|
 |
 |
Bonds Rent Asunder Text:
Matthew 18:21-35 In pondering our readings for today I began thinking about dental care. The Christian life consists in regular check ups, fighting decay and repairing that which is broken. Oh, you can just go along without such care—for a time; maybe an extended length of time. But decay and brokenness eventually affects everything else diminishing health. When health is diminished enough, death looms and finally devours its prey.
The “regular check ups,” “fighting decay” and “repair” we're talking about is the constant and daily need for the forgiveness of our sins. Like tooth decay, even though you are faithful, sin still resides in us, in our fallen nature. Like drilling and cleaning out decay and filling a cavity, repentance and forgiveness, confession and absolution, involves a bit of pain—the pain of grieving over our sin, of contemplating that it took nothing less than the innocent, bitter suffering and death of the Son of God to free us from our sin. The Lord's Prayer shows that the Christian life of faith is a daily struggle against sin. When it has us pray, “give us this day our daily bread,” the little word “and” in the next phrase carries the daily aspect over, that is, “and” daily “forgive us our trespasses.” As with dental health you can just ignore sin and just go along for a time, finally, however, sin overwhelms and kills us. To live in the daily forgiveness of our sins, however, is to live already the eternal life God restores by faith in his Son.
The first part of our parable today means to impress us with the enormity of sin, our total inability to free ourselves from it, but then the even greater, more powerful mercy and forgiveness of God.
You see, Peter started to get the message. Jesus was talking about doing whatever it takes to reach out and restore that which was lost, to forgive others whether they be our spouse, our friend or even our enemy. But Peter began to play the counting game. “Lord, how many times am I supposed to forgive someone who sins against me?” It is said that the rabbis taught people that three times was the limit. Peter more than doubles that and suggests seven times. Jesus plays the game for a moment and multiplies seventy times seven. If you can keep track and count how many times you are to forgive your brother, then how about 490 times! In other words, counting is not the point. Forgiveness is the point. And there is no limit to forgiveness. Want proof?
Parable. God is like a king who wanted to settle accounts. You are like the slave that owed the king ten thousand talents. Though it's hard to precisely convert that into twenty-first century dollars, the best seems to be the total tax burden of Egypt or of the state of California for twenty years. I took the time to figure that out. It is a vast amount, way beyond anyone's ability to pay including Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates. [In case you're really curious Bill Gates is worth $46.5 billion. Tax revenue for the state of California is around $80 billion a year. Twenty years times $80 billion is $1.6 trillion dollars].
We're not told how the slave in the parable got into such unbelievable debt. We are told from the Bible how we did, however. It is partly inherited. We were born in sin. We have added to that by our daily sins. We are slaves of sin. Sin owns us. And the price of release and freedom is far beyond anyone's ability to pay. Furthermore, the Bible says that, though the Lord is gracious, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, still he “will by no means clear the guilty” [Exodus 34:7 (ESV)]. That is, his righteous judgment and condemnation of sin must be satisfied. Not only was the slave in our parable sold and put into prison but also his wife and his children and whatever he had. Even still the debt would remain. For there to be any hope at all depended solely on the king's disposition.
In utter desperation, with nowhere else to go, the slave fell on his knees and implored the king with the nearly absurd plea, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” Of course he would never be able to pay him everything. But then the most amazing thing happened. “Being moved by compassion, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.” What was it that made the king, the master do such a magnanimous thing? Was it the slave's desperation? his plea? certainly not his promise to pay! No. It was solely and alone because it was the nature of this master to have compassion and to forgive.
We're used to hearing and to saying, “God is love,” “God loves you,” “God so loved the world….” But to what extent does God love you and why does he love you? Because you are so loveable? because you've asked him for his love? Certainly it is not because of any deal you have made with God. As in the parable, it is solely and alone because it is of the very nature of God to love his good creation, to have compassion, to forgive sin.
It is in God's love that he devised the way both to satisfy his righteous judgment against all sin and yet to release, to save sinners. And that way was by mysteriously taking all sin into himself. Taking on our human form God the Holy Son fulfilled the Law of God perfectly and yet offered himself as the one and only, spotless sacrifice in payment for the sin of the whole world. But because he is God he rose from death, victor over sin. In his resurrection and victory, then, all creation has been redeemed, bought back, the wages of sin having been paid in full. There is no end of forgiveness anymore. There is no unforgivable sin short of the refusal of his forgiveness.
You need to hear and believe the first part of this parable before we can go on to the second part. For the second part is dependant upon your faith which says, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” Do you? So today again confess all your sin and receive and believe the marvelous forgiveness that is yours right now in Christ.
Back to the theme of how we are to do whatever it takes to restore that which was lost and living in the community of the Church according to the second half of the Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” As forgiven sinners, as Christians, we are expected to share the same nature as our saving God. As it is God's nature to love and forgive, so is it to be of our very nature to be loving and forgiving.
The second half of the parable sees the forgiven servant encountering a fellow servant who owed him “a hundred denarii.” Again the exchange rate is debatable. If a hundred denarii equals a hundred-days wages, we could plug in a figure of, say, $20,000. A significant debt but, of course, hardly anything compared to what the first slave owed. Nevertheless, the slave physically seized his fellow slave and Jesus says he even “began to choke him, saying ‘Pay what you owe.'” Now remember that you heard the first half of this parable. And you must remember it to realize that the second slave did and said exactly what the first slave did and said. “So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.'” The tragedy is that the first slave would not be patient and had him thrown in prison until he should pay the debt.
When the master heard of it he not only condemned him as “wicked” but in his anger took back his forgiveness and delivered him to the jailers “until he should pay all his debt,” which, of course, would be never. Never! Ever! Forever cast out into eternal punishment! And here is the scariest part of it all when Jesus says, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
When we pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” are we asking for God to forgive us to the same extent and on the basis of our forgiving others? No. When we pray that petition it is as if we are asking for forgiveness from God and, in the same breath, publicly proclaiming at that moment our forgiveness of everyone who has sinned against us.
As it is the very nature of God to forgive, so is it to be according to our new nature in Christ to forgive others. It is a wonderful thing, a new thing, to bring forgiveness rather than retaliation and holding grudges. To the extent that we hold grudges, refuse forgiveness to others, we demonstrate that we do not possess that new nature and so, very possibly, have rejected God's forgiveness of ourselves. Did the first slave in the parable ever really receive and take to heart his master's forgiveness? Apparently not. How sad. If you really know, have and appreciate the divine forgiveness of sins for which you pray every day, it will be of your very (new) nature to forgive others.
Jesus uses the phrase, to “forgive your brother from your heart.” He doesn't mean mere sincerity or emotion but forgiveness motivated by the same compassion God has shown you and demonstrated by his Son's body hanging on the cross. “From your heart” means completely, without holding anything back, no strings attached. It means being merciful. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” [Matthew 5:7 (ESV)]. Turn that around and you'll have it. You have received the mercy of God. Now you can share it liberally, freely, out of the same compassion and mercy of God. Know and believe that the bonds of sin have been rent asunder by the mighty death and resurrection of Christ. The evidence of such knowledge and faith will be demonstrated in your forgiving and mercy toward others. ___________________
| |
