The Church Season of Trinity
The Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (October 19, 2008)
“Forgiveness of sins”
Readings:
Psalm 116:12-19
Micah 6:6-8
Philippians 1:3-11
Matthew 18:21-35
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 18th chapter of St. Matthew, especially the following verse:
Matthew 18:21-35
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
In our Gospel lesson today Peter asked Jesus, "How often should I forgive my brother who sins against me?" And the answer Jesus' gives really says this, "There should be no limit to your forgiveness." There should be no limit to your forgiveness. That is a hard one, because we do not want to offer limitless forgiveness for those who have done us wrong in some way. We’d rather store up those memories of wrongful words and actions so that we can pull them out for use in a future argument, in a future meeting, and all the better if we can pull out those memories when the other guy isn’t looking or listening. Forgive 70 x 7 times, get real Jesus, how can I forgive someone who said all those bad things about me? How can I forgive all those bad things they did to me and my family?
This last week I heard a pastor tell a story about forgiveness from someone he had wronged in his high school days. He admitted he was part of group that picked on another student at their high school because this person was physically and mentally challenged. Then many year passed, the young bully, went to college, then to Seminary, then out to serve a church as a newly ordained and installed pastor. Yet as he grew in years he never forgot how he had mistreated this other student. But it seemed that there was no going back, no way to find this person and apologize. He confessed to another pastor what he had done and he received God’s forgiveness. And as he had dutifully learned, and you have too, from the Catechism we believe that, “when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”(SC) He knew those words by heart, he knew that God’s forgiveness out forgives anything that we can do, yet he still felt convicted that he could not apologize to that person. Well as it often turns out, we find that God does have a sense of humor, for this young man, after more than a few years, was called to be the Senior Pastor at a very large church. During the call process he went to visit that church, with his chest puffed out, and his ego over-inflated, and he arrived as scheduled to meet a few people from the church. But he had hardly gotten out of his car and started walking up to the church when he saw that there was a person there in front of the church. And as he approached from a distance he got an eerie feeling, because he recognized from the way this man moved due to his handicap, that this was the man whom he and others had bullied so many years before. And at that moment he questioned whether or not he had been forgiven by God, because he had never apologized to that man in person. That man was now the janitor of this huge church, and he was dutifully cleaning the entrance. But when that handicapped janitor saw that man coming toward him he had only one reaction. And, quite frankly it was not the reaction that you might think he would have toward a person who had disparaged him so much, so many years before. He turned and laid down his cleaning tools, he opened his arms and gave that pastor a heartwarming hug, and said, “Pastor I am so glad you are here.” He had long ago not only forgiven the man who would indeed be his pastor, he allowed himself to forget the past too.
In this world the saying, “forgive and forget” is often overused and even more seldom meant. We can sometimes muster the strength to forgive someone, but seldom are we able to totally forget what happened.
When King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan pointed out David sin. David repented and was forgiven as he exclaimed: "Have mercy upon me, Oh God!"(Ps. 51:1) And after St. Paul called himself the chief of sinners he said, "for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.”(1 Tim. 1:16) Until the end of the world St. Paul will serve as a model for all sinners who cannot save themselves by their own works but on whom Christ Jesus has had mercy.
We do very often say, “I'll forgive but I won't forget." That is very, very dangerous. Because that will eventually cause us to either wonder or ask ourselves, “When God forgives us for Jesus' sake, does He forget?” Does God forget? Well, always remember that Gods forgiveness is complete and has no memory of past transgressions. For you will recall in Jeremiah that God says: "I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more." (Jer. 31:34) And in the Psalms David prays: "Do not remember the sins of my youth." (Ps. 25:7) When God forgives, He always forgets. Even though you may have confessed your sins and remember what you have done, no matter what they are, God forgives you and the He forgets.
The Triune God is a God of mercy. Over and over we hear in the Old Testament, "Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good because His mercy endures forever."(Ps. 118:1) Our God is a merciful and He has given us Jesus Christ. And Christ’s mercy is endless, it overcomes any and all of our sins. In Adam all have sinned and everyone falls short of the glory of God.
As sinful humans, there is always the danger of being merciless toward our neighbor. If and when we refuse to forgive our neighbors one of two things happen...Either we will become offensive to our fellow-Christians as our Gospel lesson reminds us or we bring the just judgment of God down upon ourselves. When we refuse to forgive our neighbors, all our debts come back again and we become liable.
We all have many sins to confess. Whether it be a person that we wronged so many years ago or whether it is the times we refused to forgive our neighbor. We are as Christians compelled by God’s grace to repent and pray, “Lord, have mercy on us!” And we do receive God’s forgiveness as we pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” And God’s forgiveness was not too much for Him to bear for, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.”(1 Peter 2:24)
Christ bore our sins with Him on the cross, and there He not only forgives you all your sins, but He also forgets your sin too. And one day when you leave this world you will have no worry of things you have done in the past, for God has forgiven you. And He in His forgiveness will welcome you into His kingdom for 7 x 70 years, and that, in biblical terms is a blessed eternity. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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