Matthew 18: 21-35
The problem with preaching sermons over many years is that I tend to tell stories that I have told before - and this service is no exception! But I console myself with the thought that some of you may not have heard it.
A very long time ago when I had finished my three years as a curate, the Bishop, without any consultation, told me he had arranged that I should take a post in a very flourishing church in the Diocese which even included a car. I was quite cross. ‘He might have asked me what I wanted to do before deciding here I should go’ I thought.
Many years later I had a conversation with a priest who had been treated in exactly the same way by the same person who was then Archbishop of Canterbury. And I exclaimed “I knew he was like that, he hasn’t changed at all!” Immediately it came into my mind, “You haven’t forgiven him for what he said to you such a long time ago - you’ve got to forgive.” I haven’t forgotten the incident - “forgive and forget” often doesn’t work. But I asked Jesus to forgive me and so no longer got upset when I thought about it. I even remember it with some amusement that I should think such thoughts about the person who was my boss at the time - such thoughts!
I sometimes wonder if I had accepted his offer, instead of doing what I planned to do which was to teach overseas - if I would have ended up as a Bishop myself! It is so important to forgive people who have wronged us. Every time we use the Lord’s prayer we pray
“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.
And the Gospel parable makes this very clear.
The first servant owed an unbelievable debt - impossible to pay or even to earn as one talent (not actually a coin but an expression of wealth) was the equivalent of twenty years wages for an ordinary worker. Do remember that while the parables of Jesus often reflect actual situations some, like this one, are told to make us think. And so, let’s think of an uncomfortable and hard to believe fact which the parable suggests. The servant’s debt reflects what we owe to God! We may think our sins are not all that significant compared with some or those of people like Trump or Putin but if we reflect on the holiness of God, we can see that we too simply cannot endure the presence of God without the forgiveness of the cross.
There is no way we can stand in the presence of our God of utter purity, love and self-giving without that sacrifice. We are like the servant who owed an impossible amount. But we have been set free from the debt and so we are bound to forgive the trivial wrongs or even the larger wrongs that people have done to us.
There are some wonderful occasions of Christians forgiving huge wrongs. One example was some parents who forgave the murderer of their child. Another example - repeating yet another story I’ve told before - is that of Corrie Ten Boom who, after the war met the German Officer responsible for the death of her sister in a prisoner of war camp. He pleaded for her forgiveness holding out his hand. She thought I cannot forgive - but at least I can take his hand. As she did so an immediate overwhelming love flooded the two of them.
We have to forgive and not just once as the parable reminds us but seventy-seven times or even more as some translations say seventy times seven. Unlikely that anyone will sin that much against us but, as I have said before, this huge number is told to make us think.
And if we don’t forgive? Well, there is a very clear warning. Jesus doesn’t mince words. When our hearts are hardened and we don’t forgive. We are simply cutting ourselves off from God which results in being thrown into the prison of darkness and despair. This can happen in this life for love is not just a commandment, it is a whole way of life and not forgiving can act as a poison often making people ill.
This story from a book by Agnes Sandford was told by the vicar, Pat Ashe, of a church quite near to where I was brought up. I think I went with my parents to a healing service there. A lady went to Pat telling him about some relations who had been really nasty to her and she had bottled up her feelings about this with the result that she couldn’t sleep, was getting out of breath and in her mind having endless conversations about it. She knew she should forgive but simply couldn’t. Pat reminded her that Jesus on the cross said “Father forgive them” even though he was a hundred percent without blame. Was she absolutely sure she was a hundred percent blameless? “No”, she said, not quite. So, she prayed simply and sincerely, “I’m sorry Lord Jesus for my resentment and for many other sins. Thank you for your forgiveness. Please come into my heart and fill me with your Spirit of love.”
Some weeks later, she came glowing - the hard lump of resentment had melted. She’d gone to see her relative and there had been reconciliation. Forgiveness is often not easy but so important as the parable shows. And - this is from my own experience of saying sorry to a person - it can generate a huge feeling of love.
But, what about people like Trump and Netanyahu and Putin. Should we forgive? They haven’t sinned against us but they have caused countless deaths including many children. We can get very angry about it. Remember Jesus also got angry with some people - he said about Herod “Tell that fox”; of Scribes and Pharisees who misled people, “Blind guides”; and he took a whip to the traders in the temple. We leave such people to the judgement of God but perhaps pray that if there is any chink of peace in them, the Holy Spirit may find a way through and change their hearts to pursue the paths of peace and reconciliation. But we have to remember that there are giant forces of evil in the world which may well only be overcome when Jesus returns in glory.
The other thing I would like to say about forgiveness is that we never know what another person has been through. The Cherokee proverb, “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins”, is very true. And I remember one lady whom I loved dearly. When you visited her, you never knew if she would let you in, say she didn’t want to see you or slam the door in your face. But when you discovered she had lost all four of her children, the eldest at years old and then her husband whose death was not all that peaceful, you were filled with admiration that she could stoically carry on at all. I was able to pray with her shortly before she died.
Still on the subject of forgiveness but not to do with the parable is a problem which I myself find very difficult to deal with. That is, do we forgive ourselves for mistakes and sins of the past where we have hurt people or badly let them down. Looking back over the past, I find myself thinking of these things. In vain, I try to assure myself that no one can change the past, that I have confessed to Jesus and so am forgiven. I feel I am denying the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross by continuing to think of them.
The only way I continue to deal with these thoughts is to reflect on the wonderful verse from Psalm 103 “as far as the east is from the west so far he removes our transgressions from us”; and to firmly tell myself “Stop thinking about that - it’s done with - thank you Jesus”. I don’t know if you have had similar thoughts but the wonderful thing is that if we are really sorry for wrong things we have done - we are forgiven!
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for taking on your shoulders at the cross our own sins and the sins of this whole world.
Amen.