Year A
Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:1-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

There are people I don’t want to forgive… for the things they’ve done… or for the things they’ve said… or for how I’ve felt about what they’ve done or said… not no way… not no how… sometimes I’ve been the intended target of their actions or words… and sometimes I’m simply unintended collateral damage… but I’m wounded just the same… and sometimes those wounds have been physical… or psychological… or spiritual… yes we can even be wounded spiritually… and there are some wounds that we inherit… which are not our fault… but which become our responsibility…

But the command to forgive… Jesus tells Peter to forgive not seven times… but seventy-seven… and I wonder if… I think this is one of those numbers like forty… when it rained for forty days and nights… the Jews wandered in the wilderness for forty years… Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days… it’s a way of saying A LOT… and I think seventy-seven is meant to be taken this way too… I mean… how would you even keep track… what if you were really only at 76… but you thought you forgave 77 times… what would happen then…

And if we’re not careful… we can blur the boundaries between responsibility… and forgiveness… and accountability… and consequence… because if the schoolyard bully doesn’t feel responsible for what they’re doing… and is not held accountable… and there’s no consequence… all we do is enable him to keep on bullying… but we can forgive… we can imagine that they really do not know… what they are doing… because if they knew… if they had the Mind of Christ… that kind of behavior would be offensive to them…

The word forgive means… to let go of… so when we don’t forgive… is it because we’re keeping score… is it because we’ve decided what we’re owed… like the workers in the parable in Matthew 20:1-16… who came early in the morning… and worked in the vineyard… in the heat… all day long… and when it came time to get paid… the owner paid even those who arrived last… a full day’s wage… but those who arrived first were indignant… they didn’t count to 490… they knew who came when… and they figured their score ought to be higher than those who arrived last…

The cover image on our bulletin is a ledger book… ledger books are about transactions… money in… money out… income and expenses… balance sheets… cosmic ledger books are perhaps even about sin and repentance… and at some point… we believe things ought to even out… and we can get really really angry… if we believe there’s not enough repentance… and we can slide into vengeance… 

Sirach reminds us… that anger and wrath… are abominations… yet a sinner holds on to them… and Sirach asks us… does anyone harbor anger against another… and expect healing from the Lord…

But perhaps what we need more than vengeance… is a judicial system which practices restorative justice… an approach which offers an opportunity for the victim and the offender… and perhaps representatives of the wider community… to meet and share their experience of what happened… to discuss who was harmed… and how… and to decide on an appropriate and measured response for repair and healing… The Truth and Reconciliation Commission… which met in South Africa after the end of apartheid… is one example of a restorative justice body…

In a recent letter to synod pastors… Bp. Satterlee wrote… I joined Jonah sitting under a bush… awaiting the fate of the city… Jonah wants Nineveh destroyed… and in the solitude of our souls… we could all name our own Ninevehs… people… beliefs… movements… and institutions that… if they do not repent… deserve to be destroyed… but rather than destroying Nineveh… God destroys Jonah’s bush… to make the point that God’s love is always bigger… and just when we think we have arrived at the limit of God’s grace… God finds a way to remind us that God is… “a gracious God… and merciful… slow to anger… abounding in steadfast love… and ready to relent from punishing…”

When we don’t forgive… it’s sometimes because we’re certain that we’ve suffered more than the other person… or like Jonah… we’re certain that there hasn’t been enough suffering… but when we don’t forgive… do we think it’s because we know better than God… because in truth… when we don’t forgive… it’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die… Peter asks Jesus about specific instances… but Jesus’ answer is about a changed heart…

In today’s Gospel parable… there were two debtors… the first one owed the king 10,000 talents… and his fellow servant owed him 100 denarii…the denarius was one day’s wage for a typical laborer who worked six days a week… so with a Sabbath day of rest… and allowing approximately two weeks for various Jewish holidays… the typical laborer worked 50 weeks of the year… and earned an annual wage of 300 denarii… so 100 denarii was about four months’ wages…

And one talent was about 6,000 denarii… so it would take twenty years to pay back one talent… but this poor fellow owed the king 10,000 talents… so if it takes twenty years to earn one talent… then do the math… to repay 10,000 talents… it would take 200,000 years… that was one VERY forgiving king… and so if we know that God has forgiven us multiple times… how can we not forgive… Jesus has forgiven me at least 77 times… so how can I not forgive others once…

The Rev. Stephen Schmidt writes… I just read a friend’s post about how we’re approaching the end times… and the rapture… and if you love Jesus… and are not ashamed of Jesus… you’ll copy and post this… and it struck me how badly we… the church… have failed to teach our people… we’ve taught them doctrine… but we haven’t taught them to actually READ the bible and interpret it for themselves… so my friends can regurgitate doctrines about sin… hell… the rapture… the anti-Christ and the beast… but not know that most of those doctrines were built on solitary verses… in isolation… not at all what the biblical writers were trying to convey… or that… even when there is a bone of truth in them… they are minor ideas floating in a much bigger sea of texts about how we treat each other… but no… our concern over hell… is more important than loving our neighbor… the rapture has become more important that caring for the poor… feeding the hungry… healing the sick… and welcoming the foreigner… 

And much of this is grounded in our notion of economy which is transaction based in contract… but God’s economy is transformation based in covenant… our notion of economy is based in division… but God’s economy is based in unity…

Our sins are like 100 denarii… but God has already forgiven us 10,000 talents… God has already forgiven us… for we do not know what we are doing… and when the magnitude of that generosity sinks in… when the incalculable generosity of that takes hold… then we can stop drinking the Kool Aid of misguided superiority and resentments… see unity in God’s diversity… and work together to build a little bit more of the Kingdom of Heaven… wherever we are… Holy God… make it so…