Creekside Church Sermon of September 15, 1996 "To Whom Much is Forgiven" Matthew 18:21-35	Rev. David Bibbee
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Its easier to deal with tough topics in the abstract, isn't it? One of the impediments to action is discussion. If you don't want something done, just get people talking about it. But Jesus didn't come to form discussion groups. "Alright gentlemen, the philosophical question of the week is, 'Who is my neighbor?' " The truth Jesus taught wasn't abstract. It was LIVED truth. His concern wasn't for new ideas, but new ways of living.

Last week we looked at the matter of forgiveness. We said it is not natural, but goes against our basic instincts. Today we are going to delve deeper into forgiveness, and if you are looking for my main point, it is simply this...it is up to the forgiven to forgive. The forgiveness we have received requires a concrete response.

Simon Peter asked Jesus, "How many times do I have to forgive the guy who hurts me? Seven times?" Jewish law said the limit was three. Twice that many plus one seemed to Peter exceedingly generous. "Whose counting?" Jesus replied. "Are you a disciple or an accountant? If you want a number, try seventy times seven." It was Jesus' way of saying there is no cap on mercy. Paltry and puny doesn't begin to describe the disparity between God's forgiveness and ours.

As you would expect, Jesus answered him with a parable. A King was settling accounts with his servants. An internal audit revealed that one man owed ten thousand talents. This was an incredible sum, equivalent to the gross national product of a small country. There was no way in a lifetime such a debt could be repaid. Since he couldn't pay, the King ordered the man, his wife and children sold into slavery and all their possessions seized. The servant fell to his knees in a pathetic, sobbing, slobbering heap, pleading in a performance worthy of an academy award. "Have mercy on me, please, and I'll repay everything." The King was moved with compassion. He forgave the debt. The servant didn't have to repay one red cent.

No interpreter needed to tell Peter or us who the indebted servant is. His pardon is our pardon. It was given not because the pleading was so persuasive, but it was within the heart of the King to forgive. Think for a moment of your indebtedness...not your mortgage or what you owe VISA or Mastercard. I'm talking about the ledger which contains all you have ever received. Parents who cared for, guided, instructed you, who shared faith with you and sacrificed to give you the things you needed to make it in the world. I'm thinking of friends...friends who have remained that way not for what you do, but for who you are. So much we have received from so many, yet so often we have a so what attitude. We act more like entitled people than indebted people.

But life owes us nothing. We are the ones who owe. Think about all you have...the abilities, opportunities, the resources, the blessings and the breaks. Ask yourself, "What did I do to deserve them?" Or more to the point ask, "What did I do not to deserve them?" The apathy, the self-centeredness. The words and acts which cut to the quick and have created long standing grief. Think of all the times, if you can face them all, that we have given others and God good reason not to remain by our side. So much has been given and forgiven. How could we ever pay back such a debt?

Pardoning the servants debt was no easy thing. It came at a considerable expense. Repairing the sin trail we've left behind is no easy thing for God, either. The paid in full receipt has a cross on it. We stand before the King with our six digit debt and are told, "Though your sins be a scarlet, they shall be white as snow." We look back over the trail of casualties and mistakes and like our prodigal brother we say, "We are no longer worthy to be called your sons and daughters." And to those who can bear to receive it, the King proclaims our pardon.

I said "bear to receive it" because our forgiveness brings with it a knowledge of self...a candid knowledge. I have a friend who was praying for more insight into the truths of God and herself. Her spiritual director cautioned her that in the process she would see other aspects of herself that were unbecoming. "Remember," she said, "the greater the light, the darker the shadow." The more we discover about the depths of God's forgiveness, the more we become aware of our sinful nature.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was the novelist who spoke out against the communist system in the Soviet Union. In his book the Gulag Archipelago, he described his friendship with an army officer during World War II. They were alike in so many ways...they felt the same on many issues, held the same values, hopes, and convictions. Years later Solzhenitsyn was thrown in prison with untold thousands of other innocents and he survived only by faith and courage. His friend, however, became an interrogator who forced confessions from innocent people by ghastly tortures. "How," he wondered, "could two men so much alike have taken such different paths?" He thought that if his teachers and circumstances would have been different, he could have become like his friend. He couldn't believe that he was a totally good person nor that his friend was utterly evil. Listen to how he puts it:

If only there were vile people, committing evil deeds, they could be separated from the rest of humanity and destroyed. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through every human heart. One and the same person is, under various circumstances a totally different person. At times close to being a double, at times close to sainthood.

God shows us that separating the sheep from the goats is not as easy as we think. The forgiven see the truth of themselves and the marvelous grace of God. They are awed that God's forgiveness for them extends deeper than their capacity to sin. We learn that forgiveness given to us must be given by us. Here is where the parable turns.

The servant had just received a new lease on life. But on the way home he ran into a man who owed him ten bucks, and the recipient of incredible forgiveness became Snively Whiplash. "Hand it over!" "I can't pay you now." "What do you mean you can't pay?" He shook him by the throat as the poor man spoke the same words the servant had spoken to the King. "Have patience with me, please, and I'll repay you everything!" Nothing doing. He threw the man into jail until the debt was paid. And when the King heard what happened, he ordered the servant back and said, "You pleaded with me to forgive your great debt and I did, but you refused to show mercy to a man who owed you next to nothing. Send him to Alcatraz!" and Jesus said, "So will God do to you if you don't forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart."

It is so important that we get the focus of this parable straight because it has more to say about our tendencies and responsibilities than it does about the character of God. The parable is not saying God will only forgive if you do. This makes God's loving conditional, and if this is so we are all in trouble. It tells us that when we have our forgiveness, others must have theirs. When we refuse to forgive, we shut ourselves off from forgiveness. Frederick Buechner says that when we don't forgive we feed on a feast of anger and resentment fit for a King. The chief drawback is that you are wolfing down yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

If others don't receive forgiveness from us, we don't have it either. Jesus is saying there is no life that is open to God that is not willing to forgive. Failure to forgive consigns us to a prison of our own making. God is no King who revokes a pardon. We do it. And we hold the key that leads us deeper into the heart of God's compassion, but as someone said, "A person who can't give mercy, can't understand how to get it."

We aren't in the service of a vindictive King who revokes forgiveness. Psalms 103 tells us who he is:

God is sheer mercy and grace, not easily angered, He's rich in love. He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, He has separated us from our sins.

This grand gift not only descends upon us, but should flow through us. From time to time we catch a vision of forgiveness. It stands there shining like a beacon beyond our attempts and failures to show us the wonders it can do.

John Killinger tells the story of a twelve year old boy who had witnessed the murder of his father and the brutal rape-murder of his mother. His life seemed over. He was sent to a state school, but he was withdrawn and did poorly. He saw one psychologist after another, but no amount of therapy could break through the hard shell behind which he hid. After graduation he went to a Young Life meeting. There he heard several young people talk about the difference Christ had made in their lives. That night he accepted Christ amid a river of tears. Suddenly he was no longer withdrawn. He made new friends.

He went to college then to law school and while there, he did something that had been on his mind since the night he committed himself to Christ. He went to visit the man who murdered his parents who was serving a life sentence. The visit wasn't a good one. But he went back a second time. He told the man, "If God can forgive me for the terrible hatred I carried for you, God can forgive you for what you have done."

The prisoner was moved. On the fourth visit he surrendered his own heart and the two joined in an astounding, tearful embrace. Several years later the man was paroled, and the young man who was now an attorney in a nearby city helped him get a new job and a new start in life. Only by the power of Christ could such an amazing thing happen.

When those who have been forgiven much forgive, the power of Jesus Christ is unleashed. Little bridges are rebuilt between people. Lives are changed. And God's will for the world is moved a little further toward its fulfillment.

[This sermon was inspired by David Redding's treatment of the parable of the unforgiving servant in his book THE PARABLES OF JESUS.]

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