Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
November 8, 20079
22nd Sunday after Trinity
So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, “Have patience with
me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the
master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. Matthew
18:26-27
Before we consider the obvious lesson of the parable, let’s take a
moment to think about the less evident but more important one, namely
that Jesus is the Merciful Lord of the parable, who paid the debt we
owe by His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. This
is our faith, our life, our hope and our joy.
Jesus is the Merciful Lord. Numerous times in His earthly ministry
people called on Him for aid and He answered them all: the thief on
the cross who was suffering the wages of his sin; the Canaanite woman
who was willing to eat crumbs because she loved her daughter more than
her pride; and the father of a self-destructive son who was possessed
by a demon to name just a few. They didn’t ask Jesus for silver or
gold or jewels but only for mercy and He gave it because they believed
and asked. May we all so believe, and so call upon our Lord Jesus
Christ in every trouble whatever it might be, and know that He will
always hear us and extend mercy to us.
Jesus isn’t only our Merciful Lord, but our Merciful Servant as well.
He says in Matthew 20:28 “the Son of Man came not to be served but to
serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus did many
things in His earthly ministry. He preached God’s Word, taught
heavenly wisdom to earthly people, miraculously reversed the
consequences of sin and kept the Law perfectly on our behalf. All of
these things were vital parts His saving mission, but the one thing we
glory in above all is the Cross of Christ which still towers over the
wrecks of time, and still confers grace, mercy and peace to sinners
throughout the ages.
When Jesus died God forgave the sins of the world, all of them,
including yours. Always remember that and never doubt it. But the
problem with sin is that we can’t see it with our eyes. We can see
its effects; most obviously in the way we interact with one another,
amusing ourselves by abusing one another.
Why else does a man on Cleveland’s east side rape and murder eleven
women? Why else do those in power print and borrow money like there’s
no tomorrow and send the bill to us and our children? What do their
balance sheets look like before the Lord?
But more importantly, what does ours look like? Are we better than
they? Less sinful? More righteous? Kinder or gentler? God forbid!
Scripture emphatically states that, “there is none that is righteous,
no not one.” (Romans 3:10).
We all plot to game the system.
We all want a free ride.
We’re all more than happy to accept pardon for the mountains of debt
we owe, but un-willing to extend the same pardon to those whose debt
is but a mole hill by comparison.
No, we can’t see sin with our eyes, and divine justice is something in
the foggy future. And so in order to teach us this central lesson of
the Christian faith Jesus uses a parable in which He compares sin to
debt.
The Unmerciful Servant was in dire trouble. Like much of the
financial world today he had borrowed too much money. He was up to
eyeballs in debt and now it was time to repay, but his investments all
went suddenly south. He was upside down, under water, and had no way
to pay what he owed. Unlike today, there were no bailouts in Jesus’
day. But there were debtor prisons and a strict code of justice which
if applied today would land many of the world’s financiers into a
deep, dark, dank prison.
But lest we feel smug please know that the parable isn’t about Wall
Street, but about Main Street, about us. We too have incurred
unsustainable debt before God and man by our countless transgressions.
(Luke 15:21) Every violation is like money borrowed that we must pay
back. But like the Unmerciful Servant we have no means, and so all
that remains for us is to be sold into temporal and eternal
punishment.
The Unmerciful Servant was no fool however, nor should we be. He
entered negotiations without a leg to stand on, and not a chance in
the world of winning. His desperate request was not to be forgiven,
but only for more time. It wouldn’t have helped because he never could
have paid back the debt he owed, and neither can we. But in the end
it didn’t matter because he got much more than he ever bargained for,
the Merciful Lord forgave the entire debt and set him free! And so it
is with us!
We too have been released. We too have been set free from the
consequences of our sins before God. Not by bargaining, but by
confessing and believing. St. John states in his first epistle that
if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all un-righteousness. (1 John 1:9)
Why does he say that?
He says “just” because the Merciful Servant paid our debt, in full, on
the cross and there is no balance due. And He says “faithful” because
God does exactly what He had promised to do from the beginning, namely
to forgive our iniquity and remember our sins no more. (Jeremiah
31:34)
We said earlier that the parable is about Jesus who is the Merciful
Lord and Servant, but it’s about us too. Once we grasp the divine
transaction that occurred on the Cross, and the mountain of debt that
has been forgiven us, it is incumbent upon us to forgive the mole hill
of debt that others owe us.
Those mole hills can often seem like mountains to us. People can be
cruel and heartless. They can rob us of joy and make us wish we were
never born. That’s the reality of life in a sinful world and we must
never, like so many co-dependants, deny it or minimize it. But as
Forgiven Servants we must acknowledge that the debt of sin we owed to
God was immeasurably greater than the debts that others owe to us; and
that it’s our high Calling in Christ to forgive others even as God in
Christ has forgiven us. (Eph. 4:32)
We have no duty to expose ourselves to the assaults of others. Nor
should we confuse forgiving wrong, with excusing it. Nor can we
forgive the sins people commit against others, against society, or
remit civil penalties.
Never-the-less forgiveness lies at the very heart of the Christian
faith; God’s forgiveness extended to us in Christ, and our forgiveness
extended to others who desire it from us.
It’s not always easy to do, and the repetitive sins we commit against
one another often make us weary. And so we pray that the Father of
all mercies, and God of all comfort would grant us a hearty faith to
believe that He has pardoned all our debt in Christ; and strengthen us
to forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.
___________________________________________________________________________
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