Forgiveness

 

Sunday 13^th September – Trinity 14 – Proper 19

Genesis 50: 15-21. After detailing various family tensions throughout this first book of the Bible, the last chapter ends in reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers. Unfortunately, our lection does not include the very last words which are words of promise to the Hebrew people – of a new beginning in the promised land. This speaks into a wider spiritual truth that reconciliation always changes a situation for the better and creates new possibilities.

Romans 14: 1-12. What is remarkable in this passage is that Paul does not adjudicate between different points of view of how Christians should observe food laws or feast days. Instead he says that we are all servants of God and this is the most important thing and in recognizing this reality we are led towards reconciliation. So, the health of the believing community takes precedence over “right” belief or “right” observance. True there are limits of course, but as long as our belief and practice are held with integrity, we should not pass judgement on those whose attitude to faith and worship differ from ours. 

Matthew 18: 21-35.  The central point of this passage is the incredible Mercy of God. Jesus makes clear to Peter in his response “not seven but seventy-seven times” that forgiveness is not a commodity that can be measured out or have limits. That same point is made in the parable where the man is forgiven by the king (God) the debt of ten thousand talents – which represents the wages of a day labourer for 150,000 years! There is simply no way of measuring the extent of God’s generosity when it comes to his forgiveness. When examining our own personal capacity or incapacity to forgive others, this is our starting point!

 

 We all know that we are supposed to forgive people.

It is fundamental to Christianity and one of the few things people outside the church know about the faith if they know anything at all.

We pray in the Lord’s prayer “Forgive us our trespasses or sins and we forgive those who trespass against us”

Readings like today’s offering instructs us to forgive seventy times seven ties and Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek in another part,

Forgiveness is commanded and expected.

None of that makes any allowance for the fact that forgiveness is one of the hardest things in the world to do.

We know we are supposed to and intellectually we probably also see that there will be a psychological benefit to us doing so, and yet..and yet..I’m sure this congregation is full of people who find or have found it nigh on impossible to do in some circumstances.

Being cheated on by your husband or wife, or double-crossed by someone you thought was a friend, intentionally hurt or abused by a relative, are things that produce shame and rage, and leaves us feeling diminished, defective and defeated.

To be told, on top of that that you really ought to forgive someone doesn’t effect any change. In fact sometimes, all that does is heap guilt on top of an already shamed and hurting person.

So let’s look deeper at these two exchanges in the gospel. In the first one between Jesus and Peter, Jesus uses the expression “seventy times seven” which is a way of conveying the fact that forgiveness is not a commodity that can be calculated but is limitless, because the language of numbers is inappropriate when one contemplates forgiveness.

The parable that follows, about a king who forgives a slave his huge debt, who in turn holds to account a man whose tiny debt to him is vivid.

The king, hearing about this then reacts furiously and tortures and imprisons the man.

Does verse 35 mean that God won’t forgive us if we can’t forgive?

Is divine forgiveness conditional on whether I can let go of all my grudges and hurts? Let’s look again at the parable.

The most obvious point is that human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness and God’s forgiveness is limitless. Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of a day labourers wages for 150,000 years – an infinite capacity for forgiveness is what is being conveyed. Seventy times seven or ten thousand talents can’t begin to express the extent of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

But there is a gap in the parable. Note that after the first slave had been forgiven his enormous debt, the servant shows no appropriate response – no rejoicing, no gratitude, no celebrating with wife and children. We hear only of the way he then refuses to forgive the debt of another servant.

The gap is explained by the fact that although forgiven he has not “discovered” forgiveness – not allowed the enormity of what has been done for him to seep into his very soul.

It is clear that he thinks he is dealing with the king on the basis of Justice and even says in his initial exchange with the king that he will repay everything that he owes – 150,000 years of his wages don’t forget.

He is not dealing with the king based on Justice but of Mercy. Forgiveness is very different from Justice. Because the first slave still thinks of forgiveness as purely a spread sheet issue he never views himself as being a truly “gifted”  person, one who received Mercy, so he is unable to show mercy to the second slave. What verse 35 makes clear is that forgiveness is a matter of the heart. We need to be transformed by the knowledge of how much we have been forgiven and the first servant hasn’t discovered that.

How does this help seriously wronged people to forgive?

It presents us with a picture of the incredible kindness of God, who doesn’t deal with us on the scale of Justice, even though we all seek that but by showing mercy, which we find hard to accept and fathom.

It invites all of us to see ourselves as forgiven sinners in community with other forgiven sinners – as good a description of the church as I know.