Risking Forgiveness

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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.