St. Matthew 18:21-35
September 17, 2017
Proper 19A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
‘Tis the season for sneezing, and some folks have been doing a lot of it lately. Sneezes are the body’s way of expelling things that you’re better off without—things like dust and pollen and mold. Did you know that the air you expel when you sneeze is traveling more than 100 miles per hour? Those are “category 2” hurricane force winds! It may just be an old wives’ tale, but some people believe that holding in your sneezes can be harmful. Why keep in the bad things that your body wants to get out?
Holding in a sneeze may or may not be harmful; but holding in forgiveness—refusing to share forgiveness with those who sin
Last week we heard from earlier in Matthew 18 that sin—even among brothers and sisters in Christ—is unavoidable and inevitable. It is to be expected. We also learned that confronting sin is an act of love—that we should go to the one who sins against us with the goal of reconciliation. We should go to every length possible to forgive. We are to set no limits when it comes to forgiveness.
Peter, today, was looking for limits—and loopholes. We all do it. “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?” How about seven times? When is enough enough? The rabbis of Jesus’ day said three times was enough. Peter’s suggestion of lucky number seven had a nice Biblical ring to it.
But just for a minute, imagine if Jesus had said, “Yes, the limit on forgiveness is seven times.” How many of our marriages would have ended long ago if Jesus had set the forgiveness quota at seven? How full would the pews be this morning if in this fellowship of believers we only had to extend forgiveness to one another seven times? Wouldn’t we all eventually be estranged from one another—brother against sister, husband against wife, elders against ushers, choir against organist? I imagine if someone sinned against you six times, you’d almost be hoping for just one more time so that you could be done with forgiving that person.
Forgiveness with limits is not real forgiveness. Forgiveness, the way Jesus defines it, has no limits, no tally sheets, no boundaries. Forgiveness “Jesus’ style” is outlandish and outrageous. “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” says the Savior. Jesus sees Peter’s seven and raises him seventy. And just about the time you start to lose count, you’re beginning to learn what it means to live under the Gospel instead of the Law.
To forgive literally means to “let go” of the sin committed against you; or to “send away” the offense to some other place where it’s no longer on your radar. To forgive means to go on as though the thing hadn’t happened. The sin has no power over you because you’ve let it go. You’ve sent it away—no ifs, ands, or buts, no contingencies and no quid pro quos. To forgive is to step into freedom—the freedom that is yours as a blood-bought child of God.
Forgiveness is so important that Jesus devotes an entire parable to it. A servant owed the king an astronomical amount of money. His house was probably mortgaged three times over, credit cards maxed out, dealing with the neighborhood loan shark, a chapter 13 nightmare. He begs for mercy from the king, tries to cut a deal: “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.” Yeah, right. The king could have tossed this deadbeat into debtor’s prison—could have liquidated his every possession. But he didn’t. The king did an outrageous, crazy, reckless, insanely gospel thing. He forgave the entire debt. Let it go. Sent it away. Told the accountants to get out their erasers. And the servant walked away free and clear.
That forgiven servant went out in his freedom and found a fellow servant who owed him, basically, pocket change. But instead of forgiving him, he wrung his neck, began to choke him, and demanded payment on the spot. His fellow servant pleaded for leniency with the very same words the first servant had used with the king. But instead of forgiving him, he had the man thrown into prison. When the king heard about it, he threw a fit, called the servant back in and asked, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” In anger the king handed the man over to the jailers to be tortured until he paid back his astronomical debt. There was hell to pay for his refusal to forgive as he had been forgiven.
When we refuse to forgive as we have been forgiven, we put ourselves in prison, we torture ourselves, and the King isn’t happy. Few things anger Him as much as our refusal to forgive as we have been forgiven. How many of us are already living in a kind of self-inflicted torture because we refuse to “let go” of all the slights and all the sins and all the insults and all the pain and abuse that people (and sometimes people we love) have inflicted upon us over the course of a lifetime? And don’t try to tell me that dragging around that load of filth every day is enjoyable or that it gives you pleasure. It’s a kind of torture and it’s killing you.
One thing’s for sure, that’s not the way of Jesus. That’s definitely not the kind of life that Jesus Christ hung on the cross to win for you. He’s the Lamb of God come to take away the sin of the whole world. Every sin committed against you is atoned for in His death. Every sinner is reconciled to God by His blood. When you look at that person who sinned against you—see that person as one for whom Jesus died. See that person as someone who is reconciled to God in the death of Jesus. Does he know that? Will he know that from you? He’ll never know it from you if you’ve got your hands wrapped around his neck. He’ll never know it from you if you keep throwing his sins right back in his face. But he may yet come to know it with your hands on his shoulder and with the words, “I forgive you.” When was the last time you said those three little words? I forgive you. Nothing is harder. Nothing is more powerful.
As for you, you leave here this morning debt free. Your sins are as far from you as the east is from the west. The books are closed. The debt is paid in full. The slate is wiped clean. All this thanks to Jesus who paid the debt, “not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.” You are forgiven. You are free. You are forgiven and forgiving.
That phrase, forgiven and forgiving, appears on the banner that you see pictured on the front of the bulletin today. That banner has hung right out here at the top of the stairs for as long as I can recall. I never paid much attention to it until one day many years ago when the lift was being installed. I was sitting in my office thinking deep thoughts one afternoon when a man who was working on the lift began swearing loudly. And I don’t mean one or two naughty words; he was letting the expletives fly. Now, I could’ve just let it go, but quite frankly I was concerned the man might’ve just severed his arm given the volume of profanity that was still echoing up to my office.
So I walked out of my office to the top of the stairs out here where the man’s blue streak was still continuing. “Are you okay?” I asked. Well, immediately the swearing stopped and the man sheepishly told me how he had removed a ceiling tile that he shouldn’t have removed. And then the man suddenly paused as if struck by an awful realization: “You’re not the pastor, are you?” he asked. Well, a ceaseless stream of profuse apologies began to come out of his mouth. The man truly felt lower than a snake’s belly at that point, and I was trying to comfort him when he spotted something on the wall behind me. It was that banner with a cross and the word “forgiven” in capital letters. Pointing at the banner he said, “I guess that’s me.” “Not just you,” I said. “That’s all of us—forgiven and forgiving.”
We forgive others—not to be forgiven by God—but because we already are forgiven by God in Christ. Whenever you forgive someone you—in a very real sense—become like Jesus. You become like Joseph who forgave his brothers the evil they had done, but with tears in his eyes said, “You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good.” Even when you get shafted by someone, God makes sure that everything works for your eternal good. You’re already ahead of the game. So why not let it go and forgive from the heart? Don’t pooh-pooh the power of forgiveness. It’s nothing to sneeze at. It’s Jesus Christ at work in you and through you. Amen.
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