Sermon September 19, 1999 Unlimited Forgiveness based on Matthew 18:21-35
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
During WWII, a young Nazi officer lay dying in a Polish Hospital. He asked a nurse to bring a Jew to his bedside because he wished to confess his terrible actions, be forgiven and die in peace. The Jew who was brought to his bedside was Simon Wiesenthal. Mr. Wiesenthal listened to the soldier's confession about herding a group of several hundred Jews into a house in a Russian Village, setting cans of gasoline inside and igniting them with hand grenades. The soldier had been ordered to shoot anyone trying to escape. The Nazi soldier confessed in great anguish how a father holding a baby tried to escape. The man's clothing was ablaze. "We shot" the soldier said, "and I shall never forget it - it haunts me. Please forgive me and let me die in peace." Wiesenthal rose and left the room without speaking a word. Later some rabbis confirmed Wiesenthal's actions when they wrote, "Whoever is merciful to the cruel will end up being indifferent to the innocent…Let the SS man die unforgiven. Let him go to hell." (Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 9, pt. 4, p. 10)
Today in our text we have a familiar parable about forgiveness. Perhaps it is one of the easiest parables to understand. This parable teaches us two powerful lessons. One lesson is the Law which gives requirements for us to forgive others. The other lesson is the Gospel showing us the depth of the forgiveness we have in Christ.
Peter asked a simple enough question. He just wanted a number. Give him a formula and he would have been satisfied. How many times should I forgive my brother who sins against me?
This search for a formula is familiar, isn't it? There are many today just looking for that recipe. How much do I have to do? What can I get away with? You can find some pastors who will try to satisfy this need people have to do their works to try to achieve a goal. They preach a message giving steps to reach some goal. "Five steps to a better marriage." "Four ways to learn to be a better forgiver." Cookbook recipes to achieve a goal. All this seeking of a recipe and all the preaching and teaching has gone astray from the truths which are the foundation of our Christian faith.
The question to be asking is: How can I be saved, reach eternal life, and live forever? If we had to put together a series of steps for reaching this goal they would go something like this. 1. Realize you can't attain your goal. That's it. That is the only step you can take in reaching the goal. Instead of achieving this goal by our own power, we come to see that the goal can only be reached when our Lord gives it to us as a free gift.
Peter's question was pursuing a formula for forgiving another. He wanted to know what the minimum was which he had to do. What could he get by with?
Peter's simple question got a simple answer which he did not expect. Probably Peter was thinking about a number the Pharisees taught. That group called the Pharisees taught that one should forgive another as many as three times. If someone is commiting the same sin against you, you ought to forgive them three times. That is the limit according to the Pharisees.
Now Peter thought that Jesus would surely have higher standards than the Pharisees, so he picked a higher number. Seven times forgiving someone is more than double the Pharisee's number. Peter wanted Jesus to confirm his thought that this would be enough. He picked seven as a number that would be the limit of what is required. Again, he was looking for a formula - just forgive someone seven times and you are all set.
Jesus' answer is: seven is not enough. He gives a much larger number, seventy-seven times. You can imagine Peter's surprise. He thought if he forgave seven times he would be doing good enough and now Jesus says when you reach seven, just keep on going.
We ought not get misled by Jesus' response into thinking that 77 is the magical number. Rather than trying to give a numerical requirement, Jesus' point was that there is no limit to how many times we ought to forgive. The number He gave was simply to set Peter back. He gave a number chosen simply because it was much larger than the one Peter suggested to make the point that there was no limit.
Seventy-seven is, indeed, a large number. Just think of someone committing a sin against you and you forgive them 77 times for that same sin. Let's pick an example from the 8th commandment. Someone passes a rumor about you to another person. This rumor is untrue and hurtful to your reputation. You forgive this person once, and he then does it again. You forgive a second time and he does it again. You forgive again and he does it again. This goes on, again and again. Can you imagine yourself forgiving this person 77 times?
If we are honest with ourselves, even forgiving once is hard for us to do. To forgive someone a second time, for the same sin, may seem unimaginable. 77 is just beyond our comprehension. How could anyone forgive another person that many times? Yet, this is the number Jesus gives to Peter. The point Jesus is making is that the number of times we ought to forgive is much larger than we can even comprehend.
So, the point of Jesus' reply is not to forgive 77 times and then stop. Rather, we are to forgive and keep on forgiving. Forgive freely. This is confirmed elsewhere in Scripture. For example, Colossians 3:13 says, "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." So our Lord directs us to forgive without limit.
As Jesus often did, He now tells a parable to make His point to Peter. This is a parable teaching what the kingdom of God is like. Remember, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of all believers. It is a kingdom of the heart. What is it like for believers? This is the question answered by the parable.
In the parable we have a king and master who goes to collect a large debt from his servant. The servant isn't going to be able to pay it right away and begs that the king would have patience with him rather than sell him off into slavery. The master does have mercy, even more than the servant was asking for, for the entire debt is forgiven. Rather than just giving him more time to pay, the master wipes out the debt.
Now this servant goes out from the master and finds a fellow servant who owes him a small debt. In fact the first debt, the one the servant owes to the master, is about a million times larger. I am not exagerating, for the value of 10,000 talents is about a million times the value of 100 denarii. Now, this servant is not merciful with his fellow servant and throws him in jail instead of having patience with him. The fellow servant was begging that he be given time to pay off the small debt, but no mercy was shown to him.
Since the servant failed to forgive his fellow servant, even though he had been forgiven a debt a million times greater, the other servants complained to the master. The master called in this unforgiving and unmerciful servant and rebuked him because he would not show mercy in a small way when he had mercy shown to him in a gigantic way. The master has this unmerciful servant thrown into jail.
This parable applies to us quite simply. The master represents our Lord. He forgives the large debt of the servant, which represents you and I. We are the ones who owe large debts to our Lord because of our many sins. Yet our Lord forgives this debt. Then, we are called to go out and forgive others. We go out and forgive others when they sin against us. This debt is much smaller than that which our Lord forgives for us. Having our sins forgiven gives us the motivation to forgive others. This is reflected in what the master said in the parable: "I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" Having our sins forgiven, the big debt, leads us to forgive others.
The text concludes as the parable is applied to a statement of the law. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." Here God's requirements are laid before us, so that we see our shortcomings. Do we really forgive our brother? Do we forgive those who sin against us, or do we hold grudges and take revenge? Maybe we forgive once, but then put a limit on it. Or perhaps we limit our forgiveness only to cases where they apologize in just the right way. In our failure to forgive freely, we deserve to be treated as the servant in the parable. We ought to be sent to jail.
There is good news to report, however. This good news is that we don't need to go to jail, for we have a "Get out of Jail Free" card. It is like the game of Monopoly. If you have one of these cards, you don't need to go to jail. Yet this card came to us through the cross. That old rugged cross is where our Savior died to secure our release. Rather than have to face the punishment for our crimes, we are set free. Our debt really is forgiven through the shedding of Jesus' blood.
Now, since Jesus gave up His life for us, we have life everlasting. This is a one step process for our Lord to achieve the goal of saving us. No number of steps will allow us to save ourselves. Yet, one step of our Lord, up to the cross to die and we are saved. This benefit can only come through our Lord Jesus. So we sang, "Thou alone to God canst win us."
This good news has the upper hand over all the requirements of the law. Since Christ fulfilled the law for us, we are free from the burden of trying to save ourselves by keeping the law. This good news means that even when we fail to forgive our brother from the heart, we still are forgiven by our Lord. That is indeed good news that we all need to hear - for we all fall short. Instead of facing the jail of hell, we know we are set free by Christ's sacrifice for us.
What an incredible debt we owed and yet it has all been paid. The depth of the forgiveness of our Lord is inconceivable to us. The debt of the servant in the parable was a million times larger than the debts owed to him. What a blessing for us to have such a large debt forgiven freely and unconditionally.
Now our Lord comes in the Holy Spirit to bring about change in our hearts. With the Holy Spirit at work, we become more forgiving, for we know more strongly how we have been forgiven. We know of the large debt that we owed to our Lord and how it has been forgiven. In response, we go and forgive others. As we have received the incredible forgiveness of our massive sins against God, so, with the heart of Christ we freely offer forgiveness to those who sin against us.
This forgiveness we have from our Lord is the type of forgiveness that just doesn't end. It doesn't stop. It is complete. It is the kind of forgiveness which comes with forgetting. When God forgives, He forgets our sins too. A friend of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, once reminded her of an especially cruel thing that had been done to her a year before. But Miss Barton seemed not to recall it. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked. "No," came the reply, "I distinctly remember forgetting it."
This kind of complete, full forgiveness is what is offered to us through Christ's body and blood given and shed for us. It is offered to us through our redeemer who went to the cross just for us. This is the unlimited forgiveness we have through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.