The Dollars and Sense of Forgiveness
Pastor Mathew Magera – 9/17/17 – Sermon 244
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
In my senior year of
seminary, in the last semester of our worship and preaching class we had to do
something fun to enhance quality of the class. We had gotten to know our
professors over the years that we could pretty much know how they would present
the course material. We had learned from them, watched them closely. We knew
words they would use, phrases they would say. To make sure we knew this, a few
students and I wrote up bingo cards on which we would write certain words of
phrases in each box. Each time one of our professors said a word or phrase that
we had on our card, we covered it. The goal, of course, was to be the first to
get a bingo. There were no prizes other than bragging rights that you knew your
professors the best. If you were to with me, my hope is that somewhere on your
bingo card you would have the word forgiveness. A sermon just wouldn’t be
complete without it, would it?
This parable that Jesus
gives us isn't one of those pretty parables about forgiveness with a happily
ever after type of ending. Jesus used this as a lesson on forgiveness to show
that God is no different than this king when it comes to that undeserved gift. Squander
the gift? You lose. It is challenging to call this Gospel, or good news, but
Jesus had to say what he did. He had no other option. Forgiveness is a big deal
and it's not something to take for granted. But, the truth is forgiveness can
be something we say with our lips while our hearts fill with rage. Forgiveness
for us may be more about saying the right words than living the right way.
Two little brothers were
done with dinner one night and were playing with each other until bedtime.
Being boys, the rough housing began slowly but escalated pretty quickly. Before
long one of them got hit in the head with some kind of object, it doesn't
matter what, leading to tears and bitter words. Charges and accusations were
still being exchanged as their mother prepared them for bed. Before saying good
night, their mother took the injured one aside and told him, "Before you
go to bed I want you to forgive your brother for hitting you." The boy
thought about it for a minute and then replied by saying, "Okay, I'll
forgive him tonight. But, if I'm not dead in the morning, he better watch
out!" Not only can forgiveness be just words that we say because we are
told to, forgiveness can also be something worth only the life of a battery.
Now, for Jesus to give us
such a strong message on forgiveness, something must have set him off.
Something must have upset him. Matthew 18 tells us that Peter came to Jesus and
asked him this simple question, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my
brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?" Upon deeper examination
of this question Peter is not asking how many times he needs to forgive but
rather he is asking how many times he doesn't have to forgive. He's asking how
much he can get away with.
When the rich young man came
to Jesus and asked what he must do to be saved, he was really asking what he
doesn’t have to do to be saved. When we ask how much something is, we're really
asking how little we can spend to bring it home. When we ask how often we have
to forgive, we are really asking how many times we can forget about forgiveness
and still be covered by grace. Peter is trying to put a number on grace. He's
trying to give it a value. He's trying to give it a dollar amount. How much
forgiveness does he have to spend to earn God's grace? How much can he get by
without losing grace? The problem is that grace cannot be quantified and Jesus
recognizes Peter's misunderstanding and he must address it. So, Jesus kicks it
right back to Peter by saying, "I tell you, not seven times, but
seventy-seven times." Jesus is not giving a quantity as we might think.
The number 7 has significance in the Bible as being a number of perfection.
Doubled, its significance symbolizes eternity. So, Jesus is telling Peter
through a clever use of words that there is no limit on forgiveness, but that
forgiveness is limitless, priceless, eternal. There is no such thing as too
much forgiveness but there is such thing as not enough.
In this parable that Jesus
tells, a servant owes 10,000 bags of gold and can’t pay it. The value placed on
this debt is an impossible amount to be repaid. It is so fictitious it is
humorous that one person would owe such an amount. Still, knowing that he can’t
pay it back he still falls to his knees and begs the king to be patient and
that he will pay it all. This servant was in position to lose everything as a
result of this debt and so his only option was to plead to the king for mercy.
This is our position in God’s presence, isn’t it? God shows us our sin every
day and the debt that we owe is beyond comprehension and we are sentenced to
lose everything to pay that debt. The debt can only be paid with our very
lives.
The servant begs for mercy
and, amazingly, he gets it. The king forgives him this debt. We don’t know why
but he does. This is a stand-up kind of guy. But, what the servant does as a
result shows just how little he understands. He nearly chokes a fellow servant
over what would equal about a $10 debt and he wants his money back right now.
Using nearly the same words as the servant used when he begged for mercy, this
other person wants forgiveness too. The servant was not merciful and he did not
forgive. Now, before we go ahead and say what a terrible move this was, I want
us to think about what had likely been going through his mind.
What is the justice system
this servant sees around him? If you have a debt, you pay it back. If you don't
pay it back when it is asked, you get punished. That’s the system. The only odd
factor about all of this was the forgiveness that was offered to this one
servant. The king changed the system. The just act here would be to punish the
servant for being unable to pay. So, this servant is really just doing what he
thinks is right when he goes out seeking his $10 back. He thinks he is doing
the right thing by putting this other guy in jail for $10. Is it any excuse? Of
course not. But, when the king changes the system, the system is forever
changed. Not because the law was changed, but because of how the forgiveness
was received. Regardless what the servant may feel is right, there are others
around him who see it different now and are very skeptical about his behavior. It
is likely the other servants knew about this great forgiveness that was offered
to the servant. It was probably the talk of the kingdom. For such a large debt
to go unnoticed is unimaginable. They see the value in forgiveness, they see
the value in mercy that was shown to the servant and they watched him closely
to see what he would do. He did wrong and he is rightly punished for
squandering that gift.
There are circumstances in
life in which we just don't want to forgive, no matter how big or small the
debt, no matter how big or small the hurt, no matter how big or small the
difference. We just don't want to do it. Not because we don't believe in the
power of God's forgiveness of our sins but because even though God can forgive,
we still hurt. It’s the hurt that drives our actions, not the relief. Can God
really feel the hurt that we experience when somebody hurts or sins against us?
It hurts. It rips you apart from the inside. Maybe God can get past that pain,
but can I? Can you? Maybe a $10 debt
doesn't sound that big, but just wait until you feel it. Sometimes $10 can be
the world. Maybe you’ve felt that. And we just don’t want to forgive.
We have a God that knows why
we struggle to forgive. When we are feeling hurt, God is not oblivious. He sees
it. He feels it. When we are wronged, God knows it. He understands we may have
a quick temper. He realizes we may be easily angered. He knows about our desire
to hold grudges. He knows about our depression, our worries. He knows why it is
so difficult for us to just forgive as he forgave even if it is something so
incredibly small. Someone asks you why you just can’t forgive that one person
and in your heart you’re saying you just can’t and God says, “I understand.” We
struggle to forgive because we have a memory that can't be erased from our
minds. Whatever hurt that was, that cut is too deep not leave a scar that we
will have to look at or think about. By withholding forgiveness we are hoping
that the other person will never forget that scar either. Even if they
apologize, the withholding of forgiveness is the scar they can see, the hurt
they can feel.
Jesus is not looking at us
and telling us how bad our excuses are for not forgiving someone else. He’s
just telling us how big of a gift forgiveness really is. Unfortunately, the way
Jesus has to express the depth of the forgiveness he offers us is by showing us
what happens when we treat it like a number instead of sensing its true
priceless worth. Jesus values forgiveness so much, God values forgiveness so
much that when we try to quantify it, it’s like spitting in the face of God
himself. When we mistreat forgiveness, we mistreat His cross. When we choke
someone out of a debt like the servant did, we choke the cross itself. When we
place a value, a dollar amount on the cross, it’s never going to be enough.
The value of Jesus' parable,
the good news, the Gospel is not found in what he says, but rather in what he
does not. Jesus knows the value of forgiveness. It's that large amount that the
servant owed. So is forgiveness worth seven times, Peter? Absolutely not. It’s
worth so much more. Jesus died for our unimaginable debt so what do you suppose
he thinks when he hears forgiveness taken for granted? He’s not trying to
punish us, he’s trying to renew us. In Jesus' overwhelming emotion concerning
forgiveness, in the immense amount of love that is expressed in dying for the
sins of the world, that love is what comes underneath this parable in which he
speaks. He wouldn't have had to say this if forgiveness were not worth that
much but it is. It is in the very nature of forgiveness to swell up within our
hearts, to overflow, that it compels us to forgive our neighbors. Forgiveness
softens our hearts. The more we hear about that forgiveness the more likely we
are able to go out and truly forgive one another.
Just as I watched my
seminary professors in class, people are watching you very closely. I don’t
care where you are whether it is in church, at your job, at school, on the
chamber of commerce or in public office, people are watching you. You have been
forgiven a great debt and whether others can comprehend it or not, people are
watching to see how you treat that forgiveness and they are expecting that you
would share that forgiveness with others. It’s as if they have a bingo card
filled with Christian stereotypes and when they see you fail to forgive
another, it not only hurts you, it not only hurts the one whom you did not
forgive but it hurts others in that it shows just how little value you place on
that immense gift we had been given.
Yes, it is hard to forgive.
You know it. I know it. We are just like a hurt little boy who forgives his
brother with his lips but has revenge planned for the morning. But if this is what forgiveness means to us,
something that doesn’t last or can never be achieved, how much more will we
begin to doubt the forgiveness given to us on the cross? And if we begin to
doubt the cross, how much more hope will we have lost? As hard as it may be to
forgive others, when we do manage to do so, we experience that very love of God
who forgave us for much, much more.
Just like Jesus had to read
underneath Peter’s question, we have to read underneath Jesus’ answer. Through
what can only be defined as a warning on the page, is nothing but a promise
underneath. Jesus loves you so much that he would give his own life to forgive
your massive, unimaginable debt to grant you freedom and an eternal
relationship with God. Jesus will go through whatever length he needs to in
order that we would never forget that unquantifiable value of his mercy and his
grace that he has given to you. He’s not going to lose you. He’s not going to
let your heart turn cold. When we fail to forgive, he’ll teach us. When we
manage to forgive, he’ll bless us. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.