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June 26, 2016
Matthew 18:21-35
21 Then Peter came and said to Jesus, “Lord, if another member
of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven
times?” 22 Jesus said to
him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
23 “For this reason
the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts
with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand
talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together
with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave
fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay
you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him
and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his
fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he
said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have
patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw
him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what
had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their
lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to
him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with
me. 33 Should you not
have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his
lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly
Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or
sister from your heart.”
Sermon: “Risking Forgiveness”
One of my favorite places to
go in the summertime as a kid was a water park called Schlitterbahn. It had all the usual rides: unexpected spouts
of water, boats hurling down fake waterfalls, dizzying, looping, slides
designed by some deranged person. But my
favorite was always the river. I found
it incredibly peaceful.
The river was a ten-foot-wide
swath of fairly fast flowing water in a big, perfect loop. You didn’t ride in a boat, you didn’t hurl
yourself down a slide. You just floated
there, toes dangling along the slightly-rough concrete bottom, and let the fake
current carry you. Round and round you
would go in a perfectly predictable path.
Most kids found it to be the most boring ride at Schlitterbahn, if you
could even call it a ride. But, as a
self-proclaimed terrible swimmer, I think I found comfort in its
predictability. No surprises, no
demands. Just the river.
As we come to what might be
the most difficult topic to be found in my yellow box of sermon suggestions –
forgiveness – I can’t help but remember that placid water feature. Because our inability to forgive has a lot in
common with that fake river. Often, it’s
not that we don’t want to let go. It’s
not that we think forgiveness is beyond us.
It’s not even that we think we’re right all the time. It’s just that we’re caught in a loop, maybe
a loop we didn’t even make, and that loop requires as little as possible from us.
Forgiveness is breaking the familiar loop of
aggression – whether created
ourselves or inherited from others – and if we’re really honest, that’s just
too much work. We’d rather float along
the path of least resistance, even if it means being weighed down by regret and
bitterness.
If Jesus was a lifeguard at
Schlitterbahn (just go with me here), he’d have a thing or two to say about
that fake river. He’d probably say that
even if we think we’re a bad swimmer, or not practiced in forgiveness, the
predictable path is not always the best one.
He knew what the path of
aggression was – he faced it much himself.
Jesus described a complicated forgiveness scenario in Matthew using
terms thankfully foreign to our Cameron context, like “king,” “slaves,” and “master.”
Allow me to put it in our own language,
will you?
The kingdom of heaven is like
a landlord who wished to settle accounts with his tenets. One man owed eight months of past-due
rent. The landlord threatened to throw
him out on the street, along with his spouse and children. But the tenet pleaded for forgiveness and
mercy, promising he would repay as soon as he got another job (he’d been laid
off his last one). The landlord relented
and forgave his debt in full, creating a clean slate for the man and his
family.
But that same man ran into a
former friend of his at the Piggly Wiggly that same day, one who owed him
$50. He grabbed him in the parking lot,
threatened him and said he’d call a collection agency on him. The landlord’s wife happened to see this take
place (there aren’t many secrets in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot, after
all!). She told her husband, and the
husband called the tenet to come back.
He was enraged that the tenet didn’t show his friend the mercy he’d been
shown. And allowing aggression to
produce more aggression, he booted the man and his family out of his house and
demanded that he make weekly payments to make up for the lost rent. Don’t be like this with people, or God will
be this way with you. The end.
It’s not a happy parable, is
it? It’s something of a cyclical river
of anger, where mercy is flooded with retaliation and bitterness. It teaches us a painful but important lesson
about human nature, though. Forgiveness is not the norm. Grace is not our default mode.
By default, we float an
unending river of tit-for-tat, us-versus-them, action-and-reaction, and don’t
even notice that we’re not going anywhere at all, but are trapped in the same
circle of anger.
The only way, Jesus shows us,
is to interrupt the circle. Re-route the
river. Stop the cycle of
retaliation. And the only way to do that is to forgive.
Forgiveness is not the weak
acceptance of wrong and lack of responsibility.
If that were the case, Jesus never would have spoken words of
forgiveness from the cross as he died.
Forgiveness is risky and messy, vulnerable and unexpected. It does not mean allowing people to harm us
again and again. It means letting go of
our anger, which might actually allow us see clearly enough to remove ourselves
or others from harm’s way, without retaliating.
You don’t need me to tell you
who to forgive. We all have someone, or
many people. And forgiveness, being so
very linked with grace, is not a one-time deal.
Seventy times seven. More than
that, even. As much as it takes, not
because the person deserves it or not, but because
we have committed as followers of Jesus Christ to be a people whose lives are
marked more by grace than by anger.
If we don’t forgive, we know
exactly what will happen. We’re trapped
in that looping river, and the past will repeat itself again and again. Violence births violence. Fear births fear. Bitterness births bitterness.
But if we do forgive, that’s when the real
adventure begins. The worst case
scenario is that things will stay exactly the same, and we’ll be no worse
off. But allowing ourselves out of that
endless, mindless loop, we might just find that something beautiful happens:
grace births grace, kindness births kindness, and forgiveness births
forgiveness.
And, even if we’re afraid,
and even if we think we’re not a very good swimmer (or forgiver), isn’t that a
risk worth taking, an adventure worth having?
Let’s dare to forgive and be
a people of grace, starting with ourselves.
And then let’s dare to trust that God’s grace for each of us isn’t
trapped in some concrete, fixed path of the past, but can break free, swirling
through this weary, angry world until every life is drenched with that forgiving
water. Thanks be to God!
Amen.