- Matthew 6:12, 14-15 - read this passage online here »
- Matthew 18:21-35 - read this passage online here »
Forgiveness is one of those uncomfortable topics. It ranges from the routine and mundane to the very, very difficult. On one end of the spectrum: “I forgot your birthday. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” If a husband says that to his wife, I hope she forgives him! Although her extending forgiveness to her husband may become more difficult if he is forgetful year after year. Was that seven times or seventy-times-seven? It depends on your age I guess.
At the other end of the spectrum are the seemingly unforgivable acts. How do you forgive someone who has abused you terribly -- physically or sexually or emotionally? What if you were called upon to forgive someone who murdered your child? What if the person who killed your child was also someone you loved? Each of us can no doubt name particular acts that are seemingly unforgivable for us.
While forgiveness may be uncomfortable, it is at the heart of the Christian life. Forgiveness is not incidental or optional – certainly not to God, nor should it be to us as followers of God in Jesus Christ. Immediately after inviting us to pray for our daily bread – our necessary physical sustenance -- Jesus also invited us to pray: “Our Father ... forgive us our failures as we too forgave those who failed us.”
Obviously, Jesus believes that his followers asking the Father to forgive their – our -- failures is vital. Jesus also connected God’s forgiveness of us to our responsibility to forgive those who fail us because being able to forgive is so vital for our spiritual health and for the health of our relationships with others, especially with those who are followers of Jesus. But I know many Christians have deep hurts and numerous questions about forgiving hurts and wrongs that look so unforgivable. I have several books that offer honest help to those who have great difficulty with forgiveness -- like Forgiving the Unforgivable and Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. These writers do not gloss over real evil. You might find them helpful and are welcome to borrow them from me.
What I want to do this morning is open up some of the background to this significant petition in The Lord’s Prayer. Jesus also told many stories or parables as part of his teaching process about many subjects – including forgiveness. So we will consider Jesus’ parable of the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 as well. That story has much to say about God forgiving us and our subsequent responsibility -- as those who have been forgiven – toward others.
But, first, Jesus invited his followers to pray “Our Father ... forgive us our failures as we, too, forgave those who failed us.” It intrigues me that we in the United Church tend to use the word “trespasses” when we pray The Lord’s Prayer. Elda Scott tells me the Presbyterians ask God to forgive their “debts.” It must be their Scottish heritage! Other churches ask God to forgive their “sins.” All three words – debts, trespasses and sins – have their place in the Scripture. In Luke’s version (11:4) of The Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to forgive our sins. In Matthew’s version (6:12), we ask God to forgive our debts. Theologian Dale Bruner helps us see how sins and debts are connected. He writes:
In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus adds a postscript to The Lord’s Prayer:
When you pray The Lord’s Prayer and ask God to forgive your failures – or “wrongs,” as the Good News Bible puts it --do you believe you have failed God or wronged God? Jesus assumes all of us have. When you ask God to forgive your failures – your sins, your debts -- do you think your debt to God is a large or a small debt? When you find yourself failing again and again in some area, do you hope God forgives you seven times or seventy-times-seven? Peter asked Jesus a similar question in Matthew 18, except Peter posed the question to Jesus a little differently:
I wonder if unlimited forgiveness is one of the things Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 5:48 for us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. I like the way The Message Bible amplifies that statement of Jesus:
“Once there was a king who decided to check on his servants’ accounts. 24He had just begun to do so when one of them was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.”
The actual words are “ten thousand talents.” A couple of observations about this number. Jesus deliberately used a fantastic amount that was meant to stagger the imagination. At that time, 2,000 years ago, people did not count higher than ten thousand. And the talent was the largest currency in existence. One talent was worth more than 15 years’ wages for an ordinary labourer of the day. So what would ten thousand talents amount to in our currency? How high do we want to count? Somewhere in the economic stratosphere – billions upon billions? Zillions of dollars sounds reasonable. In his story, Jesus used the highest sum imaginable for the servant’s debt to the king, to be contrasted with the paltry amount of debt in verse 28 of a few dollars. Jesus was making a point!
31”When the other servants saw what had happened, they were very upset and went to the king and told him everything. 32So he called the servant in. ‘You worthless slave!’ he said. ‘I forgave you the whole amount you owed me, just because you asked me to. 33You should have had mercy on your fellow-servant, just as I had mercy on you.’ 34The king was very angry, and he sent the servant to jail to be punished until he should pay back the whole amount.” 35And Jesus concluded, ‘That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother [or sister] from your heart.’”
There is an underlying theme in this parable. It is this: to those who have received God’s full forgiveness, the same generous forgiveness must be given to others. There are two sides to this theme. On the one side is God’s free forgiveness of sins provided by God in Jesus Christ for us on the cross. As the Scripture records in 1 Peter 2:24:
Let me conclude with a story from the life of Miroslav Volf. Volf is a theology professor at Yale Divinity School. He is also the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. In his book Free of Charge: Grace and Forgiveness in a Culture Stripped of Grace [Zondervan, 2005], he shares a personal story about the power of forgiveness and grace.
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller,
February 27, 2011
At the other end of the spectrum are the seemingly unforgivable acts. How do you forgive someone who has abused you terribly -- physically or sexually or emotionally? What if you were called upon to forgive someone who murdered your child? What if the person who killed your child was also someone you loved? Each of us can no doubt name particular acts that are seemingly unforgivable for us.
While forgiveness may be uncomfortable, it is at the heart of the Christian life. Forgiveness is not incidental or optional – certainly not to God, nor should it be to us as followers of God in Jesus Christ. Immediately after inviting us to pray for our daily bread – our necessary physical sustenance -- Jesus also invited us to pray: “Our Father ... forgive us our failures as we too forgave those who failed us.”
Obviously, Jesus believes that his followers asking the Father to forgive their – our -- failures is vital. Jesus also connected God’s forgiveness of us to our responsibility to forgive those who fail us because being able to forgive is so vital for our spiritual health and for the health of our relationships with others, especially with those who are followers of Jesus. But I know many Christians have deep hurts and numerous questions about forgiving hurts and wrongs that look so unforgivable. I have several books that offer honest help to those who have great difficulty with forgiveness -- like Forgiving the Unforgivable and Forgive & Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve. These writers do not gloss over real evil. You might find them helpful and are welcome to borrow them from me.
What I want to do this morning is open up some of the background to this significant petition in The Lord’s Prayer. Jesus also told many stories or parables as part of his teaching process about many subjects – including forgiveness. So we will consider Jesus’ parable of the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 as well. That story has much to say about God forgiving us and our subsequent responsibility -- as those who have been forgiven – toward others.
But, first, Jesus invited his followers to pray “Our Father ... forgive us our failures as we, too, forgave those who failed us.” It intrigues me that we in the United Church tend to use the word “trespasses” when we pray The Lord’s Prayer. Elda Scott tells me the Presbyterians ask God to forgive their “debts.” It must be their Scottish heritage! Other churches ask God to forgive their “sins.” All three words – debts, trespasses and sins – have their place in the Scripture. In Luke’s version (11:4) of The Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to forgive our sins. In Matthew’s version (6:12), we ask God to forgive our debts. Theologian Dale Bruner helps us see how sins and debts are connected. He writes:
“In rabbinic thought every sin created a deposit of debt before God, the accumulation of which formed a separating wall between the person and God. On the other hand, every righteous deed contributed to the believer’s accumulation of assets before God and so created a kind of bridge to God. Sins were demerits that separated, righteous deeds merits that connected. The corporate name for these separating demerits was ‘debts.’ Jesus takes this well-known word and the set of ideas connected with it and tells us that we can ask the Father to wipe out our [accumulated] debts!” [Matthew: A Commentary, Vol. 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12, Revised and Expanded, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 308]When we ask God to forgive our debts, we are asking God to wipe out what is separating us from God. A debt is a failure to pay. When Jesus used this word, he would have spoken in Aramaic – his language. And the Aramaic word for “debt” would have included a stronger sense of moral failure than the written word for “debt” in Greek. So I like the word “failure” here because it encompasses both debts and our sins. We are asking God to forgive our failures. And as Martin Luther wrote, “We are in the land of debts; we are up to our ears in sin.”
In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus adds a postscript to The Lord’s Prayer:
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” [ESV]What intrigues me here is that Jesus adds an immediate comment to the petition about forgiveness. He doesn’t add any such comments at this point regarding asking for daily bread or asking to be kept from hard testing or kept safe from the Evil One. And in these verses immediately after the prayer, Jesus uses the word “trespasses,” which is more like “mistakes” as opposed to failures or sins or debts. But notice, Jesus is emphasizing his followers’ responsibility – that is, our responsibility -- to forgive those who have trespassed against us.
When you pray The Lord’s Prayer and ask God to forgive your failures – or “wrongs,” as the Good News Bible puts it --do you believe you have failed God or wronged God? Jesus assumes all of us have. When you ask God to forgive your failures – your sins, your debts -- do you think your debt to God is a large or a small debt? When you find yourself failing again and again in some area, do you hope God forgives you seven times or seventy-times-seven? Peter asked Jesus a similar question in Matthew 18, except Peter posed the question to Jesus a little differently:
“Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times?”When Jesus said “seventy-times-seven,” he was really saying that our forgiveness of another person is meant to be unlimited. But is that really possible for us humans? Are there no limits? Dale Bruner asks:
Jesus answered: “No, not seven times, but seventy-times-seven! Here’s why. The kingdom of heaven – or God’s rule – is like the following story.
“Doesn’t even God’s forgiveness have limits? Isn’t that one meaning of the Last Judgment? … Yes, but wherever there is human repentance there will always be – constantly and forever – divine forgiveness. This is the heart of Jesus’ gospel. So forgiveness must be the heart of the disciples’ ethic.” [Matthew: A Commentary, Vol. 2: The Churchbook, Matthew 13-28, Revised and Expanded, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 235]
I wonder if unlimited forgiveness is one of the things Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 5:48 for us to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. I like the way The Message Bible amplifies that statement of Jesus:
“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You are kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”I think it is worth our while to hear the parable again from the Good News Bible:
“Once there was a king who decided to check on his servants’ accounts. 24He had just begun to do so when one of them was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.”
The actual words are “ten thousand talents.” A couple of observations about this number. Jesus deliberately used a fantastic amount that was meant to stagger the imagination. At that time, 2,000 years ago, people did not count higher than ten thousand. And the talent was the largest currency in existence. One talent was worth more than 15 years’ wages for an ordinary labourer of the day. So what would ten thousand talents amount to in our currency? How high do we want to count? Somewhere in the economic stratosphere – billions upon billions? Zillions of dollars sounds reasonable. In his story, Jesus used the highest sum imaginable for the servant’s debt to the king, to be contrasted with the paltry amount of debt in verse 28 of a few dollars. Jesus was making a point!
25”The servant did not have enough to pay his debt, so the king ordered him to be sold as a slave, with his wife and his children and all that he had, in order to pay the debt. 26The servant fell on his knees before the king. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay you everything!’”An impossible request to believe! How could he even begin to pay the interest on his debt of zillions of dollars even within his whole lifetime?
27”The king felt sorry for him, so he forgave him the debt and let him go.”Now I call that being forgiven! The king wiped out his servant’s whole debt! That is grace! The servant did not have to pay anything to the king. Jesus was making two points here. We are in deep debt to God because of our sin. And we do not have the means to pay the debt.
28 “Then the man went out and met one of his fellow-servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and started choking him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he said. 29His fellow-servant fell down and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!’ 30But he refused; instead, he had him thrown into jail until he should pay the debt.”It is fair for us to ask what forgiveness meant to that servant. Is it possible for one human to treat another this way? Is it even possible for Christians who have experienced God’s amazing grace and generous forgiveness to be unforgiving to others? Unfortunately, Jesus’ parable is making exactly that point. And we all know that is true. It is much easier for any one of us to ask God for forgiveness and expect God to forgive us but then to turn around and take offense and nurse grudges and hold on to our hurts from others and fail to forgive them.
31”When the other servants saw what had happened, they were very upset and went to the king and told him everything. 32So he called the servant in. ‘You worthless slave!’ he said. ‘I forgave you the whole amount you owed me, just because you asked me to. 33You should have had mercy on your fellow-servant, just as I had mercy on you.’ 34The king was very angry, and he sent the servant to jail to be punished until he should pay back the whole amount.” 35And Jesus concluded, ‘That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother [or sister] from your heart.’”
There is an underlying theme in this parable. It is this: to those who have received God’s full forgiveness, the same generous forgiveness must be given to others. There are two sides to this theme. On the one side is God’s free forgiveness of sins provided by God in Jesus Christ for us on the cross. As the Scripture records in 1 Peter 2:24:
“Christ himself carried our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. It is by his wounds that you have been healed.”On the other side is the gratitude of those who have received God’s forgiveness who then turn around and offer forgiveness to those who have failed or wronged them.
Let me conclude with a story from the life of Miroslav Volf. Volf is a theology professor at Yale Divinity School. He is also the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. In his book Free of Charge: Grace and Forgiveness in a Culture Stripped of Grace [Zondervan, 2005], he shares a personal story about the power of forgiveness and grace.
I was one[year old] then, and my five-year-old brother, Daniel, had slipped through the large gate in the courtyard where we had an apartment [in Croatia]. He went to the nearby small military base --just two blocks away -- to play with “his” soldiers. On earlier walks through the neighbourhood, he had found some friends there -- soldiers in training, bored and in need of diversion, even if it came from an energetic five-year-old.My friends, let us learn from Jesus, who forgave those who plotted his death and crucified him. We dare not insist on withholding the gift of forgiveness from one another. As N. T. Wright put it, we dare not refuse to give someone else “the kiss of life they may desperately need” [Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002, p.39]. We will find our spiritual and emotional healing and the ability to forgive at the foot of the Cross as we ponder the amazing grace and love of God who forgives our sins. So let us forgive one another from the bottom of our hearts.
On that fateful day in 1957, one of them put him on a horse-drawn bread wagon. As they were passing through the gate on a bumpy cobblestone road, Daniel leaned sideways and his head got stuck between the post and the wagon. The horses kept going. He died on the way to hospital -- a son lost to parents who adored him and an older brother that I would never know.
Aunt Milica should have watched him. But she didn't. She let him slip out, she didn't look for him, and he was killed. But my parents never told me that she was partly responsible. They forgave her….
The pain of that terrible loss still lingers on, but bitterness and resentment against those responsible are gone. It was healed at the foot of the cross as my mother gazed on the Son who was killed and reflected about the God who forgave. Aunt Milica was forgiven, and there was no more talk of her guilt, not even talk of her having been guilty. As far as I was concerned, she was innocent.
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller,
February 27, 2011
OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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