Those Who Trespass against Us

 Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 18:21-35                                                   

September 13, 2020 (Proper 19A)                                 

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Sometimes we pray carefully.  And sometimes we pray carelessly.  It’s just human nature.  Our prayers are never perfect.  Our motives are never pure.  Sometimes we pray because we need to; other times we pray because God commands us to do so.  The result is that sometimes we pray carefully; and sometimes we pray carelessly.

          Saint Augustine prayed carefully.  Saint Augustine would grow up to be a bishop in North Africa, a prolific author, and a revered church father.  But as a young man, Augustine lived recklessly.  He was a prodigal son in every sense who was relentlessly prayed for by his mother, Monica.  Augustine admits in his autobiographical “Confessions,” that, as a young man, he prayed carefully:  Lord, make me chaste,[he prayed,] but not yet.”  His spirit was willing; but his flesh was weak.  And so he prayed; but he prayed very carefully.

          Today’s holy gospel is a stark reminder of our obligation to forgive as we have been forgiven; but it’s also a reminder of how carelessly we pray most of the time.  For how many times each week do we carelessly amble our way through the Lord’s Prayer, including the Fifth Petition:  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?  Here we ask God to forgive our sins—but, only to the same degree—only insofar as—we forgive those who sin against us.  Kinda’ careless.  If we were praying more carefully we might just shorten and shrink that petition, and simply say, “Forgive us our trespasses. Period.”

          But praying carefully and cleverly about forgiveness isn’t really an option when Jesus teaches about it with such cold clarity.  It’s hard to miss the point of today’s parable.  That last line always sends a chill down my spine when, after the unforgiving servant is turned over to be tortured, Jesus concludes:  So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. 

          The parable was prompted by a simple question:  Lord, how many times do I have to forgive my brother when he sins against me?  Seems like a legit question, right?  I mean, there has to be a limit, doesn’t there?  At some point, enough is enough.  The rabbis of Jesus’ day said three times was enough.  Peter suggested seven times, which has a nice ring to it.  It’s far more generous than three—once a day, every day, for one week.  That should do it, for sure.

          But forgiveness that has limits is not real forgiveness.  Forgiveness, the way Jesus practices it, has no limits, no exclusions, no exemptions, no asterisks with fine print at the bottom of the page.  “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven,” said the Savior.  And the point is not 490 times.  The point is that forgiveness doesn’t keep score.  Forgiveness keeps no record of wrongs.

          But, oh, do we love to keep score on the sins committed against us.  Our mental file cabinets are full of alphabetized files of all times we’ve been wronged.  We’ve got spreadsheets, graphs, and PowerPoint slides describing in detail all the times we’ve been shafted, cheated, and slandered.  We nurse our grudges.  We baby our bitterness.  We walk carefully so as not to disturb all the chips on our shoulders we’ve so carefully collected.  Sound familiar?

          Beloved in the Lord, that’s no way to live.  To “forgive” literally means to “let go” of the sin committed against you.  It means to “send away” the sin to someplace where it’s no longer on your radar—to shred the files, delete the

PowerPoint slides, and let our grudges go.  To forgive means to go on as though the sin never happened.  The sin no longer has power over you because you’ve let it go.  To forgive is really to step into freedom—freedom that is yours as blood-bought brothers and sisters of Jesus.

          Forgiveness is so important for our life together that Jesus preached a powerful parable—designed to shake-up our ideas about the limits of forgiveness.  A king forgave his servant a million dollar debt—an absurd amount of money—more than could ever be repaid in one lifetime.  But this reckless, crazy king told his accountants to get out their erasers; and the servant got off scot free.

          But this same servant immediately tracked down a fellow servant who owed him a mere 500 bucks, grabbed him by the throat, and demanded to be repaid.  He’d just been forgiven a million; but he couldn’t let a mere five hundred slide.  When the king heard about it, the wicked, unforgiving servant was sent to prison, to be tortured.  There was hell to pay.  And just to make things clear, Jesus says, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

          Do you see how much God hates un-forgiveness?  Nothing angers Him as much as our refusal to forgive others . . . as we ourselves have been forgiven by Him.  God forgave us first.  We owe Him big-time.  What others have done to us is just pocket change compared to what we’ve done to God.  When we refuse to forgive, we are denying how much God has forgiven us.  When we hold others hostage by our refusal to forgive, we’re setting ourselves up as gods in the place of God.

          Joseph has a lot to teach us about forgiveness.  Joseph forgave his brothers—brothers who hated him—brothers who sold him into slavery—jealous brothers who callously told dear ol’ dad that his favorite son was dead.  Joseph forgave them all.  He saved them all from famine.  He gladly did good to the brothers who had sinned against him.

          But when their father, Jacob, died, all bets were off.  The brothers expected Joseph’s revenge to come swiftly.  So they quickly got down on their knees and tried to bargain for their lives, hoping to cut a deal.  But Joseph would have none of it.  “Am I in the place of God,” he asked?  How can I not forgive in the presence of the God who forgives?  “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”  You intended evil; God used it for good.  Can you see what Joseph saw—that behind the despicable sins his brothers committed against him—God Himself was at work for good?

          Look to the cross of Jesus, and you will begin to understand.  Men intended that cross for evil.  They wanted to kill the Son of God—get rid of Him for good, silence Him, destroy Him.  They lied.  They gave false testimony.  They mis-carried justice to get Jesus’ hands and feet nailed to a Roman tool of torture.  It was evil compounded on evil—evil to the nth degree—bloody, blasphemous evil.  And God used it for good—for your good—to save you, for the salvation of the world.  Good Friday, we call it.

          Every sin ever committed against you is atoned for in the death of Jesus.  When you look at that person who “owes you big time”—that person who has sinned against you—see that person as one for whom Christ died.  Does he or she know that?  Will he or she know that from you?  Certainly not if you’ve got your hands around his neck.  Certainly not if you regularly remind him of his sin.  But he or she may yet come to know the power of God’s love with your hand on his shoulder and with three of the most powerful words in the English language: I forgive you.  There’s great power in that simple sentence.  And we don’t say it nearly enough.

          As for you, you leave here today debt free.  As far as the east is from the west, so far have your trespasses been removed from you.  The books are closed.  The score has been settled with the blood of our Savior.  In His name and with His own words we pray.  We pray not too carefully nor too carelessly.  We pray confidently:  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.