Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 14, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
“Forgiveness Doesn’t Count” (Matthew 18:21-35)
“Forgiveness Doesn’t Count.” Oh, don’t get me wrong! I don’t mean that it’s
not important. No, forgiveness counts for a lot in that respect. In fact,
it’s everything. We’d be lost without it. But when I say, “Forgiveness
Doesn’t Count,” I mean it in the way that Jesus teaches it, which is to say,
forgiveness doesn’t keep score. Forgiveness doesn’t count--it doesn’t keep
score or keep track of--how many times it has to forgive or how much sin it has
to have mercy on.
That’s the way it is with God toward us, and that’s the way it is with us
toward one another. God forgives us, freely and completely. Therefore we are
to forgive one another in the same way, freely and completely, not counting or
keeping score or keeping track. That’s the connection Jesus draws in the Holy
Gospel for today, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.
What sets it up is Peter coming to Jesus with a question. Jesus has been
talking about life in his church that he’s going to establish, about how we are
deal with a brother who sins against us, how we are to seek to gain the brother
back. So that prompts a question from Peter: “Lord, how often will my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
Peter is trying to quantify forgiveness. He wants to keep score. He may think
he’s sounding generous and magnanimous, suggesting what seems to him like a lot
of times to have to show forgiveness. Seven times! Aren’t I being grand and
merciful, Jesus? I’m willing to go up to seven whole times!
But Jesus ups the ante: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times
seven.” Whoa, whip out your notepad, Peter! Seventy times seven! That comes
to . . . let’s see, carry the four . . . 490 times I’ve got to forgive the guy
who does me wrong! That’s a lot! I’m gonna need a bigger scorecard. But if I
keep a careful record, and I keep track of every infraction, then I guess on
the 491st time the bozo does me dirt, then I don’t have to forgive him! If
only I can hold out that long. . . .
Well, no, that’s not how it goes. It’s not like: 488, forgive; 489, forgive;
490, forgive, but that’s it. . . . Ah, 491, now I can finally get my revenge!
Bzzt! Wrong! Of course, we understand what Jesus is saying. By picking such
a ridiculously high number, he’s saying, in effect, Don’t keep score at all!
Not seventy times seven, not seventy-seven, not even seven. Don’t keep track
of how often you forgive. Just forgive, whether it’s the first time or the
491st. Forgiveness doesn’t count.
And to drive home the point, Jesus goes on to tell what we commonly refer to as
the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. You know the story. I’ll just
paraphrase it here briefly. There’s a servant who owes his king a whole bunch
of money--bazillions and bazillions of dollars. “Bazillions” was an ancient
unit of measurement, by the way. This guy had a debt so big Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac could have pooled their resources and they still would not have
been able to bail him out. I mean, this was a big debt. And now the king is
going to foreclose and call in the debt. The servant is hauled in, called on
the carpet before the king, and he’s told, “Pay up!” The guy is shaking in his
boots, ’cause he knows he has no means whatsoever to pay off this enormous debt
and he knows what the king could do to him.
But this king doesn’t do what he could do to the servant. He doesn’t toss the
guy in the hoosegow and throw away the key, leaving him there to rot in
debtors’ prison. No. He could have done that, by rights. But he chooses not
to. Instead, he has pity on him. The master has mercy on his servant and
forgives him his debt and releases him.
So now the servant is free and he’s learned a powerful lesson about mercy and
forgiveness. Or has he? Apparently not, because the first thing he does with
his freedom is to go out and find a fellow servant who owes him a little bit of
money--an extremely small amount, in comparison to what he owed the king. I
mean, we’re talking chump change. But this servant, who had been forgiven such
a huge amount by his master, will not show even a small fraction of that mercy
toward his fellow servant. He grabs him and starts to choke the poor fella.
“Pay me what you owe me!” he demands. He shows no pity toward the man who owes
him a measly few bucks and he has that guy thrown in prison. The unmerciful
servant has obviously not learned how forgiveness works in this kingdom. He
shows that he really does not want to operate on the basis of mercy but on the
old way of accounting and scorekeeping and payback and revenge. Sadly, he has
rejected the ways
of his king.
The king finds out and says, If that’s how it’s going to be with you, so be it.
Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200. And then Jesus puts the
punch-line warning on the parable: “So also my heavenly Father will do to
every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
My friends, the meaning is plain and clear: Forgiveness is the way it works in
the kingdom of heaven. If you want to operate on some other basis, of
scorekeeping and payback, you yourself would be in a whole heap of trouble.
That’s not how your heavenly Father has dealt with you. So why act that way
toward your fellow forgiven sinner? God has forgiven that other person, just
as he has forgiven you. Then why would you act as though you’re greater than
God? To not forgive is really to set yourself up as an idol. You think you’re
greater than God. God forgave that person, but you think you ought not to have
to. Who are you, O man, to not forgive someone whom God has already forgiven?
Who are you, O sinner, to not forgive someone else when you yourself have had
all your sins forgiven by God? You see, unforgiveness is a matter of idolatry
and of ingratitude and of rejecting the ways of God’s kingdom.
For all our unforgiveness, forgive us, O Lord! Give us new and merciful
hearts, reflecting the mercy you have shown toward us! Help us to realize that
you have forgiven that other person who may very well have wronged us. But
scorekeeping is not the way it is with you, O Lord. Help us to forgive, even
as we have been forgiven.
Jesus teaches us the importance of forgiveness over and over again in the
gospels. I guess it must have been important to him and he must have realized
how slow of heart we are to “get it.” Mercy toward sinners, love toward one
another--these are major themes in Jesus’ teaching to his disciples. This
matter is so important, Jesus even put it into the prayer he would have us pray
every day. In the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “And forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us.” Every time we ask for God’s
forgiveness--and we sin much daily--we are reminded that we extend that
forgiveness also toward those who do us wrong.
Likewise, in the Apostles’ Creed, we say, “I believe in . . . the forgiveness
of sins.” Well, do we or don’t we? If I believe in the forgiveness of sins,
then that applies to everybody, not just to me. I’m not the only person God
has forgiven. Christ died for that other person, too.
Well, see, now we’re getting at it, aren’t we? Forgiveness has to do--it has
everything to do--with the death of Jesus Christ for sinners. He not only died
for me and you, he also died for that brother who sinned against you, that
person you don’t like because he did you wrong. But then sometimes I’m the
jerk who does wrong to somebody else. Now magnify that offense by bazillions
and bazillions and you might begin to come close to measuring the offense you
and I have committed toward God, by thumbing our nose at the God who created us
and loves us so much. So we’re all in the same boat. And we’d all be up a
creek without a paddle, if it were not for the magnificent and unfathomable
mercy our king and master has shown toward every one of us. Forgiveness is the
way of the kingdom. There is no other way.
An analogy to help us understand the importance of forgiveness among Christian
brothers and sisters: Knee cartilage. Yes, knee cartilage. As one who played
a lot of basketball in his youth, I can attest to the value of cartilage,
especially when you don’t have it. Walking can become painful. Worst case
scenario, you get bone against bone, and that can be excruciating. Well, the
church is the body of Christ, and we need to walk together in “joint” accord,
if you will. And when you spend a lot of time together in close proximity, you
need the cartilage of forgiveness, or else you’ll rub each other the wrong way
and it can be pretty painful.
Same thing in a family, of course. Husbands and wives, parents and children,
you know the importance of forgiveness, if the household is going to function
harmoniously. The more time you spend together, the closer you are, the more
opportunities there are to hurt one another, ironically enough. So we need to
be able to forgive one another. Lord, help us to forgive as you have forgiven
each one of us, fully and freely, for Christ’s sake.
Another illustration: Motor oil. Without motor oil, regularly refreshed, the
engine will get dry and the friction will increase and things will get hot and
rough in a hurry. Soon you’re looking at a breakdown. Forgiveness is the
motor oil we need to keep things running smoothly.
Well, this would all be just moral exhortation without a basis or source, if it
were not for the inexhaustible mercy God has shown us in Christ. If I want you
to forgive your brothers and sisters here in this church or in your family at
home, I’m not just going to lecture you on the importance of forgiveness. Just
telling you what you ought to do will not enable you to do it. No, here again
I want to point you to the cross of Christ. There see the great mercy God has
shown to you, sending his only Son to take all of your sins--all of them, the
whole enormous debt--and to die for them, to die in your place, paying the
unpayable debt you owed with his holy blood of limitless value, for he is the
holy Son of God. Here at the foot of the cross is the school where you will
learn forgiveness. In Holy Baptism God washed away all your sins and made you
his child, to reflect his character. In Holy Absolution, time and time again,
God continues to forgive
you. In the Holy Supper, you receive Christ’s body and blood for the
forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness is where it’s at. It’s standard operating procedure in the kingdom
of God. And with this forgiveness, you also receive what it leads to: the
resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Dear ones, God does not
count your trespasses against you. And therefore you will not be able to count
the days you will spend, along with all your fellow redeemed in Christ, in the
unending bliss of heaven.
I had a professor at the seminary who used to say, when speaking about the
gospel, “No mathematics!” By that he meant, Don’t try to quantify how much God
forgives, as though it’s only a limited amount. It’s not like that.
Forgiveness, the gospel, is the whole lot and always more. “No mathematics!”
when it comes to forgiveness. God forgives all our sins, all the time, every
time. In the same way, then, we forgive one another, for we are God’s children.
Forgiveness doesn’t count. It doesn’t count or keep score or keep track of how
many times it is used or how large or small the debt is that it’s forgiving.
Forgiveness just . . . forgives. It’s like that with God toward us, isn’t it?
Yes, it is! God has forgiven our mountain of debt, all of it, all because of
Christ’s holy precious blood shed for us on the cross. And God keeps on
forgiving us, time after time after time when we sin against him, as we do on a
daily basis. My fellow forgiven in Christ, because of God’s immeasurable mercy
and forgiveness, we are his children, his family. And in this family,
forgiveness is a way of life--for each of us, and from each of us toward one
another. “No mathematics!”
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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