LOVE THROUGH FORGIVENESS

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

In last week’s Gospel reading, Jesus talked about resolving conflict. This week he’s talking about forgiveness. I guess it follows, doesn’t it? We agree on a strategy, we stop fighting, and ultimately the anger and violence are replaced by peace and kindness. That’s the progression from conflict to peace. But we must remember that we may resolve conflicts, but forgiveness doesn’t automatically happen. We can arrive at a stand-off, we can declare a cease-fire, we can draw up peace agreements, and those things may temporarily resolve the conflict. But they don’t guarantee forgiveness. What guarantees forgiveness? I think the answer to that question is that Jesus guarantees forgiveness. That’s a simplistic approach and we need to be careful about simplistic approaches. Do you know the story about the student who was a fervent Christian who wrote on the blackboard in the classroom, “Jesus is the answer”? And some smart character came along and wrote, “Yes, but what are the questions?”

So we understand that Jesus teaches us to forgive, that forgiveness is necessary for true peace among us, and that forgiveness doesn’t happen easily. And in the Gospel story we hear today, Peter thinks he is going to impress Jesus with his generosity, “Should I forgive…as many as seven times?” And Jesus deflates Peter’s ego pretty quickly: “No – seven times is nothing. How about 77 times?” Some other versions of this verse say “70 times 7” which is 490. We understand by this that Jesus isn’t counting. What he means is that the number is infinite: there is no end - there is no limit - to forgiveness.

And to illustrate this story, Matthew the Gospel-writer includes a parable. The parable is an extreme example of what Jesus intends to teach about forgiveness: it’s a radical demand that Jesus demonstrates himself, and demands of his followers. So don’t think you can be a Christian when you don’t practice forgiveness…I would say that the willingness to forgive, and the radical practice of forgiveness are the marks of a Christian. You’ll maybe say, “Oh, no, the mark of a Christian is love – you can’t be a Christian without love.” And that’s true. But the quality of love is characterized by forgiveness. Paul says in I Corinthians chapter 13, the chapter on love: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”. When you forgive, you must bear the pain of someone’s sin against you, you must believe that change and restoration are possible, you must hope for the grace of God to work in the person who has done you wrong, you must continue to endure the burden of wrong done to you without retaliating. If that doesn’t describe forgiveness, I don’t know what does.

The parable is the story of the unforgiving servant. There are three episodes: the king and his servant; the servant and another servant; and again, the king and his servant. One of the extremes in the parable is the size of the debt the servant owes the king; it’s huge, virtually unpayable. The servant owes the king more than he can ever pay. The only recourse is for the servant to be sold into slavery along with his family. They will spend the rest of their lives working off the debt, living in abject misery. And chances are, the debt will still not be paid off. How can this possibly be resolved? Only through the mercy of the king. The servant begs for consideration, and the king chooses not to insist on payment of the debt. The king simply cancels the debt. He forgives the servant.

Second episode: the same servant is owed a very small debt by one of his fellow servants. The debtor begs for patience, promising to pay the debt, which is presumably possible, since it’s a small amount. But the creditor has no patience, no mercy, and condemns the debtor to a prison sentence. Somehow the creditor forgets that he has been shown great mercy by the king, and refuses to extend the same mercy to his fellow servant. Seems hard to understand, doesn’t it? Except when we think that this is exactly the way we often behave ourselves. There is a disconnect between the forgiveness we have received and the forgiveness we offer to others.

Third episode: the other servants report to the king the refusal of the servant to forgive his fellow servant, and the cruelty with which he treats the other person. The king is very angry; he punishes the unforgiving servant by insisting that he pay off all his own debt. In other words, the king withdraws the forgiveness he has previously shown and holds the servant responsible for his whole debt, impossible as it may be to repay it during the servant’s lifetime. We know that this parable is a picture of how God operates in the kingdom of heaven.

But to back up a bit: what does it mean to say that Jesus guarantees forgiveness? I think it means several things. First, it means that Jesus demonstrates forgiveness: he shows that it can be done. He clearly and publicly forgives those who torture and kill him. Most of us cannot do what he did, but we cannot miss the teaching. We must forgive. Second, it means that he makes it possible for us to do what he does. We may not be able to endure crucifixion, but we can endure in the same spirit those trials which come to us, trusting that God will not give us more than we can handle, and allowing the Spirit of Christ to work in us so that we may be true witnesses for God’s kingdom. Thirdly, he does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: lifts up the burden of weakness and sin so that our witness is clear and authentic. In other words, Christ living in us enables us to be more than we might be under our own power.

This is not just highflown spiritual talk. This is the experience of Christians through the ages. And it’s not just for heroes of the faith, though there are certainly many of them in Christian history. It’s for the ordinary Christian, trying to incorporate the promises of God in everyday life. Here are a few examples from my own experience.

On numerous occasions in my life when I’ve been in conflict with someone, I’ve tried to make peace with that person. What I noticed several times is that when the conflict is over and some understanding is reached, it’s not long before I cannot remember what the conflict was about. I have a good memory, and a long memory, and I don’t easily let go of things. But under those circumstances, I am not able to remember the substance of the conflict. I think that is the work of God’s Spirit, bringing about forgiveness where individuals are willing to come to an understanding. The Spirit does what we cannot do ourselves.

Another example: when we lived on our farm east of Edmonton, we belonged to a rural Lutheran church. They were Lutheran pietists, those people, and in my life growing up in the United Church in British Columbia, and attending various churches in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario and urban areas around Edmonton, I’d never met people like them. A pietist is a rather strict, conservative Christian person, more than a little uptight, tending to be judgmental, hard on everybody, including themselves. My family is English, and English people are pretty forthright. They say what they’re thinking. Through my experience in that rural church, after many years I began to understand passive-aggressive behaviour – that a person can say one thing and mean another and it all seems perfectly logical – to them. And that you can be roaring mad for a hundred years about a situation that doesn’t exist any more. I thought I had a long memory….But they are great people: so steady and faithful and serious – a little lacking in humour, maybe, but good people. Well, we went to that church and it was rather a traumatic experience. I’ll spare you the details – but we came to a parting of the ways. Like a lot of conflicts in the church, a lot of it was the fault of the pastor. We told him what we thought and left. Some of you may know how painful it is to leave the church. It leaves a big gap in your spiritual life, your emotional life, your social life. And we couldn’t find another church where we were comfortable – they were all Lutheran pietists! I remember going to talk to Steve Kristenson, who was pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Camrose at the time – he was later bishop of this synod – and when I complained about the pietists, he said he was a pietist, for heaven’s sake! I know now that being a pietist isn’t the worst thing in the world. But I felt betrayed by them at that time. Well, another Lutheran pietist, Pastor Arnold Hagen, was the interim pastor in the local congregation for a couple of years, and he used to visit us every few months. One thing you can say about the pietists is that they are serious about pastoral work: they’ll visit you even if you don’t want to see them! Well, after a couple of years when we’d decided to move to Edmonton before I needed to be committed to the mental hospital, Pastor Hagen came to see us again. He said the congregation wished to invite us to a service of farewell. Would we come? We really had nothing against any of those people, and some of them we liked very much, so we said we’d come. And we did. We sat in the back row, and when the president of the congregation said they’d like to make a presentation to us, Lorne poked me with his elbow and I had to go up to receive it. When I turned and faced the congregation, I saw that half of them were in tears. I don’t know what I said, but it was something about love being expressed in forgiveness. So we remember that congregation with great affection, even if they are still pietists, even if they have a hard time recognizing a female pastor, and even if our kids have some rather bitter memories of old pietist schoolteachers. But that’s another story. None of that matters now, since we know what is in their hearts – love expressed through forgiveness. None of us are perfect; all of us need mercy; all of us have an obligation to be merciful to others.