Proper 19 -- Ecclesiasticus 27: 30 – 28: 7; Psalm 103: 8-13; Romans 14: 5-12; Matthew 18: 21-35
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at The
Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois on Sunday, September 14, 2014.
“HOW MANY TIMES IS ENOUGH?”
(Homily text: Matthew
18: 21-35)
“How many
times is enough?”
Essentially,
that is what Peter asks the Lord as he says, “Lord, if another member of the
church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
The
designers of our lectionary for this morning have done an admirable job of
choosing three passages which have to do with forgiveness. Even the Psalm for this morning declares
God’s forgiveness, as it says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has
he removed our sins from us.” (103: 12)
Let’s
concentrate our attentions this morning on our gospel text alone. For Peter’s question arises in the text
immediately out of Jesus’ teaching about a person who has sinned, and about the
process by which the body of Christ (that is, the Church) is to deal with the
problem.[1]
Peter’s
question is one that ought to concern every one of us, as we seek to love the
Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and as we seek to love our
neighbor as we love ourselves. For it is
certain that occasions of offense will arise, giving us the opportunity to
forgive one another, even as we have been forgiven ourselves. (More on all of this in a moment.)
In response
to Peter’s question, the Lord spins out a tale of a Gentile king, his servant,
and another servant with whom the first servant has been dealing. Generally,
the Lord’s teaching is known by the title “The Parable of the Unforgiving
Servant.”
Some
details in this parable are worthy of closer attention…..
First of
all, most scholars agree that the Lord is portraying the action of a Gentile
king. They point to proscriptions in
Jewish law that forbade the selling of family members into slavery in order to
pay debts, and to provisions in Jewish law which forbade the use of torture
(which was commonly practiced in the ancient world).
Next, we
ought to note the way in which the Lord tells us about the amounts of money
owed by the first servant, and by the second.
The first servant owed his king 10,000 talents. In Jesus’ time, a talent was equal to the
wages of a day laborer for fifteen years.
We might compare this amount to the total amount of taxes that King
Herod the Great received from all the lands he ruled in one year: That amount was about 900 talents. In ancient times, the number 10,000 was the
highest number available to quantify things.
In today’s parlance, we might tell this story by saying that the first
servant was in debt by the amount of billions of dollars. The Lord’s point seems to be that the amount
owed was completely beyond anyone’s ability to repay. By contrast, the amount owed by the second
servant to the first, 100 denarii, was equal to 100 days’ pay for a day
laborer. Certainly, this amount could
have been repaid, if only the first servant had shown mercy and had exercised
some patience. We will reflect on these
aspects of the parable in a moment.
The Lord’s
point seems to indicate that we are in debt to God to such an extent that we can
never expect to repay the debt we owe.
By contrast, however, we do have the ability to forgive those who
trespass, who owe a debt, to us.
But what
about forgiving others to the extent that Peter asks about, or that the Lord
demand that we forgive?
I will
speak personally here in response to this question…..
If left to
my own devices, I might be inclined to forgive someone who had wronged me maybe
one time. If the offender is a child or a grandchild, I would grant them more
occasions of forgiveness. And yet – children and grandchildren excepted - I am also aware that, even if I do forgive
that person, I am likely never to forget the offense.
Hmmmm…..
I fall far
short of even the standard that Peter suggests, don’t I?
Peter’s
suggestion that he forgive someone seven times seems to suggest that, if he had
forgiven someone that many times, that he could then cease from forgiving. The reason is that the number seven by the
reckoning of the Bible is the number that suggests “ceasing from work” (as in
Genesis 2:2, when God rested from the work of creation), and as we find the
significance of the number seven in the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath
day, in which one was required by the Law of Moses to do no work, to rest.
Knowing
that I already fall short of even Peter’s standard, how then am I to meet the
Lord’s standard, which calls for multiples of the number seven[2] as
the number of times we are required to offer forgiveness to others.
We need
God’s strength to accomplish that, or even to begin to try.
The
strength to begin to have the love and concern necessary to forgive someone a
large number of times stems from remembering how many times we, ourselves, have
been forgiven by God.
Again, I
will speak personally to this point….
As I look
back on my life, I recognize the reality of the saying, “I am a work in
progress!” At times, I seem to make one
step forward in my walk with God, but then I fall back two or more steps. Again, I am forgiven, strengthened, given a
boost, and shown the way to go, and I manage three steps forward. But soon, I am, again, in need of God’s
forgiveness, God’s patience, God’s insight, God’s power as I slip back a step
or two or more to behave in a new, different and more godly way.
Is my life
experience anything like yours? Are you,
too, a “work in progress?”
I suspect,
if we are honest with ourselves and with God, that all of us are “works in
progress.” We are in need of – and most
likely have received – God’s graciousness, forgiveness and strength.
If we look
at the business of forgiveness, of being forgiven and of forgiving others, at
the very heart of the matter is the reality that, if forgiveness is not offered
and received, then walls of separation begin to rise. Pretty soon, we are alienated from God. Pretty soon, we are alienated from one
another, and the Church’s witness to the world around us is blunted.
That is one
reason why we have a Confession of Sin in our Sunday worship. This part of the liturgy asks God to wipe the
slate clean, and to pardon us so that we can be connected anew to the living
God. It is no accident that the
Confession of Sin takes place immediately before we approach the Holy Table of
the altar, where we will commune with the Lord in the elements of bread and
wine. The Holy Eucharist allows the
walls of separation to be broken down, so that we may enter into an intimate
encounter with the living God.
One final
point is in order: Forgiveness is a two
way street: Matthew’s gospel text makes
it clear that, in order to be forgiven by God, we must be willing to forgive
others. The well known phrase in the
Lord’s Prayer points to this reality as it says, “Forgive us our trespasses, as
we forgive those who trespass against us.”
But the verses which immediately follow this wonderful prayer serve to
drive the point home: There, we read,
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you; but it you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly
Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew
6: 14–15)
So, to a
very large extent, we are in control of our own destiny where forgiveness is
concerned. We have already been forgiven by God for the insurmountable,
unpayable amounts of our own sins and trespasses. That is God’s gift to us, freely given. We, in turn, are to turn around and pass
through God’s forgiveness to others, as we offer our own forgiveness to
them. God’s forgiveness ought to soften
our hearts toward others.
That seems
to be the gist of the Lord’s teaching that we hear today.
May the
Holy Spirit prepare in our hearts the awareness of God’s great mercy and
forgiveness, that we may, in turn, offer that same generosity to others, that
their hearts may also be softened to receive our forgiveness and God’s.
AMEN.
