Shutting Down the Storage Units That Hold Our Grudges Exodus 14:19-31; Matthew 18:21-35 September 17, 2017 By Dr. David B. Freeman, Pastor Weatherly Heights Baptist Church I haven t yet read Hillary Clinton s new memoir, What Happened. It just came out last week. I have read some reviews of it, and I ve seen her interviewed about it. The memoir is her account of what happened in the 2016 presidential campaign. Apparently she is to be pretty upfront with what she thinks went wrong. She blames her loss on many people. The first is Bernie Sanders. He kept telling the public that she was in the pocket of the big banks, and she couldn t shake that. Even his endorsement of her at the end seemed disingenuous. She also blames James Comey, the FBI Director. His October 28 letter to Congress effectively ended her campaign. The purpose of the letter was to inform Congress that he was reopening his investigation into her use of a private email server to conduct State Department business. She also blames the Russians, sexism, the media, and many other people and issues. To her credit in the end, she blames herself. A New York Times review of her book had one line in particular that caught my attention. It is a harsh critique of Mrs. Clinton: (Her book) is a grim reminder of the worst we ve read about Clinton: She needs a separate storage unit to hold her grudges. (Jennifer Senior, Hillary Clinton Opens Up about What Happened, September 12, 2017) I watch all this as a pastor, not a politician. As a pastor, I can imagine the bitterness Hillary Clinton must have felt, the anger, the sense of rejection, the desire for revenge, and the temptation to spiral into depression. As a pastor, I know that those who need a separate storage unit to hold their grudges are in danger emotionally, physically, and spiritually. There is a reason we say my blood was boiling. Something is literally happening inside our bodies that is not
good. That kind of anger and resentment, all the grudges, are toxic, and over time they can be very damaging. We ve all been there, haven t we? We ve all felt bitterness about something, anger at someone, rejection, and the desire for revenge. We ve all been tempted by that accumulation of negative emotion to spiral into depression. It really is a dangerous place, so we must find a way to shut down those storage units that hold our grudges. Apparently, the apostle Peter had a storage unit or two he needed to shut down. His question of Jesus in Matthew is quite telling: Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? Actually Peter was being pretty generous, especially since there is no indication of an apology. Forgive someone seven times who doesn t apologize? That is quite generous. Notice Jesus response, though: Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times. This was not Math 101 by Professor Jesus. This was a theological lesson, not a mathematics lesson. The story Jesus tells next illustrates the lesson. A king, Jesus says, wanted to settle accounts with one of his servants. This servant apparently managed the king s business affairs, and the servant had racked up an enormous debt, probably from mismanagement of the king s wealth. Jesus said he owed 10,000 talents. Let me give you a little background on this. A talent was their largest denomination of money. It has nothing to do with singing or playing the piano. Anybody know what our largest denomination of money is? It s the $100 bill. I asked my banker once why we don t have a $1,000 bill or a $10,000 bill. He said simply, What if you lost it? I dropped my wallet in Lake Guntersville a few weeks ago. Imagine if I had had a $10,000 bill in it! I d still be scuba diving over there! So our largest bill is $100. The talent was theirs. Ten thousand was their largest number. We don t have a largest number; they did and it was 10,000. What Jesus is describing is an amount beyond calculation, their largest denomination of money times their largest number. It was enormous. It was 2
unpayable. In other words, this servant was hopelessly in debt to the king. Jesus says that the servant fell on his knees before the king. He begged, Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything. Remember those words. Though they were not true he could never repay the debt his words are important to the story. The original hearers of this story probably expected a ruthless response from the king. Surely they were surprised when the king extended mercy to the servant. The king forgave his unpayable dept. But notice what happened. As this servant left the presence of the king, forgiven a great debt, he ran into someone who owed him money. He seized the man by the throat and said, Pay what you owe. Jesus says that the man owed him one hundred denarii. It was miniscule compared to what the first servant owed the king. It was nothing. For you mathematicians, it was 1/600,000 th of what the first servant owed the king. Okay, do you remember the words of the first servant when he begged for forgiveness? The second servant said the same thing to him, Have patience with me, and I will repay you. But Jesus says that this servant who had just been shown mercy by the king refused to show mercy to the man who owed him. This unmerciful servant threw that man into prison. He had just been forgiven an unpayable debt, and he threw a man in prison over a miniscule debt. Some people saw it and reported it to the king. summoned the servant and said to him, The king You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay the entire debt. 3
Here s what I think. Peter s question of Jesus was the wrong question. How often should I forgive, Jesus? As many as seven times? If you re counting, you haven t really forgiven. If you re counting, the bitterness is still there, along with the anger and the desire for revenge. If you re counting and you get to number seven, you re probably hoping that they ll do it one more time. Then you can rightfully, justifiably unleash all that boiling blood upon them. No, Jesus said, not seven times. Seventy-seven times. Or as some translations read, seventy times seven. Unlimited mercy. Unlimited forgiveness. Jesus knew that we ve got to shut down those storage units where we hold our grudges, all that anger and bitterness. We ve got to get rid of all that because it is toxic. He knew how dangerous it is emotionally, physically, and spiritually. So the question is, how? It s not like a light switch that we can simply turn off. How do we forgive others? Consider these four steps. First, we must recognize that no one is perfect, including the person who hurt us. When we re angry with someone, we tend to lose our perspective about that person. We tend to dehumanize them and think of them only as evil and mean. Most are not. But we are imperfect, including our parents, our spouse, our boss, our neighbor. No one is perfect. Second, we must acknowledge that the person who harmed us is more that just the person who harmed us. Whether we want to admit it or not, she is a real human being whose personhood extends beyond the hurtful thing she did to us. She still has the capacity for good, to love and be loved. She is not defined only as the person who harmed us. Third, we must be willing to let go of anger, bitterness, resentment, the desire for revenge. I say we must be willing to let go. That doesn t mean it will happen instantly or easily. In fact, do not expect the anger and bitterness to go away immediately. But if we are willing to let it go, over time it will abate. And fourth, here s the theological lesson: we must remember that we have been forgiven. An enormous debt. An unpayable debt. While we were yet sinners, Paul wrote, Christ died for us. The King has 4
shown mercy to us. The appropriate response to that gift of mercy is to show mercy to others. If I could speak to Hillary Clinton (not that she would listen to anything I have to say), I would tell her that shutting down the storage units that hold her grudges would be the greatest gift she could give her self. By forgiving others, we ultimately set ourselves free. So be free. By the mercy of the King, be free. Closing Prayer Set us free, Lord, from all the anger and resentment that holds us bondage. Amen. 5