Forgiven

Matthew 18:27 - His master had pity on him and forgave him the debt.

Imagine the relief of not owing 15 years' wages! It must have been immense. His wife and his children are still with him. I might have started crying if this were me.

And yet, it was me, and you and all of us. We all have this wonderful gift right at our fingertips. And, like the slave, we must ask. Grace is not forced on us by God. Nor is forgiveness necessarily given by others unless we ask. We acknowledge the ways our lives have been unmanageable. The small things and the big things. It is all forgiven.

Which brings me back to the situation here. The master has somehow decided it wise to lend such a large sum to his slave. Was this irresponsible? Was it irresponsible to borrow that much? Worldly wisdom would say yes. And worldly wisdom would say there's no need for "salvation." Yet, here God is, flinging love around like it's seed he's sowing. It's a crazy situation. And we have a crazy God! The debt can possibly be likened to "free reign" or free will. God has given us freedom to do stupid and dumb things. SOmetimes we hurt or kill others. It seems crazy, yet God forgives us when we acknowledge the harm. The slave knows he has screwed up and promises to make good. When we do the same, we, too, can both forgive ourselves and feel God's forgiveness as well.

The proper response to such a gift is Thank You!
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Mercy

Matthew 18:26 - Then the servant fell to his knees, imploring him, "Have mercy on me and I will pay back all."

As I was thinking about this picture of vulnerability, I thought about my sermon for "I thirst." This, too, is a picture of vulnerable humanity, powerless over so many forces that nonetheless shape his life. We are all right there with him. Hoping for mercy and sometimes receiving it.

Then, it occurred to me that when we see others hurting, in a predicament (even of their own making), or otherwise in need, we should see Christ - on the cross. That is when Christ was in need. I know that I often see Christ triumphant but that is not the Christ in people who need help. It gave me a new way of thinking about crucifixes as opposed to empty crosses. The crucifix is not to focus on the harm, the blood, the degradation so much as to remember when Christ was needy. Again, we go too fast to God as triumphant on Easter. We do not wish to linger on Good Friday - it is too painful. Yet, we live here.

Christ on the cross - helpless, powerless, vulnerable, human.
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Sold!

Matthew 18:25 - When we could not pay, his lord ordered that he be sold, along with his wife and his children and all that he had and payment made.

I have been thinking about limitations this morning. That and this passage make me realize that our lives can change in an instant. We feel secure and comfortable and wham! everything is new. And we hate it - even when the new is good, we often resist. Of course, the life of this slave was more fragile than that of the master.

I often feel like that slave. That any minute disaster is about to strike and I think there are many in this country that feel the same - immigrants, Muslims, Jewish people, African-Americans, Mexicans and other Latin people, the mentally ill, handicapped people, people with chronic illness. Right on the edge of disaster. My heart bleeds for all of us. And this is where limitations come into the picture. I cannot fix any of it. My heart can only bleed. And as my heart bleeds, it becomes empty - so that I can fill it with love and that love can spur me to act. I can't fix it, yet I can do small things.

One is recognizing my own limitations and how I resist them. Another is educating myself about the experience of others. I can call my senators and representative to thank them for their service or ask them to vote a certain way. I can share my story so others may benefit in some way.

All of that come after acceptance of our limitations. At least for me, I need to pace myself so that I, too, am not thrown into despair or homelessness and thus be useless to everybody.
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Matthew 18:24 - When he began the reckoning one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

There are so many questions. Why did he owe this much money? Why couldn't he pay it back? How can he pay it back now? What was the money used for and where did it go? Why did the king lend it to him in the first place? What will happen to him? How much would 10,000 talents be then? today?

Well, that last one is answered for us; it's roughly 15 years worth of wages for a laborer. At $15/hour that would be 750,000 today. That is quite a sum for anyone to be owing. Which brings to mind an additional question: what was the servant thinking as he/she (probably he) brought in? Was he panicking? confident? about to lose control of his bowels?

Many of these questions are unanswerable. Yet, we can see we have a situation in which both parties made bad decisions. The king in lending that much money to a servant; and the servant in not only borrowing the money but also in somehow not having any of it now. How is this situation comparable to the kingdom of heaven? Maybe the details are not important - possibly Jesus is saying we owe God a debt we cannot possibly pay. Why? For life in the first place but, because we are still talking about forgiveness, also God's forgiveness of our sins against God and each other.
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Settling Accounts

Matthew 18:23 - Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.


Jesus is continuing his discussion of forgiveness. Therefore signals this. He compares Peter's hypothetical situation to both the kingdom of heaven through its similarities to a king wishing to settle accounts with his servants. How do these situations compare? Who is the king? Well, clearly the king is God, right? We're talking about heaven, after all. Who are the servants, then? That would be us. Clearly, the premise of the parable to follow is based on the implicit assumption that we owe something to God. And this something has to do with forgiveness.

What do we owe to God? It is still unclear, yet we are indebted to God somehow. Now, what would servants owe their master or their master owe their servant? As we'll see it is money. Depending on your view of God, this is a good and loving situation or a bad and horrifying situation. I'll explain in the following posts just what I mean.
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Seventy times seven

Matthew 18:22 - Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven."

In human terms, that turns out to be unconditional and never-ending forgiveness. Yet, there is something about forgiveness that I must state here. To forgive does not mean forget and it certainly does not mean there will be no consequences. Jesus forgives our mistakes and bumbling attempts to follow him, yet we still experience consequences of our actions. This is important and many people gloss over it.

It's the forget part that I want to highlight. I would hope that if a brother or sister was treating you so badly that the number of times you were forgiving them got that high, it would lead to a serious conversation at least and a willingness to not trust or be around that person. They are or can be dangerous. Some people would be okay with this. It would be good to look at what someone got out of continually being let down. What's the trade off?

Another aspect of forgetting is that forgetting in itself can be dangerous. If someone has abused me in any way, it is in my and everyone else's  best interest to not forget. Remembering can lead to protecting ourselves. Again, some people can move past that, yet it takes a lot of self-awareness and reflection to get to such a point. We ordinary people need to take these issues one step at a time.

Which brings me to a last point - there is no need to forgive immediately. Nowhere in these two verses does it say forgiveness is immediate. Many times, we need to work through trauma first and then begin the process of being able to forgive. This can take years and a lot of work. If we keep at it, we may become people who can be around otherwise dangerous individuals without losing ourselves or our center.
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Forgive

Matthew 18:21 - Then Peter came to him and said, "How many time shall my brother or sister sin against me and I forgive them? As many as seven times?

We really like the power anger gives us over others - or at least the illusion of power it gives us over others. Staying angry doesn't always translate directly to power but it feels powerful to us. I think this may be behind the anger of Trump supporters - the powerful feeling anger gives. Yet their anger is powerless because of its lack of compassion for others. One can be angry and still have compassion for the person we are angry at.

We like this feeling so much, Peter asks permission here to stop having to forgive after seven times. He thinks this is generous. Maybe it is for the day - it's clear that he thinks there ought to be a limit. So, he asks permission to stop after seven times. Oh, how we too want permission to not forgive. We have all sorts of justifications but most of the time we are not innocent in the situation. Therefore, it is up to us to think about our part and put ourselves in the shoes and minds of others. This requires compassion. Without this compassion our forgiveness will be mere condescension; we will not be able to cut the chord that binds us to our "enemy".

A better question to ask is why don't we want to forgive? What are we getting out of not forgiving someone? Sometimes it takes a lot of time to figure the answers out and so forgiveness doesn't always happen right away. But unless we are sincere, we are merely putting a bandaid on a broken arm - it won't help.
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Two or Three

Matthew 18:20 - For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I will be with them.

This is the completion of the previous verse - assuring us of God's desire to give us, God's children, good things. The implication is that with the spirit, we will only ask for that which is good for us? Yet, I have heard prayers for some pretty nasty stuff. Perhaps the technicality here is "in my name". The name Jesus is not a talisman although the verse reads that way.

It is as a representative - I wonder if it means something similar to "image of God." Coming in someone's name as being their representative rather than their puppet master.

Jesus is with us when we come in his name - however, that implies that we will act as he acted, love as he loved, live as he lived. WWJD - What would Jesus do - writ large.
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Ask in My Name

Matthew 18:19 - Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything, it will become for them from my father in heaven.

I struggle with this passage because clearly this does not happen. Some people get what they pray about and others do not. One might say that there is an unspoken condition - that it works only if what we pray for is God's will. Well, our wills are not God's and the passage clearly says anything. It could be translated each thing but that is not different. I found some help in the struggle yesterday in Henri Nouwen's writing - it is not Jesus' miracles that should amaze us but rather Jesus' compassion.

So it is not getting what we want that should be focused on here - but the compassion and communal aspect of the idea. God's compassion but also our own. I'm still not sure exactly what this mash up looks like but I'm putting these thoughts down so I can go deeper. So the question I will be thinking on today is "How does this passage (in conjunction with the following verse) demonstrate God's compassion?

Perhaps it is as easy as God's desire to give us good things, God's desire to love us, God's presence with us.
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