Reflection on Matthew 18:21-35

 

Reflection on Matthew 18:21-35 (from Sunday, September 13, 2020)

I will admit, I have lots of questions about forgiveness.  And so, again this week, I find myself standing next to the disciple Peter as he asks the question: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  As I look at Peter, I suspect that there is something behind that question.  At least there is for me.

What if the person does not ever get better, their sin is so ingrained in them that they cannot seem to do anything else?  What if they need to ask for forgiveness over and over again? Reality teaches me that there are lost causes in this world.  Jesus, can I just write them off?

What about people who have suffered abuse?  Do they need to forgive their abusers?  Do they need to go have a milkshake and smile at the one who destroyed their lives, giving them another chance to do the same?

What if I am so hurt by someone that I am just numb toward them and will probably never have a desire to forgive them?

Surely, Jesus knows that this forgiveness stuff is complicated and that there is probably a complicated story behind Peter’s question and my own? 

But, rather than addressing these questions, Jesus simply tells Peter that he must forgive, "Not seven times, but…seventy-seven times.”

That does not help, Jesus.  You did not answer my questions.  Or, maybe more to the point, Jesus did not answer the questions the way I wanted them answered.  I guess that I continue to want to just get out of the situation entirely.  I guess that I desire to delete the “forgive” part of “forgive and forget.”  Just “forgetting” the person is fine with me. 

But, I imagine that Jesus knows our struggles to forgive all too well.  After-all, he did end up on a cross, undeservedly. 

In response to our struggles, Jesus tells a story.

There once was a slave who owed his king 10,000 talents, which is equal to 60 million days worth of work.  I do not know about you, but I am pretty sure the king is not going to get paid back.  Knowing this, the king plans to do exactly as I usually desire to do to those who have wronged me.  He plans to sell the slave and “forget” the rotten guy.

In an act of repentance, the slave falls to his knees and begs for mercy, stating that he will pay it all back.  Yeah right!  I think that we have already established that that is not going to happen.  But, the king, in a shocking act of unwarranted mercy, forgives the entire debt and lets the slave go free. 

I just want to stop right there, because that is already helpful to me.  You see, this guy comes to the king in repentance, begging not to be cast away and sold.  And, though you can most certainly forgive someone in your heart, without them repenting, in order to release your unhealthy, chest squeezing anger toward the person, what is most important to Jesus about forgiveness is not that it makes us feel better, but that forgiveness brings us back into community with one another. 

So, the forgiveness that Jesus is talking about here starts with repentance and then moves toward bringing that person back into our communities and into our lives.  This is not blind forgiveness.  It is the forgiveness given to someone who repents.

To drive the necessity of forgiveness home, Jesus continues his story and tells of how the newly forgiven slave refuses to forgive the debt of a fellow slave who only owed him the equivalent of 100 days worth of daily wages.  That could realistically be paid back and it is much less than the first slave was forgiven by the king. 

The first slave refuses to forgive his fellow slave though and throws him into jail until the debt is paid back.  The king is enraged by the first slave’s hard heart.

It is no coincidence that The Lord’s Prayer in the gospel of Matthew asks God to “forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.”  God assumes that if we are forgiven, we will forgive.  God assumes that forgiveness is the way that all things are made things right again.  God assumes that if we are a part of forgiveness, then forgiveness will be a part of us.

Now, there is a huge consequence to refusing to forgive those who ask.  Not only is the repentant person’s guilt still condemning them to endless, sleepless nights and likely continued abandonment by those who used to be friends, but it also means that the forgiveness we have been given has obviously had no affect on us.  Instead of forgiveness, we choose the torturous, red flames of hate.

Forgiveness is supposed to free us.  It frees us from anger and hate.  It frees us to be closer to one another and closer to Jesus, who is forgiveness in the flesh.  If forgiveness is not a part of who you are, how can Jesus be a part of who you are?

You know, it is ironic that Peter does not suggest a higher amount of times that one can be forgiven.  He only suggests seven times.  Thinking on the number of things that I need forgiven in my own life, that is a really low number. 

Ironically, Peter is one of the disciples who will need forgiveness from Jesus the most!  He fails to stick with Jesus when it becomes very apparent that following Jesus leads to death; even though he promised he would always be there.  He denies Jesus three times after Jesus is arrested and taken away. On top of it all, this “rock” of faith is nowhere to be found while Jesus hangs, abandoned by his friends, on the cross.  Peter abandons Jesus.  

Peter requires lots and lots of forgiveness.

Thankfully, he follows the one who forgave the whole world on the cross.  Thankfully, he follows the one who does not give up on providing chance after chance to get things right.  Thankfully, Peter has come into contact with the Lord, Jesus Christ.

You know, according to the Bible, forgiveness is not a feeling, it is an action.  Jesus took action and forgave us on the cross, the king took action, forgiving the repentant slave (then, setting him free), and we too set aside our own feelings and take action to free those who are indebted to us.  After-all, when you are freed from having to pay an awful debt back, and once you are freed from sleepless nights of guilt, you will desire to share that precious gift. 

Jesus frees you to live a forgiven life and a forgiving life.  You are free to be the person God created you to be, a person of forgiveness.

The Rev. Kathryn M. Schifferdecker relates this story:

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian woman who was imprisoned in the Ravensbruck concentration camp for hiding Jews in her home. She lost her beloved sister at the camp but after the war, she traveled around Europe, preaching the Christian gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation. She writes of an encounter with a former guard from Ravensbruck whom she recognized at a talk she gave at a German church in 1947. He came up to her afterwards, told her that he had become a Christian, that he knew God had forgiven him, but he wanted to ask for her forgiveness. He held out his hand but she felt nothing but anger for him.

“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘Jesus, help me!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"

For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.”

(https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=5454)

Forgiveness is hard, really hard, but it is the way that the future is changed.  As followers of Christ you are the forgiven and you are the forgivers.  Set people free in Christ’s name.