Sermon

The Forgiveness Equation

September 14, 2014
Matthew 18:21-35
Speaker:

Our son Simon is 9 months old and it is a fun age.  He is all over the place, crawling and climbing and getting into anything he can.  He is curious and interactive and loves it when others join him on the floor for playtime.  I try to spend some time everyday down on the floor with him; we crawl, we read, we roll balls back and forth, and I build towers which he knocks down, again and again and again.  We humans seemed to be wired for a certain level of repetition from a young age.  But that easy going acceptance of repetition seems to snag and get held up when issues of justice and suffering are concerned.  How many times in the scriptures do we hear someone asking when will it end? The Psalmist cries out How long, O LORD? How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13), Habakkuk laments O LORD, how long shall I cry for help?(Habakkuk 1:2) and God even gets in on the act of impatience with injustice over and over again asking how long will these people despise me and harden their hearts?

It’s no wonder then that in today’s text we find Peter also asking for a definite number to a question of justice:  “When a sister or brother wrongs me, how many times must I forgive?” To understand where this question is coming from we must remember that Peter is fresh off the conversation about community procedures for accountability found in the first part of Matthew 18.  Cindy eloquently explored that text for us last week and her sermon is on the church website if you missed it so I won’t dig into it here other than to say that Jesus has been speaking with the disciples on how to work with each other in the midst of the community when things go wrong and Peter’s mind seems to be mulling it over. He’s got the process down, now he just needs to know the magic number of how many times he’s required to go through it before he has officially fulfilled his duty on the forgiveness front.

Now Peter has been around Jesus long enough to know that Jesus works a bit outside of the box when it comes to explaining kindom standards and expectations.  Peter gets that about Jesus and so he offers to Jesus what must seem, to Peter, like an extraordinarily generous number of times to offer forgiveness.  “Seven?”

“No,” Jesus replies, “not seven times.” I like to pause here and envision Peter gleeful for just a brief second thinking he has finally surpassed Jesus’ expectations with his suggestion of 7 offerings of forgiveness…this is more generous than even Jesus would suggest.  But then Jesus goes on…“No, not seven times; I tell you seventy times seven.”

And this is where Peter’s jaw drops.  At first he’s wondering if he has heard right, what did Jesus just say??  Offer forgiveness seventy times?  No, no, that’s not what he said…he said seventy times seven.  Now Peter’s quickly working out the equation in his head, but it’s so big he needs to write it down so he grabs a stick and starts drawing in the dirt…seventy times seven…zero, nine, four…and all the while Jesus is just patiently standing back and looking at him in the usual way…the way that says, you’re not really getting this at all, but I can see that you’re really, really trying.

What Peter isn’t getting yet is that Jesus’ equation of seventy times seven isn’t a magic forgiveness equation, it isn’t even an equation that works out to a number – it is a request to throw all the numbers out – to stop counting wrongs and reconciliations and to start living forgiveness in all things, all the time.

Seeing that Peter is going to need a little help grasping this one, Jesus goes on and offers a parable. While the parable he offers may not be one of the more cryptic parables in Jesus’ repertoire, it may be one of the most mind-boggling in scope, and he wastes no time in telling it:

Jesus replied, “not seven times; I tell you seventy times seven. And here’s why.

“The kindom of heaven is like a ruler who decided to settle accounts with the royal officials. When the audit was begun, one was brought in who owed tens of millions of dollars. As the debtor had no way of paying, the ruler ordered this official to be sold, along with family and property, in payment of the debt.

The stage is set, the kindom of heaven is like a ruler who has the power to settle accounts, to draw things in line.  The solution for the account in this situation is obvious to the ruler. This debtor owes tens of millions of dollars; that is more money than could be repaid in several lifetimes. There won’t be an option for full repayment and so the ruler makes the choice to get what can be got – a foreclosure is ordered not just on the official’s property but also on himself and his family.

This, of course, gets the indebted official’s attention, his actions and choices, whatever the situation is that has brought him to this place of insurmountable debt has now spilled over into a new level of indebtedness – he must now pay with his own life and his partner and children are also to be placed on the auction block alongside him.  It is possible that, in this moment, awareness of the full magnitude of the official’s debt starts to sink in. Or perhaps his response springs forth from deep desperation, for upon hearing the verdict:

“…the official bowed down in homage and said, ‘I beg you, your highness, be patient with me and I will pay you back in full!’

Few other choices are available to the official in this moment but to throw caution to the wind and ask, and not just ask but beg, for patience and mercy so that the debt can be repaid without sacrificing the lives of his family. In the allegory to the kindom that is being offered by Jesus in this parable, this small sentence seems pretty important, it tells us that all characters in the kindom of God have a voice and that the use of that voice can have a powerful impact.

Moved with pity, the ruler let the official go and wrote off the debt.

This is where we start to get the bigger picture of the kindom that Jesus is describing.  The ruler of this kindom doesn’t wield power for gain, but is a ruler who willingly listens to the request of the indebted official and is moved with pity. This is a relational ruler, one who values and is moved to action by the participation of kindom citizens. This is why, whether you can hear it or not, I use the word kin-dom and not kingdom; the kindom Jesus describes is not based on the authority and power of one being, it is a kindom that welcomes the participation of all, valuing and granting power to relationship.

In this moment the power of relationship moves the ruler to action. The ruler is not only moved with pity, the ruler takes the extraordinary action of completely writing off the official’s debt. This is extravagant forgiveness.  It is extravagant forgiveness that is offered without hesitation and without condition.  This is seventy times seven forgiveness.

Forgiveness like this is challenging to us because it doesn’t necessarily involve resolution or what we might consider to be justice. Instead, forgiveness like this makes the choice to revere life and relationship above the wrong doing without ignoring the wrong doing.   The Rev Dr Alexander Evans, Senior Pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond, VA puts it this way: “To forgive does not mean we condone what was done to us. To forgive does not mean we acquiesce or deny justice. To forgive means to refuse to let what happened destroy us and alienate us from God and from one another.” Or to think of it in another way, activist Alexandra Asseily who has worked to create The Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut, Lebanon, a space for peace and contemplation for people who have lived for generations in the aftermath of violence and war, talks about it like this: “Forgiveness allows us to actually let go of the pain in the memory, and if we let go of the pain in the memory, we can have the memory, but it doesn’t control us.” Forgiveness like this allows us to break the cycle of revenge in favor of love and relationship.  It is revolutionary not reactionary.

Jesus’ parable doesn’t let us witness the response of the indebted official to this unimaginable pardon.  We can only guess at the joy and exhilaration, relief and shock that must have coursed through his body in that moment when this revolutionary forgiveness was extended. Instead, Jesus reminds us just how easy it is to accept forgiveness but that the real forgiveness equation of the kindom is learning how to extend it in kind.

The story goes on:

“Then that same official went out and met a colleague who owed the official twenty dollars. The official seized and throttled this debtor with the demand, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’

“The debtor dropped to the ground and began to plead, ‘Just give me time and I will pay you back in full!’ But the official would hear none of it, and instead had the colleague put in debtor’s prison until the money was paid.

Forgiveness is an act that we must choose, it is the kindom way to offer extravagant forgiveness, but the choice to forgive comes at the expense of letting go of our underlying drive for repayment and revenge. A challenging notion, even when we have experienced the grace of forgiveness for ourselves. Peter’s initial question in this whole conversation was “how many times must I forgive a brother or a sister that does me wrong?” The question itself points out that we are creatures with the capacity to hurt and be hurt by each other over and over.  Jesus, through this parable, calls us to responses that are revolutionary instead of reactionary.  We are called to be people who revere life and are empowered through relationship to choose forgiveness first and to choose it over and over.

This is not a new lesson to Peter, Jesus has already impressed upon the disciples the importance and nature of forgiveness when he taught them (and us) to pray “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) To understand the full power of forgiveness and to let go of our notions and instinct for revenge may seem a high price to pay, but the implications of clinging to resentment becomes stark as Jesus’ parable continues:

When the other officials saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and went to the ruler, reporting the entire incident. The ruler sent for the official and said, ‘You worthless wretch! I cancelled your entire debt when you pleaded with me. Should you not have dealt mercifully with your colleague, as I dealt with you?’ Then in anger, the ruler handed the official over to be tortured until the debt had been paid in full. 

“My Abba in heaven will treat you exactly the same way unless you truly forgive your sisters and brothers from your hearts.”

This is not a threat from a vengeful and angry God, it is a call to the revolutionary justice of kindom living. A kindom which invites participation from and listens to its citizens. We are collaborators in the kindom and we are called to free ourselves from the self-imposed imprisonment of harbored resentments by extending forgiveness to others as is has been extravagantly extended to us.

From a young age, like little Simon, we come equipped with the power to knock down, but with time, learning, and practice, we gain the ability to build up.  May God grant us the courage to choose love and relationship again and again that we may learn to forgive again and again.