Sermon for Pentecost XV Year A 2017 Forgiveness Intended for Good Here is a cautionary tale about children s sermons and why so often adults learn more than the children. This is a story about the first children s sermon our daughter Katie ever experienced. This took place when Katie was 3-1/2 years old, back in the Spring of 1992. It was a stressful time for me. Joe was touring with the NYCO and we were buying our first home. Of course these were good things but they were also new things and I was really feeling the weight of the responsibility of being a single parent and getting ready to move. One weekday morning, I was trying to get Katie dressed and ready for pre-school when out of the blue she refused to wear what I had chosen for her. Normally, Katie was pretty easy to get ready in the mornings, but this day she decided she wanted to wear something else because (and I quote), the kids won t like me in this! What do you mean, the kids won t like me in this?! Again, stressed out, worrying about running late, I insisted (as the mother!) that she wear what I picked out for her. Well, you can imagine things did not progress well. She was adamant and I was adamant, because I guess I needed to prove that I was the Mom around here. Finally, I kind of lost it and yelled, Well that s it, I m taking all your toys away! And I began to pick up the toys scattered around and started tossing them into a basket. One of the toys a plastic truck Katie s grandpa had given her popped apart as it was thrown into the basket. You broke my truck! Katie wailed. At this point it was quite apparent that this contest of wills between mother and child was getting nowhere. Eventually I calmed down and got Katie calmed down. Honestly I don t even remember now whether she got her way about the outfit. But I do know we had a conversation on the way to pre-school about losing tempers and saying we were sorry. That weekend, instead of going to our church in Manhattan, I decided to stay in NJ and attend the local Lutheran church which was only two blocks from our apartment in Bayonne. We walked down to the church and sat in the back. It was a small congregation, so we were noticed right away. After the readings, the pastor invited the children to come forward for the children s sermon. Our church in Manhattan didn t offer children s sermons, so Katie was very excited about getting to go forward. 1
I told her to go ahead and she marched confidently down the aisle and sat right beside the pastor. The Pastor said, This morning, I want to talk with you about the story of Joseph and his brothers. You see, they had some trouble in their house. With that, Katie pipes up, We had trouble in our house! At that moment I didn t know whether to laugh or cry. You could hear people laughing but then Katie said, Mommy lost her temper and she broke my truck. I d never been quite that embarrassed and nervous before. What must these people be thinking? Fortunately, the pastor told Katie that she needed to hear the rest of the story. I heaved a sigh of relief. As the story was going on, I was thinking about whether or not we should stay, when I heard the pastor say, And the brothers said they were sorry to Joseph. Which prompted Katie to say: Mommy said she was sorry, too! Of course everyone was laughing but I was thinking about how we could make a quick escape. However, I decided we should stay until the end of the service how would it look if we didn t? As we walked back home, I talked with Katie about how it was important it was for her to listen to the story and not talk too much when she went up for a children s sermon. And here was my fatal mistake, I also said, And when you talk about someone else you should try to say nice things. Not having had enough punishment yet, I decided to return to the church down the street the following Sunday. Mostly because I wanted to prove that I had nothing to hide. It came time for the children s sermon and I let Katie go forward. Once again she happily went forward and sat down right next to the pastor whereupon she promptly said, I m only going to say nice things about my Mommy this time. As soon as Katie got back to her seat after the children s sermon, we left. Memories of Katie s first children sermon are never far away for me whenever I hear the story of Joseph and his brothers. It s certainly a story that humbles me. And when you come down to it, humility has a lot to do with forgiveness. Now I told you this story so we could laugh a bit before we get down to the difficult passage from the gospel today about forgiveness. Because even just talking about forgiveness makes many of us feel uptight, defensive, guilty, and sometimes even angry. But forgiveness is the heart of the gospel, so hear we go... 2
Just how many times are we supposed to forgive? How many times should we forgive someone who has wronged us? Seventy times or seventy times seven times which would be 490 pronouncements of forgiveness. What are we supposed to do? Peter thinks he s being generous when he suggests that he should forgive up to seven times when there is trouble in the house. After all, the rabbinical tradition was to forgive three times and then punishment would befall on the person when he or she would sin a fourth time. Peter not only doubles the tradition but he adds one more to make it seven which was considered a perfect number a number associated with God. Perhaps Peter was trying to show Jesus that he was willing to go the extra mile? But Jesus answer is actually not quantifiable. His answer could be 70 or it could be seventy times seven which would be 490 --it all hinges on how you translate or interpret the Greek. Perhaps the ambiguity of Jesus answer implies you should always forgive. Now that s one of the things about this passage that might make us want to get up and walk out. Because forgiveness is difficult, especially when it is commanded. I don t mean the occasional moment of warm-hearted forgiveness, overlooking someone s minor slight when you feel magnanimous. Nor do I mean the spontaneous forgiveness you feel when someone is genuinely contrite over some accidental and again preferably minor fault. What I m thinking about are those things that are really hurtful; those times when the person seems reluctant or refuses to take responsibility, let alone apologize; those episodes that continue to wound each time you remember them; those words or deeds that have marked you deeply and painfully and feel like they ll never go away. These are things that are so incredibly hard to forgive. Which is exactly what makes this passage so painfully difficult. As we noted before, Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive someone, and then offers to do so seven times, an answer that both more than satisfies the law and feels to most of us rather generous. And then Jesus comes back with his unquantifiable answer. In the end, I think it hardly matters how we translate it because, no matter how we do, Jesus is telling us to forgive the same person for sinning against you quite a lot of times. Unlike me who warmed things up with a funny story, Jesus, wiser and braver than I am, follows by telling a parable about forgiveness that, well, only intensifies his response to Peter. 3
The parable turns on the contrast between just how much one person is forgiven and how little that same person is asked to and refuses to forgive. This time the translation from ancient currency to modern matters a lot in order to get Jesus point. What we need to know is that a talent was worth about 130 pounds of silver which would take an average worker about fifteen years to earn. Now the first servant owed ten thousand talents, which means that the servant owed the king about 150,000 years of labor! In other words, he would never, ever be able to pay this debt back to the king. A denarius, by comparison, was worth about a day s wage, which meant that the second servant owed the first about a hundred days of labor. Not a small debt, but... possible to pay back. Now that we know the comparative values of the debts owed, we get the point of the parable: how could the servant possibly not forgive that (relatively) minor debt when he had just been forgiven an impossibly huge one? And then the parable closes ominously, as the unforgiving servant is handed over for punishment until he pays and Jesus warns that we, too, must forgive others or face the consequences. It would be easy to despair at ever being able to forgive the way the king in the parable forgives. But, I wonder, is that what Jesus is asking of us? Much as I d like to, I know I can t really identify with the king in this story. Yet I can identify with the servant with the massive debt who has been forgiven so, so much. Which means that my first job isn t to assume or insist that I must forgive innumerable debts, but simply to bask and be filled with gratitude in the unbelievable forgiveness, acceptance, and grace that I have experienced and try, as much as I can, to live out of that. The failure of the first servant isn t simply that he won t forgive his fellow servant, but that he has just experienced an utterly unexpected, completely beyond-his-wildest-dreams, life-changing moment of grace and seems absolutely untouched by it. And for this reason, he lives devoid of any sense of gratitude or humility. His whole life changed, and he didn t even notice. 4
As we approach the 500 th anniversary of the Reformation, it occurs to me that Luther s great insight was simply realizing that righteousness was not God s expectation but instead God s gift. Luther came to see that it wasn t his responsibility to be right with God, but God took the responsibility to put him (and all of us) right with God through Christ. Once he realized that some of God s favorite things to do are to forgive those who seem unforgivable, love those who feel unlovable, and make right those things that seem so persistently in the wrong, Luther was not only freed from his fear of punishment, but he was also freed to love and forgive and care for those around him. When we realize that forgiveness is not primarily God s expectation but rather God s gift, we sink into that mercy and grace and we find ourselves more able to turn in mercy and grace toward others. Some days this insight comforts me and lifts me up. But there are other times when I still wonder if there isn t some hidden obligation to forgive or even to accept God s forgiveness sufficiently enough. In those moments, I return to the act of the king and simply marvel that such forgiveness is even possible. Even when such forgiveness doesn t seem possible for me to offer because, yes, forgiveness can still be hard then I am still comforted and inspired by the fact that it s possible for God. Let me say that again: Forgiveness is a possibility. Whether I realize it or not, my struggle to forgive, my inability to live in grace, is not the only possibility and, thanks be to God, my inability does not have the last word. Which creates a new possibility. Indeed, forgiveness whether God s or ours interrupts the relentless tit for tat, (and eye-for-an-eye) rhythm of the world. To put it simply: the very possibility of forgiveness again, whether God s or ours in turn creates sheer possibility: things do not always have to be the way they are. This is what Joseph showed his brothers. It s what Jesus taught and shows to all of us. Forgiveness frees us, even heals us, and makes way for new possibilities. To forgive is to make a choice to release the person who has wounded us from the sentence of our judgment, however justified that judgment may be. When we forgive we are released from being captive to pain and anger and resentment. 5
Why would we choose to stay locked in bitterness instead of stepping into the wide-open freedom of being forgiven and forgiving? Because, you see, God does intend forgiveness for good for our good and the good of all. Yes, it s true, God s forgiveness is not fair; it s grace. God does not weigh what is fair and what is not. Thank God, God forgives beyond measure. And thank God, we are given the freedom to forgive as we have been forgiven. 6