Sixteenth Sunday
after Pentecost, September 17th, A+D 2023
Our Savior´s and Our
Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer,
SD
Justice Matthew 18:21-35
'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."
That's not fair. I demand justice! Oh, how we want justice. If a kid is being punished unjustly, the whole school may rise up in protest. If you are not considered for a promotion that you deserve, you and all your friends at work will fume and agitate. If we think a referee is taking sides against our Hill City Rangers or Custer Wildcats, we will boo and heckle and right letters to the editor.
But do you really want justice? Consider the first servant in our Gospel today. He didn't want justice. Not applied to himself, anyway. He owed the king a lot of money. A ridiculous sum, if you do the math. A talent was a measure of money based on a silver coin, the denarius, the standard day’s wage of the first century Roman Empire. One talent was worth 6,000 denarii. It is hard to equate these things exactly, but a talent would probably be worth at least $200,000 today. This servant owed 10,000 talents. That's two billion dollars. A ridiculous sum, one that almost no human being could ever pay back, and definitely not if they are rotting in jail . The King who was owed 2 billion dollars certainly had a right to demand justice, to punish this servant since he would never get his money back. But the servant doesn't want justice to be applied to him. So he begs. Please, spare me! Spare me and my family the just punishment for costing you 10,000 talents. Lord, have mercy!
"O.K.," responds the King.
"What?" You can just imagine the court recorder, taking notes on the King's official business, choking on his coffee as the King agreed to pardon this servant, to completely forgive his debt. "I’m sorry, what did you say, your Highness?" "Ten thousand talents, just forgiven: are you kidding me? You’re not going to punish this servant? I mean, O.K., I get it, you want to have mercy. But you’re going to let him off scot-free? What kind of justice is this?"
As you’d expect, the pardoned servant didn't wait around to allow these questions to be considered. Off he goes, unbelievably fortunate. What was it? Is he lucky, blessed, or just that important and pleasing to his master? Who cares? Off he goes, you might think to throw a big celebration.
But no. Sadly, his first order of business is justice. Some other man, a fellow servant, has fallen into his debt, 100 denarii, that is 100 days' wages. A large sum, but not impossible to repay. And you might think, considering the king's forgiveness of his 10,000 talent debt, that the first servant would find it in his heart to cut the guy some slack. But no. Justice must be served. Grab him and choke him and demand your money. Demand justice. Mercy? No! Go to jail! Work off your debt! That's what the law says. Justice must be served!
Not a good move, friend. All the other servants know this stinks. And they are going to talk. The King is going to hear. He does, and he is not impressed. "Oh, now you demand justice, on your terms?" asks the king. "So be it. Off to jail, till you pay the last penny of your debt to me." Which of course will never happen.
Today's Gospel reading is really challenging. For one thing, salvation by grace through faith seems to be at risk. The center of the Gospel is that, because we could never meet God's law, Jesus has done so in our place, and freely shares his blood bought justice, his righteousness, with us. But today’s teaching from Jesus seems to establish one exception. Jesus declares at the end of the parable, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” You could easily get the idea that there is one work you must do to earn salvation, you must forgive your brother from your heart. That is very disturbing, because it seems to go against what Scripture says elsewhere. And there is a second, greater problem: this word of Jesus condemns us.
Sometimes I think I can forgive. Once in a while, someone sins against me, not too badly, mind you, and I find it is easy enough to let it go. But all too often, I find it very hard to forgive. Repeat offenders, big offenders, really horrible sins, or, those committed against us by friends or family, or by those who confess the same faith in Christ as we do, these are not so easy to forgive from the heart. I can maybe say the words, but inside I'll nurse the grudge. I may set your offense aside for now. But I'll know just where to reach and grab it, to wield it as a weapon, the next time you sin against me.
We may say ‘forgiveness,’ but too often we really mean ‘suspended sentence,’ a crime held in reserve, ready to be used again if the perpetrator offends me again. When I think about those who sin against me, I all too often want justice to be served, against them, to please myself.
When such
feelings, thoughts and actions well up in us, the Baptized, well then Jesus
must put us in our place: “You wicked servant.
Consider all that I've forgiven you.
Shouldn't you forgive these things that others have committed against
you? You want to deny my forgiveness,
and have your own justice instead? Fine,
have justice. Go to your place. Go away
from me, until you have paid off all you owe me.”
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Yes, we must forgive from our hearts. This is a work that God requires. And so, out of His great love for us, God supplies what we need. Forgiving others is also a good work that God prepares for us and works in us. Good fruit does not grow from an evil tree, good works do not come from a wicked heart. If we are to forgive, God will have to give us a new heart. Which is exactly what He does when He saves us. With King David we often sing: Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. This is exactly what it takes to forgive. Only when God supplies a new heart, a clean heart filled with His love, only then can we begin to forgive.
We are caught in a terrible struggle. God has come to us with His love. He creates new hearts in us. But for reasons we do not and cannot yet understand, He does not remove all the evil that lies within us. We are saints, declared holy and righteous by our Baptism into Jesus, called into His Kingdom by the Word of grace. At the same time, we are also still sinners, still given to spite and anger and demands for personal justice. This is not a comfortable spot to be in. Read Romans 7 and see how the great Apostle Paul struggled with the evil that remained in him. Read Romans 7, and pray. Pray that the Lord will give you a new heart today, and every day. Pray that God will give you the grace to forgive.
Pray, and know that grace is available, always, forever, in the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, there is one part of God's justice that today’s parable leaves out. In the parable, the king forgives the debt owed to him simply because the servant begged him. In God's courtroom, there's a little more to it. God does not forgive our sins simply because we beg. No, there is a greater reason, a reservoir of forgiveness that God draws on each and every time He forgives. The Master of heaven and earth is always ready to forgive because Jesus has achieved perfect, limitless justice. Jesus has paid the debt owed by all, an infinite number of talents. In so doing, He has given us free access to an account we can always draw on, a reservoir of forgiveness that will never run dry. His justice is complete, infinite, everlasting. And it is His gift to you. Free justice, for us unjust servants. Free justice, from God's limitless reservoir.
That reservoir of justice is the blood of Jesus. As John tells us in his first letter, the blood of Jesus, [God's] Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7) We dare not imagine we can mock God, and sin willingly, treating God’s mercy as a license to sin. Such thinking is unbelief; it is rebellion and hatred of God. This is what the first wicked servant did in his heart, that did not believe in his master’s mercy. Believing hearts struggle against sin, with all their might.
Believing hearts struggle against sin, with all their might. And yet in this life, believing hearts still fail, we still fall into sin. And so it is good news indeed that there is no limit to how much sin God can and will forgive, for Jesus’ sake. The merciful merit earned by the sacrifice Jesus made on Golgotha is as big as God Himself. It is without limit. So pray that God would forgive you, and help you to forgive. Pray for the new heart that overflows with the love God has given to you. Pray that God would help you to forgive by giving you a mind that understands this: we do not forgive our brother from our own mercy. No, as Joseph taught us and his brothers, nearly 4,000 years ago in Egypt, we forgive by drawing on the mercy of God, and simply passing it on to another.
Pray that God would fill you with His mercy, and then come to Him in the places He has promised to do just that. Come where Jesus promises to be present for you. Come to where two or more gather in His Name. Gather with His people around His Word and around His Table. Come and receive the work of the Holy Spirit, as He takes the forgiveness won at on the Cross 2,000 years ago, and applies it to you. Forgiveness for you, and all who gather today, here and all around the world. Lose yourself in the mystery of God's forgiving love, and God will complete His good work in you.
Lord have mercy. The Lord has mercy, for you, and for your neighbor, Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment