Exodus 14:19-31; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
Our readings focus on judgment and forgiveness, two great tastes that do not usually go so well together! Why is that, and what do I mean by that? To answer that, I will defer to one of the Saints of the church, Al Pfeuffer. Al lived to be 102, and he was such a great example of integrity to those of us who knew him. He lived through a century of change and even learned to use Uber to get to church. Al’s generation had to reconcile the weight of unleashing the horror of Oppenheimer’s vision in the hope of stopping worse horrors from being unleashed.
They lived through the Great Depression, Vietnam, Oil Embargos, and the birth of modern concepts of terrorism. I say all of that as a caveat to a conversation we once had about Matthew 5:43, “Love your enemies and do not hate them.” in which Al confessed that he was not sure how to do that.
To be fair, Al’s generation and those that followed have all lived through a lot and it has not been all that bad. We can talk about the fact that the current generation has more expressed anxiety than any before and about the way that our unresolved cultural issues create patterns that allow old wounds to persist. We can talk about all kinds of things like a living wage and economic disparity, but what does that have to do with judgment and forgiveness?
Do we tell those who have been wronged that they just need to forgive those who have wronged them? Do we tell those who owe a crippling debt to beg forgiveness? Do we take the Exodus reading as permission to celebrate the failure of oppressive systems? Do we take Paul’s words as encouragement that God will certainly judge the people we expect to be judged? Do we take the parable of the wicked servant as a condemnation of usury and credit debt?
Maybe, but while you ponder these things I want to take a moment to talk about auto mechanics. This is not my normal area of expertise, but if it is a matter of changing out a part – which usually requires searching on YouTube and calling my brother-in-law – I can do it.
My current exploration into this wonderland of combustion and simple machinery (which has become smarter than most of us) involves the starter in my wife’s car. Many of you may know what I have learned, however, I will regale you with the tail of this ignition system in simplest terms. The key tells the battery to spin a small motor (which is the starter) to turn over the engine, which begins the ignition process. There is more to it than that of course, but once the engine is running the starter retracts, and the alternator feeds energy back into the battery and related systems.
I am sure there is a mechanic or an engineer in the crowd who will correct me on one of those points, but again, that was in the simplest form I could offer. The important thing is that electricity makes a complete circuit, which seems to be the problem with my starter.
I tell you all of that to say this, forgiveness is what completes the circuit and starts the engine of justice and mercy.
Let us talk about that. First I want to acknowledge the experience of the Israelites as they saw the power of God take out the entire Egyptian army. Exodus 4:31 says “Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians. So, the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.” Right after that in chapter 15 Moses breaks into a song about it and Miriam breaks out a tambourine, and who can blame her?!
While it is good and right to celebrate salvation, there is yet a Rabbinic tradition that offers caution, saying that the heavens burst in song at the Egyptian’s defeat. Then God silenced them, saying they were my children, too.
Paul’s words seem to echo this idea of judgment tinged with compassion. More than a condemnation of vegetarians, Paul talks about food as it relates to customs of devotion and spiritual practice. He warns his community not to condemn others but to constantly invite them more deeply into Christian community, knowing that each of us will be judged.
Admittedly, the idea of standing before God in the afterlife feels a little more Hellenistic than Jewish, and I think it is meant to be held in balance with what Paul has to say about grace and mercy in Romans 11:6, “And if [salvation is given] by grace, then it cannot be based on works.”
Here, in chapter 14, Paul wants the church to know that judgment simply is not our job. Ours is to discern what is good, right, and faithful. According to Jesus, forgiveness is what is good, right, and faithful, and forgiveness is not just a one-and-done kind of thing.
Most of us operate with some ability to forgive on some level, but even at our most gracious we are apt to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, and I will cut you out of my life because this relationship is toxic.” OK, I added the last one, but that’s kind of how things go these days – and it’s probably nothing new.
I imagine Peter thought seven was a pretty big number. You may recall that just before this parable Jesus talked about the lost sheep and then about a way to bring someone back into the community of the faithful. There is something that I feel I missed last Sunday. In 18:17 Jesus said to treat someone who rejects the correction of the church as a gentile and a tax collector. As confusing as that sounds, having read these two passages together, I feel like there was an undercurrent of, “And how do we treat tax collectors, Matthew?”
Into this ring steps Peter. I love Peter. He always thinks he has it right, and sometimes he does. Sometimes he is so far off that Jesus calls him “Satan” and uses his answer as a teachable moment. This time, Peter says, “So how often do I have to forgive? Seven times?” Jesus answers, “Seven times? Multiply that by seventy and you will be close.”
Peter is expressing something that I’ve kind of been dancing around. Forgiveness is hard work. Between the woundedness that we have felt and our basic survival instincts and the fact that sometimes it just does not seem fair, you would think that seven chances to get it right would be more than enough!
Jesus does not seem to be concerned with that. Jesus is not concerned with forgiveness which is a means to an end. Jesus is concerned with forgiveness as it relates to the Kingdom of Heaven, and he tells a story to describe what that is like. It is a good story, but I have to say that it’s a little hard to connect it to our lived experience – since we don’t have Lords and Kings.
We do have a few super-rich people, though, and they control things like labor markets and such. We could certainly talk about that, but that might be better for a discussion group or private reflection. What I would like you to consider today is what Jesus had to say about the role of forgiveness and justice and mercy.
We start with this crazy amount of debt and an equal amount of compassion in vv 24-27. Then we find, in vv 28-30, that even the smallest amount of compassion is denied to others. This leads to a cry for justice in v 31, and then a reckoning for the servant’s lack of compassion in vv 32-34. Then Jesus wraps it up with a warning that we will receive the same from God if we do not forgive others with the same extravagance as we have been forgiven!
That lesson, that we must forgive as we have been forgiven, is pretty clear, but what are we to do about it when it comes to those that do not seem to be compassionate to others? What are we to do with those who cause harm? What are we to do when we, ourselves, are tempted to bank on forgiveness when we know that permission is simply going to be too hard to get?
First I will say that restraining evil is a good thing to do. When there is clear and obvious harm being done, we need to be able to cry out – like those in v31 – and protect those who cannot protect themselves. We can and must do that within the systems that we are a part of, but we also have to recognize that ultimate judgments are in the hands of God.
Beyond that, I want to remind you about the starter in my wife’s car. Think of it as the function of forgiveness. If the current is the grace and mercy of God, the starter is what puts them in motion to make the engine run! Forgiveness might not literally be the start of the circuit of love and fellowship, but it was in this story. It all began with the overwhelming mercy of the King, and mercy got fouled up when the servant failed to pass it on.
At the end of the day, the thing that really matters about forgiveness is not what it does for the other person. It’s about what it does for you. I do not mind telling you that I once had a supervisor, at Camp Glenkirk, say to me, “You put your foot in your mouth in conversations more than anyone I know, and yet somehow you are able to still be in a good relationship with others. I am not sure how you do that, but I do admire it.” I said, “Thank you? I did not know I did that…maybe it is because I try to give the same level of forgiveness that I need from others.”
What I have come to see in all these things is that God’s forgiveness knows no bounds, and so should mine. That does not mean giving permission to bad behavior. It means recognizing the humanity of the other person and shifting the weight of the relationship from the injury to the cure. We’ve seen this in places like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of the Apartheid government. Horrific crimes were forgiven through truth-telling and forgiveness and setting new boundaries for relationships. That is not to say that there are no more racial tensions or that pain does not persist. It is to say that forgiveness completes the circuit to move toward healing and acceptance.
In the end, we do not forgive for the sake of the other – though we may hope that the one we forgive will repent and change – we do it as a matter of character and an expression of identity as followers of Jesus. We forgive others because it releases us. We forgive others because it completes the circuit of grace and mercy and opens up new possibilities we may not yet imagine. It’s just that simple; and it’s just that hard; and to God be the glory for that, now and always. Amen!
Our readings focus on judgment and forgiveness, two great tastes that do not usually go so well together! Why is that, and what do I mean by that? To answer that, I will defer to one of the Saints of the church, Al Pfeuffer. Al lived to be 102, and he was such a great example of integrity to those of us who knew him. He lived through a century of change and even learned to use Uber to get to church. Al’s generation had to reconcile the weight of unleashing the horror of Oppenheimer’s vision in the hope of stopping worse horrors from being unleashed.
They lived through the Great Depression, Vietnam, Oil Embargos, and the birth of modern concepts of terrorism. I say all of that as a caveat to a conversation we once had about Matthew 5:43, “Love your enemies and do not hate them.” in which Al confessed that he was not sure how to do that.
To be fair, Al’s generation and those that followed have all lived through a lot and it has not been all that bad. We can talk about the fact that the current generation has more expressed anxiety than any before and about the way that our unresolved cultural issues create patterns that allow old wounds to persist. We can talk about all kinds of things like a living wage and economic disparity, but what does that have to do with judgment and forgiveness?
Do we tell those who have been wronged that they just need to forgive those who have wronged them? Do we tell those who owe a crippling debt to beg forgiveness? Do we take the Exodus reading as permission to celebrate the failure of oppressive systems? Do we take Paul’s words as encouragement that God will certainly judge the people we expect to be judged? Do we take the parable of the wicked servant as a condemnation of usury and credit debt?
Maybe, but while you ponder these things I want to take a moment to talk about auto mechanics. This is not my normal area of expertise, but if it is a matter of changing out a part – which usually requires searching on YouTube and calling my brother-in-law – I can do it.
My current exploration into this wonderland of combustion and simple machinery (which has become smarter than most of us) involves the starter in my wife’s car. Many of you may know what I have learned, however, I will regale you with the tail of this ignition system in simplest terms. The key tells the battery to spin a small motor (which is the starter) to turn over the engine, which begins the ignition process. There is more to it than that of course, but once the engine is running the starter retracts, and the alternator feeds energy back into the battery and related systems.
I am sure there is a mechanic or an engineer in the crowd who will correct me on one of those points, but again, that was in the simplest form I could offer. The important thing is that electricity makes a complete circuit, which seems to be the problem with my starter.
I tell you all of that to say this, forgiveness is what completes the circuit and starts the engine of justice and mercy.
Let us talk about that. First I want to acknowledge the experience of the Israelites as they saw the power of God take out the entire Egyptian army. Exodus 4:31 says “Israel saw the great work that the LORD did against the Egyptians. So, the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.” Right after that in chapter 15 Moses breaks into a song about it and Miriam breaks out a tambourine, and who can blame her?!
While it is good and right to celebrate salvation, there is yet a Rabbinic tradition that offers caution, saying that the heavens burst in song at the Egyptian’s defeat. Then God silenced them, saying they were my children, too.
Paul’s words seem to echo this idea of judgment tinged with compassion. More than a condemnation of vegetarians, Paul talks about food as it relates to customs of devotion and spiritual practice. He warns his community not to condemn others but to constantly invite them more deeply into Christian community, knowing that each of us will be judged.
Admittedly, the idea of standing before God in the afterlife feels a little more Hellenistic than Jewish, and I think it is meant to be held in balance with what Paul has to say about grace and mercy in Romans 11:6, “And if [salvation is given] by grace, then it cannot be based on works.”
Here, in chapter 14, Paul wants the church to know that judgment simply is not our job. Ours is to discern what is good, right, and faithful. According to Jesus, forgiveness is what is good, right, and faithful, and forgiveness is not just a one-and-done kind of thing.
Most of us operate with some ability to forgive on some level, but even at our most gracious we are apt to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, and I will cut you out of my life because this relationship is toxic.” OK, I added the last one, but that’s kind of how things go these days – and it’s probably nothing new.
I imagine Peter thought seven was a pretty big number. You may recall that just before this parable Jesus talked about the lost sheep and then about a way to bring someone back into the community of the faithful. There is something that I feel I missed last Sunday. In 18:17 Jesus said to treat someone who rejects the correction of the church as a gentile and a tax collector. As confusing as that sounds, having read these two passages together, I feel like there was an undercurrent of, “And how do we treat tax collectors, Matthew?”
Into this ring steps Peter. I love Peter. He always thinks he has it right, and sometimes he does. Sometimes he is so far off that Jesus calls him “Satan” and uses his answer as a teachable moment. This time, Peter says, “So how often do I have to forgive? Seven times?” Jesus answers, “Seven times? Multiply that by seventy and you will be close.”
Peter is expressing something that I’ve kind of been dancing around. Forgiveness is hard work. Between the woundedness that we have felt and our basic survival instincts and the fact that sometimes it just does not seem fair, you would think that seven chances to get it right would be more than enough!
Jesus does not seem to be concerned with that. Jesus is not concerned with forgiveness which is a means to an end. Jesus is concerned with forgiveness as it relates to the Kingdom of Heaven, and he tells a story to describe what that is like. It is a good story, but I have to say that it’s a little hard to connect it to our lived experience – since we don’t have Lords and Kings.
We do have a few super-rich people, though, and they control things like labor markets and such. We could certainly talk about that, but that might be better for a discussion group or private reflection. What I would like you to consider today is what Jesus had to say about the role of forgiveness and justice and mercy.
We start with this crazy amount of debt and an equal amount of compassion in vv 24-27. Then we find, in vv 28-30, that even the smallest amount of compassion is denied to others. This leads to a cry for justice in v 31, and then a reckoning for the servant’s lack of compassion in vv 32-34. Then Jesus wraps it up with a warning that we will receive the same from God if we do not forgive others with the same extravagance as we have been forgiven!
That lesson, that we must forgive as we have been forgiven, is pretty clear, but what are we to do about it when it comes to those that do not seem to be compassionate to others? What are we to do with those who cause harm? What are we to do when we, ourselves, are tempted to bank on forgiveness when we know that permission is simply going to be too hard to get?
First I will say that restraining evil is a good thing to do. When there is clear and obvious harm being done, we need to be able to cry out – like those in v31 – and protect those who cannot protect themselves. We can and must do that within the systems that we are a part of, but we also have to recognize that ultimate judgments are in the hands of God.
Beyond that, I want to remind you about the starter in my wife’s car. Think of it as the function of forgiveness. If the current is the grace and mercy of God, the starter is what puts them in motion to make the engine run! Forgiveness might not literally be the start of the circuit of love and fellowship, but it was in this story. It all began with the overwhelming mercy of the King, and mercy got fouled up when the servant failed to pass it on.
At the end of the day, the thing that really matters about forgiveness is not what it does for the other person. It’s about what it does for you. I do not mind telling you that I once had a supervisor, at Camp Glenkirk, say to me, “You put your foot in your mouth in conversations more than anyone I know, and yet somehow you are able to still be in a good relationship with others. I am not sure how you do that, but I do admire it.” I said, “Thank you? I did not know I did that…maybe it is because I try to give the same level of forgiveness that I need from others.”
What I have come to see in all these things is that God’s forgiveness knows no bounds, and so should mine. That does not mean giving permission to bad behavior. It means recognizing the humanity of the other person and shifting the weight of the relationship from the injury to the cure. We’ve seen this in places like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of the Apartheid government. Horrific crimes were forgiven through truth-telling and forgiveness and setting new boundaries for relationships. That is not to say that there are no more racial tensions or that pain does not persist. It is to say that forgiveness completes the circuit to move toward healing and acceptance.
In the end, we do not forgive for the sake of the other – though we may hope that the one we forgive will repent and change – we do it as a matter of character and an expression of identity as followers of Jesus. We forgive others because it releases us. We forgive others because it completes the circuit of grace and mercy and opens up new possibilities we may not yet imagine. It’s just that simple; and it’s just that hard; and to God be the glory for that, now and always. Amen!
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