INTRODUCTION
Do you remember the old saying, “To Err is Human, to Forgive Divine.” A wonderful statement that leads our thoughts to heaven, to unity between neighbors, to love, to forgiveness. But then there’s the other ditty that reminds us of a different reality, a more earthly one that you and I experience far more often.
"To dwell above with saints we love, Oh, that will be glory.
But to dwell below with saints we know, Well, that’s another story"
A woman in her eighties once told her minister how fifty years before, her aunt had said something insulting to her, and this woman had never forgiven her. Fifty years later she could recount the event to the precise detail, and she felt all the same bitterness, anger, and resentment welling up in her as if it were yesterday.
THE CALL TO FORGIVE
In our passage today we are confronted with the earthly call from Christ to forgive one another. We all know that Forgiveness is the only way to break through the barrier of anger that separates us from each other. Forgiveness, of course, is the virtue we value he most, and exercise the least, in our Christian experience. We all love to be forgiven -- we expect it, and want it. But we find it a struggle to forgive; we resist it, and often refuse to do it. We are like a little boy who was saying his prayers. As he went down the list of his family, asking God to bless them, he omitted his brother’s name. His mother said to him, "Why didn’t you pray for Cliff?" He said, "I’m not going to ask God to bless Cliff because he hit me." And his mother said, "Don’t you remember Jesus said to forgive your enemies?" But the little boy said, "That’s just the trouble. He’s not my enemy; he’s my brother!"
THE PROBLEM WITH PETER
Perhaps many of us have the same difficulty, as did the Apostle Peter. He too was faced with this same problem, the problem of forgiving his brother. In Matthew 18, in a great passage in which our Lord has been dealing with the question of relationships between those who belong to him, we find Peter, in his impulsive bluntness, coming to Christ with a question. Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." I have often wondered, as I read this account, if Peter was not actually thinking of his literal brother, Andrew. They had grown up together. They had together joined the community of followers who could never hide anything for very long. Peter may even have had in view some offense of Andrew’s when he asked this question. Perhaps Andrew habitually left the cap off the toothpaste tube; or he was always borrowing some of Peter’s clothes, and wearing it without permission; or perhaps he never cleaned up his messes, or committed some other unmistakable brotherly wrong.
RAISING THE ANTE
When we hear of conflict between friends and family over such petty little things, many of us are prone to say, “Now isn’t hat stupid?” We hear Jesus’s command to forgive seven times seven and we say, “See, isn’t it time to forgive and forget” But before any of us turn this passage into something it’s not, lets raise the ante up to the level of forgiveness that Jesus is talking about Chet Hodgin considered himself a good Christian. He thought he had a pretty good understanding of what Christian forgiveness was all about. But he found it hard to put it into practice. You see, Chet has two very powerful reasons why he has difficulty forgiving: his son Keith, who was murdered in 1991 by a man he had fired, and his son Kevin, a pizza deliveryman who was shot and killed in 1992 during a robbery. So far as he knows, the killers have never adked for forgiveness. From what he knows of them, he doesn’t think that this is likely, either. So he doesn’t feel obliged to forgive them now. When asked if he could ever forgive them if they asked for his forgiveness, he replied, "I would not necessarily say yes. At this point of time I have no intention of forgiving the animals who viciously murdered my sons. And anyone who disagrees has never walked in my shoes." Could you forgive such acts of violence? Could you forgive the individuals who took the lives of those you loved the most? And not just once, but seven times seven? Not so easy now, is it? The poet Heinrich Heine expressed how difficult this type of forgiveness is when he wrote,
"My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door. Then, if God wanted to make me completely happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from those trees. I would forgive them all the wrongs they have done me - forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they are hanged!"
What corpses hang outside your picture window? I bet you could attach name tags on every single one of them. And I’m sure you’re willing to forgive each and every one of those individuals. Once, that is, they’ve hung there long enough I think you will agree with me in saying that divine forgiveness may be one of the toughest things we as Christians are asked to do.
HOW OFTEN MUST WE FORGIVE?
And so Peter comes to Jesus with what we see as a perfectly legitimate question. Lord, how often am I to forgive my brother, seven times? Peter must have been feeling very charitable here in suggesting that he forgive his offender seven times, and for good reason. Using a passage from the prophet Amos the rabbis taught that you only needed to forgive someone three times at the most because that’s as many times as God himself would forgive. You can see from this that Peter feels he has gone to the utmost limit when he doubled the number of time he believed God forgave and then added one for good measure. But once again Peter, like the rest of us, have misunderstood the heart of God. "No Peter, I say seven times seven" Jesus now has some fun with Peter and plays off his numbers game, multipling his seven fold mercy 70 times over. In effect our Lord is saying, it is not a question of how often, or how many times I forgive my brother. That is not really the question. There is a deeper matter beneath that. The real question is "Why should I forgive at all? “Why should any of us forgive anyone anytime at all? When you see why you should forgive, then you will see, Peter, that there is no limit at all, that forgiveness is the kind of thing that ought to go on without limit.
THE WHY TO FORGIVENESS
Jesus then goes on to tell the parable which we traditionally call the parable of the unforgiving servant. The value of this parable lies in seeing that it is a picture of us. The Lord Jesus is here holding up a mirror in order that we might see ourselves very clearly. Jesus says this is what the rule of God is like. You and I, we are the servant who has een
forgiven a vast and staggering amount of money, and God is the great king that has forgiven us. Now, this ten thousand talents is an incredible amount. Commentors differ on thier values but it is fair to say that a talent was worth about a thousand dollars. Ten thousand talents is ten million dollars which, in those days, would be a king’s ransom. The entirely yearly income of a kingdom would hardly be that much. the servant was in deep debt to his Lord. What is this great debt we owe to the King of Heaven? It is the debt of sin. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “For the wages of sin is death.” “None are righteous, no not one.”
When the settling of accounts came, this man was confronted with this vast debt and he would not pay it. The king ordered that justice be carried out and that the man, his wife and children, and all that he had be sold, as was possible in those days. Even then it would be far, far short of the amount of this debt, but it would be a fair punishment and it would be an example to all his other servants. But in desperation the man makes an impossible promise. He falls on his knees and says to the king, "Have patience, sir, and I will pay you everything." Now he could never do that. If he worked all his lifetime, and his family also, he would never be able to pay ten million dollars. And when this servant cries out for mercy, the king’s heart is moved by the man’s impossible situation, and, out of ompassion for him, he forgives him, at staggering cost to himself. It means, of course, that this king assumed the debt himself, allowing it to go unpaid and thus impoverishing his treasury. This is no trifling matter. It was at staggering cost to himself that the king forgave the debt. We must see ourselves in this man if we are going to be helped by this word from Jesus. We must see that the sum of our offenses against God through the years constitutes this kind of a debt, an absolutely impossible amount.
THE GOOD NEWS
Our rebellion, our selfish acts, our willful choices, our lovelessness towards others, and the hurt we have caused them, our pride, our anger, our lust, our bitterness, our hatred, and our lies; all these add up through the years to a staggering debt we owe God which we cannot pay. But then there comes the good news, the wonderful good news of the gospel. There came a day when we stood in the presence of God and heard him pronounce those word, "In Christ you are forgiven." The debt was wiped away. In one moment it was gone. How well we remember, as we look back to it, the glory of that moment when we realized that before God we stood clean and blameless and free; the debt was paid in full and we were set free. We discovered the joy of his word; “All we like sheep have gone astray, but God has layed on Him the iniquity of us all.”
WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND
Then we rise from the pew, leave the communion table, walk outside the church humming "What a Friend We have in Jesus." And before we get to our car we see someone who has done us wrong and we want to grasp him by the throat and say, "Pay me right now!" Jesus continues his story, and says immediately, as this man went out from his experience of being so unbelievably forgiven. " he met a man who owed him a hundred denarii -- that amounts to about twenty dollars -- and seizing him by the throat he said, "Pay me what you owe." But when the second man says exactly the same words the first had said just a few moments before, "Have patience with me and I’ll pay you everything," instead of forgiving him this paltry amount, he throws him into prison till he shall pay the full amount of the debt. That, says Jesus, is what we do when we refuse to forgive each other even the most insulting and injurious offenses. No matter how bad it may appear to us, no matter how hurt we are by what someone has done to us, in comparison to what God has forgiven us, it is like comparing twenty dollars to ten million dollars of debt. And these two events are occurring in our lives at the same time, at this very moment, forgiven and unforgiving, just as Jesus said.
THE ON-GOING NEED FOR FORGIVENESS
There is not one of us here who is a Christian, who does not realize that he did not stop sinning when he was first forgiven in Christ. Despite the increasing wisdom and power that has come to us as we have learned more of what God provided for us to live righteous lives, we still fail all too often. Not a day goes by but that we do not stand in desperate need of the forgiving word of the great King. Again and again he cancels out the debt as we come in our guilt and resignation, knowing that we have failed terribly, hearing anew the tender forgiving word. And yet, when someone offends us, how quickly we turn back to the need for justice and start demanding, "Pay me what you owe." "I demand an apology." "Give me my rights." "I want what’s coming to me." "Treat me like I deserve." "I demand to be treated with respect." How many times do we utter such words?
THE NECESSITY TO FORGIVE
In the rest of the story our Lord reveals why Christians must forgive those who offend them. First, we must forgive because anything less is hypocritical. We cannot demand justice from others because we do not stand on that ground ourselves. As the king said to this servant, "You wicked servant! Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" This is what Jesus is saying to us. We must forgive one another because we have already been forgiven. Is not that the ground the Apostle Paul takes in Colossians 3, and in Ephesians 4:31?
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Eph 4:31-32
That is the basis of Christian forgiveness. Jesus says that, when we refuseto do this, when
we hold a grudge, or are difficult or bitter and refuse tosettle an issue, then we are doing
exactly what this unrighteous steward does here. In the very moment of our own
forgiveness we are demanding justice, when we ourselves cannot and do not stand on that
level. And he warns us that for those who will not forgive, they themselves will be judged
in the same manner.
"And in anger his lord delivered him to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. So
also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother
from your heart."
TO BE FORGIVEN WE MUST FIRST FORGIVE
Our Lord is saying here nothing less than he said in the Sermon on the Mount. He says there, "If you forgive not others their trespasses neither will my Father forgive yours," (Matt 6:15). That is a frightening reality to have to ponder isn’t it. This passage is addressed to those who have already been forgiven by God. It is addressed to Spirit -filled
believers, whom God knows have the knowledge and capacity to forgive. But if they will
not exercise it, the Lord Jesus says, if they insist upon going back to the ground of justice
with others, well, then, that is the way God will handle them. If we insist on justice, we
will be given justice ourselves. As James tell us, "Judgment is without mercy to one who
has shown no mercy," {Jas 2:13}. The result will be that we are "delivered to the torturers." But Jesus did not say this for us to live in fear or to loose heart in our struggles to follow him. Rather divine Forgiveness occurs in our lives when we have the courage to admit our unforgiving spirit and seek God’s help. Forgiveness begins when we stop saying, "Look how much you have hurt me," and start saying, "What can I do to to extend to you the mercy I know?” “How can I relieve your hurt?" "What can I do to renew our relationship?" That is when we start to forgive, when we are no longer concerned about ourselves and how hurt we are, but are concerned about what our retaliation is doing to someone else. The thing that makes forgiveness possible is to remember what Jesus said about forgiveness. Can we not forgive a few dollars’ worth of injury, when we have been forgiven millions by God?
THE HEART THAT FORGIVES
On Christmas Day, 1974,10-year-old Chris Carrier was kidnapped. When the boy was finally found, he had been burned with cigarettes, stabbed with an ice pick, shot in the head and left for dead. Miraculously, young Chris survived, the only permanent physical damage, blindness in his left eye. He went on to become a youth pastor in the resbyterian
Church. Twenty-two years after the kidnapping, David McAllister - 77-years old, blind and dying in a nursing home confessed to the crime. Chris began visiting the man who had tortured him and left him for dead. Chris prayed with and for him, read the Bible with him and did everything he could to help David make peace with God in the time he had left in this life. In speaking of this ministry to his abuser Chris said,
"While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him. If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be."
He went on to say,
"I became a Christian when I was 13. That night was the first night I was able to sleep through the night, without waking up from my nightmares.It would be selfish not to share that same peace with David McAllister."
CONCLUSION
For the Christian forgiveness is always the last word. The forgiver always has the last word. We sin and Jesus forgives us. We sin again and Jesus forgives us. We sin and sin and sin and Jesus forgives, forgives, forgives. Someone hurts us and we forgive. He oes it again and we forgive again. He does it a third time and we forgive him a third time. He does it again and again and again and we forgive and forgive and forgive. Forgiveness always have the last word. Why? Because that person can’t do more than we can forgive. That’s how extravagant God’s forgiveness is toward us and that’s the same kind of extravagance we should show to one another.