Matthew 18:21-35 21 Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? 22 Jesus said to him, Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. 23 For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything. 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, Pay what you owe. 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, Have patience with me, and I will pay you. 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart. 1
09.07.2014 Forgive Us Our Debts I mentioned once before that for a short while Sandy and I owned a Christian café in New York City. I look back on that time as if it were a dream. It doesn t seem real. The truth of the matter is we had no business being in business. We had no experience running a café. Nor did we have much in the way of savings to start a business. In fact, we had just bought an apartment about a year earlier. Our apartment was close to the World Trade Center. Because we lived near the World Trade Center at the time of 9/11, we received a grant of $10,000 from the Red Cross. This was meant to serve as an incentive for us to keep living in our apartment. But we had no desire to leave. In fact, at a time when many people were selling their apartments in Lower Manhattan, we went to the bank and took out a loan against ours. I think it was for $12,000. With the $10,000 from the Red Cross, the $12,000 from the loan, and cash advances that we received from some credit cards, we were able to open the café. Long story short, as a business we failed. We lost money every single month. Each month our debt grew deeper. We managed to stay in business for just eighteen months. When the café eventually closed in August of 2003 we were $30,000 in debt. My father was an accountant, so he was very good at managing money. He was especially good at avoiding debt. He paid his credit cards in full every month. He never spent beyond his means. We always bought used cars, never new, and always American, never imported. He imparted the value of frugality of living within one s means to me and to my siblings. 2
So when he learned that Sandy and I owed $30,000, he wanted to help us out. He offered to give us a loan of $30,000 to pay our debt, and then we would pay him back at no interest, rather than paying the high interest charged by the credit card companies. At first I declined. It s not that I didn t appreciate the offer, but it was our mess and I felt we were responsible for cleaning it up. But he insisted and so we accepted. Although it felt good to be out from under the credit card companies, we still owed $30,000. I don t like owing money to anyone, even to my father. So we began making monthly payments--$200 here, $300 there, and sometimes, like when we got our tax refund or when we sold our apartment, we would pay a much larger lump sum. After four years we had paid $20,000. We were getting closer. There was light at the end of the tunnel. In another few years we would have the full amount paid. And that s when I got the phone call from my mother telling me that my father was waiving the remaining $10,000. Just like that our debt was forgiven. We were free. I don t remember clearly, but I think I felt physically lighter that day, as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Forgiveness is something that many of us have a hard time with granting it, receiving it, and even understanding it. In its most literal sense, forgiveness refers to the cancelling of a debt. The one to whom money is owed cancels, or forgives, the debt, freeing the debtor of his responsibility to pay. The Bible speaks of this type of forgiveness over and over again. We hear it in the language of the Lord s Prayer [SLIDE]. Here in the English Ministry we say the words forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. A trespass basically means sin. Forgive us our sins. That translation is based on the Lord s Prayer as it is found in Luke 11. But in Matthew 6 we encounter a slightly different version of the Lord s Prayer: forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven 3
our debtors. Luke and Matthew use different Greek words to explain how forgiveness works, a difference that is captured in English with sin versus debt. As we see in this example, in the language of the Bible, the concepts of sin and debt are interwoven. In fact, they are often interchangeable. We see that in today s reading in which Peter asks Jesus how often he ought to forgive a member of the church. Since the question is how often we can assume that Peter is not talking about forgiving a financial debt. Yet Jesus responds by telling him a parable about just that forgiveness of a financial debt. So as we talk today about forgiveness, I want us to keep in mind the concept of forgiving a financial debt. It will help us understand the nature of forgiveness, which is why Jesus uses the metaphor in the first place. Today I m going to try something different. Normally I try to limit my sermons to one point, and to some extent I will do that today. That one point is that we forgive because we have been forgiven. We forgive because we have been forgiven. But forgiveness is such a misunderstood concept. So rather than focus on just one point, I want to highlight five aspects of forgiveness that will help us understand the nature of forgiveness [SLIDE]: 1. Forgiveness acknowledges the harm done 2. Forgiveness is a process 3. Forgiveness works both ways (for the forgiver and the forgiven) 4. Forgiveness doesn t always lead to reconciliation 5. Forgiveness is a work of the Holy Spirit Forgiveness acknowledges the harm done [SLIDE] Some people even some Christians think that Christians ought to be like robots, as though we are programmed to mindlessly and instantaneously forgive any wrong done. Come on, I said I m sorry. You have to forgive me! Such an attitude sees no 4
degree of severity among sins. Cutting in line to get on the bus and driving while drunk and killing someone are treated as though they are of the same moral weight. But for forgiveness to be genuine, or from the heart, as Jesus says at the end of the parable, it must take sin seriously. Forgiveness must acknowledge that harm was done. And the greater the harm done, the more difficult it will be to forgive and the longer it will take until we are able to forgive, which leads to the second point. Forgiveness is a process [SLIDE] Forgiveness is not a one-time act it takes time, sometimes a long time, which is to say that forgiveness is a process. Forgiveness that s given too quickly out of obligation, because that s what Christians are supposed to do, is not genuine. Forgiveness given too quickly only covers a lingering resentment. It s like bandaging a wound without first cleaning it. When you accidentally cut yourself, you don t immediately put a bandaid over the cut. You first wash the cut with soap and running water to remove any contaminants. Then when the wound is clean you cover it with a band-aid. The sins we commit against one another cause wounds as well. If we are too quick to put on a bandaid, the wound won t properly heal. The pain will linger because of the resentment that has been covered over. Resentment is like an infection that prevents full healing. Forgiveness heals both the forgiven and the forgiver [SLIDE] We tend to think of forgiveness as benefiting the one who is forgiven. Through being forgiven he or she is relieved of guilt. But forgiveness also benefits the one who forgives. We see this in the nation of Rwanda, which is still recovering from the wounds of the genocide that took place there in 1994. Rwanda, which is in central Africa, is composed of two tribes, the Hutu, who comprise the majority, and the minority Tutsi. From April to July 1994 an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis were massacred by members of the Hutu majority. 5
Twenty years later Rwandans are still working through forgiveness and reconciliation. Earlier this year The New York Times published a photo essay that profiled the mixed results of those efforts. Each photograph brought together a male Hutu and a female Tutsi, a perpetrator and a victim of that very perpetrator. I want to show some of these photos and read some of what each had to say about seeking and granting forgiveness. Photo 1 [SLIDE] The man on the left looked on and did nothing while the brother of the man on the right was murdered. Later he asked for forgiveness and it was granted. This is what the man who forgave said: Sometimes justice does not give someone a satisfactory answer cases are subject to corruption. But when it comes to forgiveness willingly granted, one is satisfied once and for all. When someone is full of anger, he can lose his mind. But when I granted forgiveness, I felt my mind at rest. Photo 2 [SLIDE] In this photograph, the man on the left, Jean Pierre, killed the father and three brothers of the woman on the right, Viviane. He eventually went to her house and asked for forgiveness. Miraculously, for it could not have come easily, she gave it to him. Viviane says now, I was afraid of him now I have granted him pardon, things have become normal, and in my mind I feel clear. Photo 3 [SLIDE] Dominique, the man on the left, looted the home of Cansilde, the woman on the right, after she was forced to flee a Hutu mob. Dominque talks of the guilt he lived with, as well as the freedom that came with seeking forgiveness: The day I thought of asking pardon, I felt unburdened and relieved. I had lost my humanity because of the crime I committed, but now I am like any human being. Of their reconciliation Cansilde says, I was like a dry stick; now I feel peaceful in my heart, and I share this peace with my neighbors. 6
The words of both the perpetrators and the survivors testify that forgiveness works in two directions simultaneously [SLIDE]. It brings peace to both. To the perpetrator wracked with guilt, it causes them to acknowledge the suffering they inflicted and it uses their guilt in a constructive manner, i.e., as a step toward reconciliation. To the victim forgiveness brings freedom from a self-destructive anger. One psychologist has said that To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you. And as Cansilde s example shows, forgiveness can even be a blessing to the community when the inner peace that flows from forgiveness is shared with one s neighbors. Forgiveness doesn t always lead to reconciliation These examples from Rwanda show the power of forgiveness to reconcile people on opposite sides of a terrible pain. However, I would argue that they are exceptional examples of the reconciliation that forgiveness can lead to. Note that I said can. Forgiveness can lead to reconciliation, but reconciliation is not always the end result. In other words, forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. Reconciliation occurs, as the people of Rwanda show, when the perpetrator and the victim come together to talk and to listen to one another. The victim expresses the hurt experienced while the perpetrator shows remorse. They listen to each other. From opposite sides they draw closer until a hand is extended. We saw in some of the photos the victim actually place her hand upon the man who harmed her. I m sure that they had to work long and hard to get to that point. That s just it. Reconciliation requires two parties working together, each making a good faith effort to achieve reconciliation. Some perpetrators have no such interest in reconciling. You see this sometimes in court cases where the person found guilty of a crime remains defiant and shows nothing but contempt for the victim and even the victim s family. With such a person reconciliation is not possible. The same holds true when the perpetrator wields physical power over 7
the victim. Anyone who suffers physical or sexual abuse, and who still lives under the threat of that abuse, is not obligated to reconcile with their tormentor, even if the abuser is a spouse or parent. I told you once of a friend of mine who had a difficult relationship with his father. His father caused great pain in his marriage and in his relationship with his son. He was a violent man who hit both his wife and his son. When my friend was a teen he couldn t take it any longer and challenged his father to a fight. Fortunately, the fight never happened. Eventually my friends mother got out of the marriage for her own safety and that of her son. Years later, after therapy and prayer and through the grace of God my friend reached the point where he was able to forgive his father. Through forgiveness he was freed of the pain his father caused. While he was able to forgive, he had no interest in reconciling. To reconcile with an unrepentant abuser would mean chaining himself again to that pain. Forgiveness is a work of the Holy Spirit [SLIDE] Forgiveness is not an act of will on our part but a work of the Holy Spirit. I m pretty sure that there are some sins, that if committed against me or a loved one, I would not have the power to forgive. I look at those women from Rwanda and I marvel. But it is not them I marvel at so much as God, who granted to them the ability to forgive. Where else does this miraculous power to forgive even the worst offenses come from but from God? For it was on the cross, as he hung dying, that Jesus said of those who crucified and mocked him, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Lk. 23:34). In the end it comes back to Christ. (Doesn t it always?) The source of our ability to forgive is the one who forgives over and over again [SLIDE]. How often should I forgive? Peter asks. As many as seven times? Not seven times, Jesus tells him, but seventy-seven times (Mt. 18:21). This is not some mathematical game that Jesus is 8
playing, nor is he suggesting that forgiveness has an eventual limit seventy-eight. In the Bible certain numbers have symbolic significance. Seven is one such number. It signified completeness and perfection, as seen in the seven days of creation and the corresponding seven-day week. So by saying that we should forgive not seven but seventy-seven times Jesus is telling us that forgiveness is meant to be infinite. It has no end. It has no limit. It has no limit because God s forgiveness for us has no limit. And so we forgive because we have been forgiven. Last week I drew our attention to the Assurance of Pardon that follows the Prayer of Confession in the bulletin. I focused on the fact that in Jesus Christ love is stronger than hatred, hope is stronger than despair, and life is stronger than death. And today I call our attention to the Assurance of Pardon again, but this time to the last line: We are forgiven, loved, and set free. Forgiveness is liberating. It is liberating because it is grounded in Christ s love for us sinners. Whether it is received or given, forgiveness frees us from bondage to sin and all the pain that sin causes. Both in being forgiven, and in forgiving others, we are set free to be the people of love, grace, and forgiveness that God created us to be. 9