Welcome, everyone, and thank you for being here, as we gather together to worship together, to join with each other in adoration of our heavenly Father. We are beginning a new series today that will speak about God s mercy. We call the gospel the good news, and this is part of what makes the news so good. Jesus has revealed to us that God is a merciful God, one who is eager to forgive us when we turn to Him, repent of our sins, and ask Him for mercy. That is good news for all of us. And yet, there are times when God s merciful nature might trouble us. We human beings, made in God s image and likeness, somehow choose to do horrific, evil acts. It isn t difficult to come up with some examples. There are those who seem to delight in inflicting as much harm on as many innocent people as they can with acts of terror. There are those who treat others as less than human simply because of their race or their creed or their sexual orientation. There are those who harm children, the most innocent and vulnerable among us, in ways that are unthinkable. These are sins that cry out to heaven for justice, for punishment, and we might think that there must be a special place in hell reserved for such sinners. But what if I told you that these sins we commit against each other are examples of debts that are small that we have to pay? In today s gospel, we 1
hear our Lord tell us a parable in which a man who owed a huge amount begged for forgiveness and received it, but who then would not extend that same forgiveness to another who owed him a much smaller amount. When the master forgave his large debt, he expected him to turn and forgive a smaller debt in return. With this parable, we are called to recognize that we are the ones who have been forgiven a huge amount by our Lord, larger than any amount we could ever be owed. God is infinitely good, He is infinitely loving and tender and caring towards us, He is infinitely innocent of any wrongdoing against us. So when we sin against Him, our sin is infinite. It is impossible for us to make restitution for a sin we commit against Love Himself, against Goodness Himself. And all sin is a sin against the Lord. Whatever we do to the least of our brethren, we do to Him, and that is a travesty. For the more innocent and more loving the person we hurt with our sin, the worse the sin is. We recognize that in our own human interactions. To harm a child is worse than to harm an adult, not because children are worth more than adults, but because they are more innocent, more trusting, more vulnerable. Thus, when we betray that and sin against a child, we recognize that that is especially wicked. 2
Multiply that by infinity for God. One might think that God is all-powerful, and so to sin against Him would not be as big a deal. Just the opposite. God is always leaving Himself open to receiving our love, making Himself vulnerable to His lowly creatures, never shutting Himself off from us. God only gives us good things and never betrays us. So sins against God are the worst sins we can commit. Any sin that is committed against us cannot compare, not because these sins are small they are not but because we are small, compared to the all-good, all-loving Lord. So if we are ready to receive forgiveness from God for the great debt that we owe Him, we must be ready to extend that same forgiveness to those who have a much smaller debt towards us, as large as they are in human terms. Consider for a moment whether there is anyone that you do not want to see in heaven. Is there someone who you do not want to love for all eternity and be loved by for all eternity? That person you won t talk to anymore, that person who hurt you or someone you love, that person who has caused so much suffering: would you resent it if they repented of their sin, God forgave them, cleansed them of their sins and purified their hearts so that no evil remained, and they were waiting for you with open arms and a big smile when you arrived in heaven? If so, we are holding onto a debt, we are failing in our duty to forgive, even after we have been forgiven so much. 3
My brothers and sisters, we all know that forgiveness can be hard. The pain that we are able to inflict on each other is extraordinary, pain and suffering that literally affects our entire lives. Our lives can be radically changed because of the sins of others, and that doesn t seem fair, someone should have to pay for that. And we do pay for our sins. God is merciful, but He is also just, and we trust Him to make sure that in heaven, everything is balanced, that nothing is left undone. But the tragic irony is that withholding our forgiveness does not affect the other person one bit, and it does not affect whether or not God will forgive them. He does not look to us to ask whether or not He should show mercy to a sinner. But withholding our forgiveness does affect us and our own forgiveness profoundly. When the Lord taught us to pray, he told us to say, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We will be shown mercy to the degree that we have shown mercy. By refusing to forgive others, by wanting them to suffer eternal damnation, we cut ourselves off from our loving and merciful God. We cannot love God and hate our neighbor at the same time. It is impossible. We have to make a choice: love for God and desiring His will be done, including that we all be saved, or unforgiveness, and separating ourselves from God. 4
On this Lord s day, as we gather together to worship our merciful God, let us ask our Lord to forgive us for our sins, and to help us forgive those who have sinned against us. Let go of the desire that they suffer, let go of our judgment of what they deserve, and instead leave judgment to God, and pray that they repent for what they ve done, turn away from the evil that they commit, and receive forgiveness from our Lord. That is our Lord s desire. That is what it means to worship a God of mercy. 5