September 17, 2023 Sermon
Sermon title: "Seventy Times Seven"
Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35
(Other lectionary suggestions include Exodus 14:19-31, Exodus 15 (selections), and Romans 14:1-12.)
Matthew 18:21-35
Forgiveness
21Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" 22Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
23"For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25and, 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. 26So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28But 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.’ 29Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
You sort of have to feel for the Big Fisherman, the Apostle Peter, because he was probably looking for an "Atta-boy!" from Jesus when he asked if he should forgive his brother seven times! He didn't get that - in fact, Jesus said not seven times but 70 TIMES 7! (Or another translation is 77 times! The point is, a LOT more than seven times!)
Where did Peter get the idea that seven was a good number to forgive? He got that from earlier rabbinical thinking that said one must forgive an offense three times, but NOT the fourth. And where did the rabbis get THAT idea? From the prophet Amos in the Old Testament. In the opening chapters, Amos says, "For three transgressions and for four". He was condemning various nations, and from these verses later rabbis concluded that God's forgiveness extends to three offenses....but on the fourth transgression, God would visit the sinner with punishment. So, Peter thought he was being VERY generous: take three transgressions, DOUBLE them (that would make six!), and then add one more for good measure! SEVEN! Oh, how he must have expected a big pat on the back from Jesus! But as we know, he didn't get it!
Can you see how radical Jesus is? Not seven times, but 70 TIMES 7! And I hope you realize that what Jesus was saying is that there is no limit to forgiveness. I mean, I hope you don't count all the ways somebody has wronged you, and then you get to say, "Jesus said 70 times 7. That's 490 times. You have just offended me for the 491st time!" If you think that way, you don't get it and you have missed the point. The follower of Jesus doesn't keep track of wrong doings against him/her, and then lower the boom once the limit has been reached! Perhaps that's one reason Jesus told that story of the two slaves right after.
Since Harlane and I have been at this church, we have probably talked about forgiveness a LOT, and that's not bad. I mean, even on the cross and suffering an agonizing, slow death, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." So, I think our religion is about forgiveness, at least in part. (And so too is Judaism, if you recall Joseph forgiving his brothers in the last chapters of Genesis. And those brothers were SCARED, because they had been responsible for Joseph's being sold into slavery and taken to Egypt. Up until the very end, they expected some kind of retribution for what they did to their brother. But Joseph FORGAVE them.)
So, both Christianity and Judaism have forgiveness as part of the belief system. And I think that's a good thing. HOWEVER, let me say this: I know some of you have had terrible things done to you, things which for you may be unforgivable. What I think we get in our faith is an IDEAL, and we are supposed to strive toward that ideal. But we don't always achieve the ideal. Look at the Ten Commandments, for example. One of the Commandments is "Thou shall not kill". Does that mean we should not have a death penalty? I personally believe that we should not. However, not everybody agrees with that idea. Some Christians believe in the death penalty, and some do not. How about killing in war? Is that murder or not? Some Christians (such as Quakers and others) are conscientious objectors and have gone to prison to protest killing in war. (When Harlane and I were visiting my brother and his wife in North Carolina in July, we met a friend of theirs who was celebrating his 50th anniversary of getting out of jail for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.)
So, I believe our religion offers us an IDEAL, and we are supposed to work toward that IDEAL. But not all of us achieve the IDEAL, and maybe NONE of us actually does! Remember the Apostle Paul's words in the letter to the Romans: "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." He doesn't say "SOME"! He says "ALL"!
So, maybe you and I are supposed to realize that we'll never be "perfect". We have the ideals as set forth in both the Old and New Testaments. But the truth of the matter is, although we may try with all our might, we ourselves will never achieve the ideal. On the matter of forgiveness, maybe some of us CANNOT. We realize that we are saved from ourselves and our sins by God's grace, and we may realize that God has forgiven us a LOT. But perhaps there are things that have been done to us that are just too heinous or horrific to forgive.
Back to what Jesus said in today's Scripture lesson about the two slaves...... The one owed his master 10,000 talents, while the second owed the first 100 denarii. Maybe Jesus was using what I have referred to before as Middle East exaggeration! Do you know what a talent was? The equivalent of 15 years' worth of wages! So, ten thousand of them would be a HUGE sum, and it's almost laughable that the first slave promised his master that he'd pay him back! But maybe that's the point: the master FORGAVE the debt, and if we think of the master as GOD, then GOD has forgiven each one of us a HUGE amount. Okay. So now how much is 100 denarii? That's what the second slave owed the first. One denarius was about what a working man would make in one day. So, compared to what the first slave owed his master, 100 denarii was a trifling amount.
But look at the behavior of the first slave toward the other, and AFTER he had been forgiven all that debt! He grabbed him by the throat and said, "Pay me what you owe!" And when the guy couldn't pay, he had him thrown into debtors' prison.
Get the point? God has forgiven you a lot, and maybe you realize that and maybe you don't. But if God has forgiven us a lot, can't we forgive others just a little?
We're all familiar with the hymn, "Rock of Ages". Listen to this verse: "Not the labors of my hands Can fulfill Thy law's demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears for ever flow, All for sin could not atone...." And I forget the last line!
I could probably stop right there, but I want to add something else. I personally believe that Jesus was born into a very violent world, and he was determined to make it less violent. Even if HE would pay the price for non-violence, he was not going to fight with a sword or any other weapon that would cause physical harm. He had to be familiar with the Mosaic concept of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". By the way, when Moses said that, that was an IMPROVEMENT! Before Moses, people out for vengeance might take TWO eyes even if they lost only ONE! Again, "an eye for an eye" was an IMPROVEMENT! But Mohandas Gandhi, who was killed by one of his own countrymen in 1947 or 1948, said that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind! So, Gandhi wanted to improve on that concept, too!
In Jesus's day, and even in some cultures today, getting even was important. I believe that Jesus realized that the only way to stop the "get even" idea was to bring forgiveness into the equation. And he was RADICAL about it, if we believe today's Scripture reading. When Peter thought he was going beyond what he needed to do, Jesus pointed out that he still had a long way to go. "Seven times?" asked Peter. Jesus, maybe even with a laugh, a smile, or even a smirk, said, "No, Peter, not 7 times. I say to you 'SEVENTY times seven.'" That's a pretty high bar, isn't it? Whom do YOU need to forgive today or tomorrow or next week? Indeed, whom do I need to forgive? Amen.
Pastor Skip
