Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
Philippians 1:3-11 + Matthew 18:23-35
Today’s Gospel is not difficult—at least, not difficult to understand. It’s very simple. It’s about forgiveness. The world has many things to teach about forgiveness. It’s like that quote that’s floating around out there: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
That sounds nice, doesn’t it? It was actually written by a rather famous Christian author. But it’s completely wrong! It’s a bunch of psychobabble. People tell you you’re supposed to forgive people for the good it will do…you! How self-serving is that? They tell you that you’re just supposed to go around forgiving everyone who has harmed you, so that you can feel better about yourself. Christian friends, that is not the pattern of forgiveness set for in the Holy Scriptures.
Matthew 18 has a lot to say about forgiveness. Jesus begins by pointing out how terrible it is to sin against another person, especially “one of these little ones.” Better to have a millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea than to cause one of them to sin. Better to chop off your hand or foot or pluck out your eye than to allow yourself to be led into sin.
But, then Jesus describes how eager God is to have sinners back in His kingdom. He goes searching for the lost sheep and rejoices to bring it home. He wants to forgive sinners and doesn’t want any of them to perish.
But wanting to forgive and forgiving are not the same thing. God wants to forgive everyone. He is merciful toward everyone. But He has set a pattern for how He goes about forgiving. He preaches His Law. He shows the sinner his fault. He preaches His Gospel, pointing the sinner to Christ Jesus, who suffered for all sins on the cross, calling sinners to believe in Christ for forgiveness. Where there is repentance and faith in Christ, God forgives sins for the sake of Christ. But where there is no repentance or faith, God does not forgive sins, for as much as He wants to, for as much as His merciful heart desires that all men should come to repentance and be forgiven.
That is the pattern of forgiveness set by God Himself. And Jesus goes on in Matthew 18 to show His disciples how we, too, are to imitate this pattern with one another—with our brothers, our fellow Christians, when they sin against us. Show your brother his fault. If he repents, forgive him. If he won’t repent, keep trying to get him to repent by confronting him with one or two others. If he still won’t repent, keep trying to get him to repent by taking the matter to the Church. And if he won’t listen to the Church, then “let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”
Fine. The pattern is set. But then, in the words right before our Gospel, Peter suggests that there may be a loophole in the pattern. Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? In other words, what if this whole pattern plays out seven times. Seven times my brother sins against me, hurts me, causes me pain. Seven times I confront my brother with his sin. Seven times he repents. And seven times I forgive him. Isn’t that already going above and beyond? Haven’t I done more than enough in forgiving him seven times? After that, should I (may I please?) tell him he’s reached his quota of forgiveness and then be done with him?
Jesus’ answer? I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. In other words, you shall never refuse to forgive your brother, if he repents! Far be it from you to withhold forgiveness from the penitent! And then He tells the parable that drives this pattern home.
The king wants to settle accounts with his servants. He brings in the one who owes him 10,000 talents—an astronomical figure, let’s call it the equivalent of $150 million. The king demands payment, and severe punishment if payment can’t be made. That’s the Law, telling the sinner he has sinned against God and must suffer eternal death, because he can never repay his debt.
The servant begs for patience on the king’s part and promises to pay it all back. That’s repentance and faith. The sinner acknowledges the enormous debt he owes. He knows he deserves to be thrown in prison forever, because he can’t pay his debt. But Jesus has died, the Righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. He offers His righteousness and His own blood as the payment for our sins, and says to us, “Here, use this! Use this to settle accounts with My Father, the King! He will accept this payment, because it’s the reason why I was sent in the first place, to give My life as the payment for sins, so that all you debtors might have something to pay back your debts with. Not with your own money, not with your own works, but with My works and with My blood.”
The King has compassion and forgives the entire debt. The sinner no longer has to suffer anything in punishment for his sins. The sinner no longer has to come up with his own with his own atonement, because the Father accepts the atonement made by Christ and applies it to the sinner’s account. You no longer owe anything. You’re free to go, free to live as children of God. There it is: the pattern of forgiveness.
But the pattern breaks down when the forgiven servant leaves the presence of the king. It starts out the same; the servant finds a fellow servant—his brother in Christ—who owes him a hundred denarii—let’s say $5,000, which is nothing compared to the $150 million that the first servant owed the king. But the servant doesn’t just demand repayment. He laid hands on his fellow servant and took him by the throat. Already you see a great difference between the behavior of this servant and the behavior of the king. The servant is not just angry. He’s enraged. He’s not desiring the repentance of his fellow servant, but wants to see him burn.
Now, the fellow servant begs for patience and time to repay, just as the first servant begged the king. The man’s brother is sorry for having sinned against him. He admits his fault. He asks for a chance to make it up to him.
But the first servant refuses and throws his fellow servant in prison. No mercy. No compassion. No desire to forgive. And no forgiveness given.
What happens to that unmerciful, unforgiving servant? The king is informed of the servant’s behavior and is appalled by it. ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
You can’t reject the pattern of forgiveness toward your fellow Christian and at the same time keep enjoying the pattern of forgiveness for yourself. Your brother’s sins against you may be serious. They may hurt. (Or sometimes, they may not be very serious at all and yet you’re still inclined to take offense and stay angry and to refuse forgiveness!) In any case, Jesus puts it in perspective for you. Your sins against God cannot be counted, cannot be measured. They are far more serious than anything any man could do to you. Take the most heinous crime a human being can commit against another human being, and then realize, your crimes, your trespasses against God, in His judgment, are many thousands of times worse than that, to use Jesus’ analogy. Your only hope of salvation is in the mercy of God and in the pattern of forgiveness He Himself has established and embraced.
That pattern never fails, because God never changes. It must not fail for you, either. So if your brother has sinned against you and you realize that you have had no desire for your brother to repent, no desire to forgive him for the wrong he’s done to you, if you realize that you have been withholding forgiveness from your brother who is penitent, then turn from your impenitence, from your hardness of heart, before it’s too late, and take refuge in the blood of Christ, which was shed just as must for your sins as for your brother’s sins. Take Jesus’ warning seriously. Take the pattern of forgiveness seriously. Because already in Holy Baptism your debts were cleared. And here in the Gospel, here in the Sacrament, full and free forgiveness of all your debts is offered to you again today. Go forward with it in peace, and take care to put it into practice with one another. Amen.
