Matthew 18:21-35
Let me state out loud what many of you might be thinking: everything about our gospel lesson this morning is outrageous.
First of all, the theme of forgiveness in itself is outrageous. Scripture repeatedly tells us to forgive those who have injured us. We know that; it’s ingrained within us. Intellectually we understand the positive value of letting go cherished hurts but emotionally many of us still are unable to do so. And to be told one ought to forgive doesn’t necessarily effect a change and may even aggravate the situation by heaping on a load of guilt.1
Secondly, Peter’s question to Jesus about how many times to forgive is also outrageous – as if forgiveness is simply a commodity to be reckoned on a calculator.
And then, there is the parable itself which is really outrageous, not to mention confusing, as Jesus tries to show that not only is forgiveness limitless; it can’t even be quantified. Or as one writer describes it, the parable is about “the poetics of the impossible rather than the prose of the probable.”2
The parable begins with a king who wants to settle accounts and one of his slaves owes him ten thousand talents! The amount is absurd and for Jesus to use both the number ten thousand and the word talents means the largest possible sum one could imagine. It is equal to about 150,000 years of wages for a day laborer.
The king’s initial response to this exorbitant debt is to require that all the man’s property be sold along with the man, his wife and children. When the slave asks for patience and insists he can repay, as empty and ludicrous as that sounds, the king abruptly reverses himself and doesn’t just give the slave a second chance; he forgives the entire loan! The king is as excessive and outrageous in his mercy as he was in his severity.
The slave, however, doesn’t ‘get’ it. His response is totally inappropriate to this incredible gift of mercy. He doesn’t embrace the forgiveness. There is no rejoicing, no expression of gratitude, no celebrating with family their freedom from almost imprisonment – no sense of understanding and appreciation of what he had just received. There’s nothing! Instead, the slave, having just been forgiven an incalculable amount of indebtedness, turns around and as soon as he meets a colleague who owes him a paltry sum, treats that man shamefully, demanding the debt be paid in full immediately, and then throws him into prison, completely disregarding the fact he had just been spared a similar fate.
When his fellow slaves tattle to the king about what has happened, the king’s response is again excessive and outrageous; yet this time, not in mercy but in harshness, ordering the first slave to be thrown into prison and tortured. And while some would like to read into this ending that God will only forgive us if we forgive others, it can also mean that the outrageous grace of the king, in forgiving a debt that could never be repaid, should engender nothing but gratitude. In other words, the only response to grace is thankfulness!
And that’s Jesus’ point in this whole exaggerated story! Forgiveness begins with the incredible, outrageous mercy of God which blesses us in a way beyond our imagining. It has nothing to do with some outward steps in a process that we can manage or with the calculation of how many times we’re supposed to forgive. Nor is forgiveness an indebtedness/power game which the first slave wanted it to be. Instead, forgiveness is realizing in our hearts how much we have been gifted by mercy, and then wanting to show mercy to others as we have been shown. Forgiveness is the lifting of a burden, the releasing of a debt and the refusal to allow past actions and failures to define the future.
Forgiveness is also knowing God’s default stance toward us is always one of immeasurable grace and we are called to respond in kind – willingly, concretely and as a communal way of life. As Martin Luther once argued, “The church is called to be a uniquely forgiving people, a people of humility and repentance. While personal rights exist in worldly kingdoms, they have no place in the reign of God where total forgiveness is the rule.”3 It is this total forgiveness of God we celebrated earlier in the service as we baptized Isaac – for at the heart of the sacrament is the wonderful knowledge that God loves us unconditionally, regardless of what we’ve done or left undone, or even continue to do. God’s mercy and forgiveness never end.
Forgiveness is how the Christian community is to be known; it is an ongoing activity for the building up of each other and faith. And yet, our morning’s parable clearly reveals that while forgiveness is always called for, it must first be felt in the heart. Forgiveness can never be forced. But the good news is, the reason we can have the strength and courage to work at forgiveness is because over 2000 years ago, that is precisely what Jesus chose to call down from heaven rather than vengeance. And in this way he opened for us a future not marked by judgment but by mercy, not by calculation but by trust, not by despair but by hope. 4
That is what forgiveness can do when it’s not about keeping score or calling others out when they have done something wrong. May God give to us all a palpable sense of the forgiveness in which, by which we live. And may God grant us the faith and courage to walk into the future such forgiveness creates.
Amen.
1. Texts for Preaching, Year A, Brueggemann p. 484
2. Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4 Bartlett and Taylor, p. 71
3. Ibid p. 72
4. Workingpreacher.org, David Lose