Sunday, September 17, 2017

Sermon Text: Matthew 18:21-35, September 17, 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, the 18th chapter:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     There is no amount of times you actually have to fulfill in order to forgive your brother or sister their offenses against you.  Let’s say it this way, if you were to forgive them 77 times, or 490 times, or a hundred times, you would still need to forgive their offenses, even for the same offense, so often, you wouldn’t be able to stop under you hit eleventy-bajillion times.  Of course, that’s a made up number, but then again, also made up is the amount of opportunities you are allowed to give someone until you cut them off completely.

     You get it?  Jesus uses just a ridiculous number to make His point.  It doesn’t matter if He said a real number or not, you are always to forgive your brothers and sisters their sins, especially when they’re against you.  You, as a Christian are not allowed to NOT forgive others.

     Let’s talk about forgiveness, shall we?  When we, as Lutherans especially, talk about forgiveness, we usually talk about it in the context of confession.  Now, it used to be, and some of you may remember this, that to receive the Lord’s Supper each time it was offered, you had to do what?  You had to go and declare yourself for Communion the night before to the pastor.  That usually involved confessing your sins, being forgiven, and making sure no one had anything against you that you were not aware of, or oblivious to, or hiding from your spiritual shepherd.

     Of course, this wasn’t so the pastor could get the latest gossip from the community, but so that he could pronounce to you, individually and personally, the forgiveness of any of your sins, and especially those that are specifically bothering.  “Mert,” he’d say, “Mert, you have confessed your sin of theft from Mr. Brown.  In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”  Then, he’d probably tell Mert to go and make it right with Mr. Brown, confessing to him and repaying him for the theft.  Think of this like a spiritual checkup, if you will.  The Church takes so seriously the idea that you want to come to the Altar with no baggage of unconfessed sin, so it is gone.  By the way, even though we don’t make this our usual practice any more, your pastor is still able and willing to give you private confession and absolution.

     That’s forgiveness, though.  As an aside, when someone says I’m sorry, please stop saying things like it’s no big deal, we’re okay, it’s alright, I’m fine, we’re okay.  That’s not forgiveness.  It might be a statement of fact, but it’s not forgiveness.  Forgiveness is the freedom from the debt of sin, freedom from death forever, freedom from condemnation.  Confession always should lead to absolution.  When one confesses their sin, there should always be absolution, whether you believe it or not, whether you’re hurt or not, whether you’re a giant grump or not.  The Christian forgives sins.  You don’t have a choice.

     But, we do also teach that those with unrepentant hearts, meaning hearts that are not sorry for their sins or intend to do them again without thought to the seriousness of that sin, they are not to be forgiven.

     We heard that in the Gospel lesson last week; if a brother sins against you, go to him alone, try to get them to confess and repent so you can forgive them.  But if they don’t listen, take another who witnessed the sin.  If they still won’t repent, take them to the entire church.  If they still won’t repent, then they are not to be forgiven, but treated as one who is unclean and evil.

     That’s hard stuff.  We are called to always forgive these repentant sinners, but we’re also called to use extreme discretion before we ever do not forgive someone.  That’s more than just saying that they’re not forgiven; that’s telling them that if they do not repent, they will go to hell.  That sounds serious, but Jesus gave those keys, keys to forgive and loose sins on earth and in heaven, and keys to bind and not forgive sins on earth and heaven.  Notice how easy it is to forgive a sin.  Notice how hard it should be that you should not forgive a sin.

     That’s the Christian life, friends.  You are the servant in today’s parable that owed ten thousand talents.  Now, that’s a lot of money, but the amount isn’t important.  It’s a number than kind of serves like eleventy-bajillion dollars.  It’s ridiculous.  No one in all of human history has ever owed that much money.  Yet, you are this servant, and the reality is that you owe at least that much to your Master, your God, for all of your sins.  Even if you committed one tiny, little sin, you would owe our Lord eleventy-bajillion dollars.  Good luck paying that back.  You never will.

     Yet, look at the kindness of the master.  Upon hearing the pleas for mercy, the master forgives the 80 thousand lifetimes it would take to make that money back.  When your Lord hears your pleas for mercy, what does He do?  He gives to the forgiveness of your debt to Him.  More than that, He sends His Son to pay that debt.  This is His pity, His love, His mercy on you, for you.

     It’s true that we don’t often practice private, individual confession and absolution any more, and again, you can always come to me and we can do it, but we do have our corporate confession still in our service.  We will always have confession of one kind or another for you because what else is this place than where you can find the forgiveness of sins.  We are nothing without confession and absolution.  There’d be no point to us being here if it were not to hear that God has given His Son to die for you that all of your sins may be forgiven.

     Yet, when we, like the servant in the parable, will not forgive our brother a mere nickel for his sin when we have been forgiven a fortune, what does that say of us?  I mean, if you want to throw your brother in jail over a nickel of a sin, go for it.  But then I can tell you that God will not forgive you.  You are not living as a Christian and it becomes obvious to Him, and remember He’s God and sees even your heart, that you are not truly repentant.

     If you’re in debt up to your eyeballs and someone comes and writes you a check, bailing you out, how thankful would you be?  What if that person then says an unkind word, accidental or not, are you going to hold that against them forever?  When you realize the depravity of your sin, when you realize what you’ve been forgiven, what would another person’s sins be to you?  You should know that you are the last of the people on earth to be forgiven, your crimes against God and your neighbor are so heinous, yet the Lord Jesus, in His mercy gave up His life for your sake that you may find life in Him.

     Yet, when we confess our sins, even our sins of not forgiving, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That gives you the freedom to approach your brother or sister of the faith and forgive them whatever.  Say someone sins against you, you may go to them without the fear of death in your eyes and urge them to repent.  They may.  Rejoice, you have gained your brother.  But they may not.  Warn them, encourage them to repent, and if they will not forgive them in your heart, but preach the sternness of the Law of God, in loving respect, to them so they may realize what may come from a lack of repentance.

     When we don’t forgive others, when we don’t let love help us overlook the record of wrongs, we’re saying to God that we don’t care that He sent His Son to die for us.  This is a hellish thing.  Please don’t do that.  I cannot guarantee your eternal safety.

     Yet, in Christ, strengthened by His gifts, His Word and Sacrament, which you receive in a repentant, confessing heart of faith, made ever more tender by the constant seeking of the forgiveness of God and others, you realize ever more the greatness of the gift of forgiveness He has forgiven.  In this way, you forgive an infinity of times, as often as you are able, so that we live together now, in peace, as a foretaste of what is to come in the resurrection of the dead.  This is life together, and this is our Christian love for one another.  It comes through our Lord Jesus, and it models the greatness of His sacrifice for you.  Forgive.  You have been forgiven.  In Jesus’ name, amen.

     Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord!  Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment