seven times. Well, Peter that is above and beyond. I was going to say once is enough. Your generosity astounds me. I mean, seven times!”
Peter’s only problem
in this passage is that asks the wrong person.
Jesus' standards are always ridiculously high. If Peter would have asked me, for example,
the same question, he would have likely received the answer for which he was
looking. I'm impressed any time someone
chooses to forgive because most folks are much more likely to hold a grudge. Seven times then sounds like a lot of times
to forgive someone; I might even tell Peter to scale it back.
But this is Jesus and
it’s difficult to get a pat on the head from Jesus; he’s always raising the bar. So, of course, Jesus hears Peter's offer and
raises it. Peter’s lucky he didn’t suggest
a higher number.
Forgiveness is a hard
subject. We know, intellectually, that it is important. We know that
forgiveness helps us maintain relationships and breaks cycles of revenge. We
know deep down that it is good for our souls. But that doesn’t mean that it is
easy; it doesn’t mean that we like it.
When it comes to
forgiveness, we're always looking for the limits. We, like Peter, want to know what is good
enough; what’s the bare minimum. And
just when we think we've got it, just when we, like Peter, think maybe we've
even inched past the line, become excessively generous with our forgiveness,
Jesus moves the line on us.
To illustrate his
point, I guess, Jesus offers this strange parable. In the parable, the first servant owes his
king ten thousand talents. We don’t deal
in talents typically and so likely that number means nothing to you. But translated it would equal about 150,000
years worth of income. So, a lot of
money, difficult to pay back. I can’t
think of a circumstance in which one slave could possible run up that much
debt; neither can I imagine a king loaning that kind of money to one of his
servants. It kinda feels like this situation
was always going to end badly.
Well, the payment
comes due. And, shockingly, the servant
does not have on hand the money it would take him 5000 lifetimes to earn. And so the king decides to liquidate the
debtor’s assets, and family, to cover, what I imagine would be, a fraction of
one percent of what was owed.
In a shocking twist,
however, the servant begs and the king forgives the debt. The king has a pretty amazing change of heart
considering a moment before he was planning to sell this man’s children.
So it is a happy
ending – except probably for the king’s accountant who will never be able to
balance those books. Happy, that is, until
the freshly forgiven servant decides he needs to raise some quick cash.
One of his fellow
servants owes the first debtor 100 denarii – about 1/3 of the average annual
wage. If you are scoring at home, that is equal to about .0002 percent of the
total the first servant was just forgiven by the king. That is what he is trying to extract. He is
decidedly not paying it forward.
Well, this is where
things once again go wrong for that first pitiful slave. He throws his fellow
slave into prison until the debt is paid – which will be difficult because
prisoners do not earn a very competitive wage. The king finds out – and we find
out that the king’s mercy actually does have its limits. Nobody wins;
everyone’s sad. The end.
It is a strange and
rather dark parable. It is fair to ask,
I think, what Jesus hopes to accomplish here. Are you now convinced that you
should practice forgiveness? Maybe? Maybe not?
You will probably think twice before you dole out a large loan or apply
for one. But what does this parable tell
us about forgiveness when the only instance of forgiveness was very conditional
and ultimately fleeting?
Biblical scholar
David Lose wonders, “Is this parable a warning? Is it a lesson? Is it
encouragement, albeit negatively framed? Or…is it simply an accurate description of just how hard
forgiveness can be? Because… yeah, it’s hard. Hard to let go of grievances
which have not simply left their mark on us but have become part of our
identity, part of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Hard to let go of
the habit of keeping track, of counting, of always assessing to make sure we’re
getting what we think we deserve.”[1]
It is hard. Forgiveness is hard. Not always, of course; there are instances
when forgiveness is easy – like when the offense is minor, someone accidently bumps
into you at Target or starts to talk over you during a Zoom meeting. The
offender says “sorry”; we say, “don't worry about it; no problem.” And it is
over. But then there is the big stuff, the stuff that sticks in our souls, the
stuff we can’t seem to escape. It seems like there is always someone or
something that stands just beyond the reach of our ability, or willingness, to forgive.
I think one of the
reasons forgiveness is so difficult is because we seldom feel like forgiving;
it doesn’t feel natural, doesn't necessarily even feel good. We go into it knowing forgiveness doesn't
undo the wrong. Often it feels like a
loss, like we're letting the offender win.
And while it might help release us from the burden of carrying around old
bitterness in our bones, that doesn't mean it feels great. Forgiveness does not always take away the
pain or heal the scars or even prevent future violations.
And sure we are the
beneficiaries of God’s amazing grace and boundless mercy. But even that knowledge does not make
forgiveness easy; the parable definitely drives that point home.
If the point of this
parable is that forgiveness is difficult, that’s fine. But we know that from personal
experience. Peter knows it too. That’s why he asks his clever question. Jesus knows it too. And still he challenges
us to forgive beyond what is comfortable.
The truth is: Jesus calls us, those of us who call ourselves Christian,
to do hard things – hard things that might break our hearts. Hard things like forgive.
Forgiveness is not
fun. It is duty; it is work. But it forms us into the kind of Christians
Jesus wants us to be. And so of course
seven times is not enough. We have to
keep at it, every day. Because the pain
doesn't usually leave after the first time; the memory doesn't magically
disappear. You might find there are certain people who wronged you terribly,
who scarred you in ways that cannot be undone; there might be people you need
to forgive every single day of your life because you live with the pain they
caused every single day of your life.
That’s not fair; I
know that; God knows that. Forgiveness
will never really make sense except in the context of God's mercy – a mercy
that transgresses the limits of fairness, a mercy that whispers from the
mortification of the cross. God's
forgiveness always crosses the line – offends even our most generous
generosity.
That is Jesus'
challenge in today's Gospel. If Peter had suggested seventy-seven times Jesus
would have still offered a higher number. There is no enough. There is no limit
to the mercy God shows us; there is no limit to the mercy Jesus modeled for us.
And that is why Jesus challenges us to forgive and forgive and forgive without
reservation. Not because it is nice or because it is easy or because it feels
good but because it is the way of God's kingdom.
Make no mistake,
forgiveness is a hard. When you truly
forgive someone who has wronged you, sinned against you, hurt you, you take the
loss. It is not fair, but in a
winner-take-all world, Jesus is asking us to take that loss. Forgiveness is costly
and painful. But also it is as miraculous
as salvation, like breaking open your heart to let God's kingdom come into the
world.
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