Stay on the Road to Forgiveness
Pentecost 16, Proper 19
Fr. Tim Nunez
September 17, 2023
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I gather that Meg and I are not the only couple who have had – at times – some measure of tension and comments as it regards each other’s driving. Most I trust come to some measure of peace, but I found a cure that worked for us.
Last fall Meg and I took a trip that was right at the top of our bucket list. We spent two weeks touring England in a rental car. I had geared myself up for it. I got all manner of advice on it from many people. I read up on it. I watched videos on driving on the left side of the road and handling the roundabouts.
The reality was something else. The left-hand side wasn’t that big a deal, but add to that the incessant roundabouts. The roads are narrower and rarely have shoulders. They are very curvy and hilly in most places. People grow their hedges and build their stone walls right up to the very edge of the road. And there is rarely anyplace to just turn around. Everything is new, so unfamiliar.
One quiet morning in the country you turn onto a one-lane, two-way country road with the crops right up to the edge of the road and there are a dozen cyclists to pass and three horses coming at you, then a huge tractor with 8-foot wheels bigger than your car is coming at you.
It’s one thing to know your destination and quite another to know where you’re going. Still, we had to make our way, day by day.
Amongst all of that, Meg and I became a team because our lives depended on it. We had Waze, Meg was calling out upcoming directions, alerting me to obstacles, reminding me to stay off the curb on the left. We’d count the exits on each roundabout together. Big cities, little villages, farm roads – we managed them all. If we missed a turn, we’d find our way back on track. No matter what, we had to stay on the road and safely reach our destination.
What does that have to do with today’s Gospel? All through his ministry, Jesus has been teaching about the Kingdom of God and demonstrating aspects of it in his miracles. Now he’s teaching about our preparation for it. We pick up this week right where we left off last week. Jesus has taught a process to restore a sister or brother who has sinned against us. Peter asks a very logical question, perhaps because he knows something about people. How many times are we to go through that process of repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration?
Surely seven times is enough. That’s a lot and seven is a special number, seven days of creation and seven days of the week; the number seven is used 490 times in scripture. Jesus’ response could mean either seventy-seven or “seventy sevens”, in other words, seventy times seven. In any case, it’s like saying “unlimited.” And he explains why in this parable.
The slave owes his king an impossible debt. One talent was worth about 15-20 years’ worth of a laborer’s wages, and he owed 10,000 of that, so roughly $5 billion dollars, give or take a billion. That was infinitely beyond his capacity to repay. He could hit the Powerball lottery and still be billions in debt. He’s going to lose everything including his wife and children. But because he begs for mercy, he receives it. Yay!
But then he confronts a fellow slave who owes him a hundred denarii. A denarius was a day’s wages for a laborer, so this was about 3½ months’ worth of wages, which was a lot but possible to do over time. He seizes him by the throat, a very violent thing to do, and demands immediate payment. After hearing his fellow slave beg for mercy using the exact same words he himself used with the king, he throws the poor guy into prison.
His lord finds out, condemns his hypocrisy, and has him tortured until he repays the impossible debt. And, oh by the way, how do you repay anything while you’re being tortured? Then comes the kicker. “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from the heart.” From the heart.
Here Jesus is talking about forgiving a brother or sister who has offended and repented. And wherever he talks about forgiveness, our receiving of it is conditioned on our forgiving others, just as he taught in The Lord’s Prayer.
The Kingdom of God is our destination, both in terms of our ultimate destiny and as it regards the shaping of our character. But it’s one thing to know your destination and quite another to know where you’re going. We know we want to be with Jesus in his Kingdom. We know that we want to be citizens and agents of his Kingdom as a witness to the world where he has planted us.
Forgiveness is hard. It’s hard enough when you’re dealing with brothers and sisters in Christ, people of good faith and there is honest repentance. It’s harder when you find yourself counting, “487, 488, 489…almost there?” It’s harder when you don’t see repentance, when there are no apologies. It’s harder when the offense, the sin, is ongoing. Maybe you don’t even know who that other person is. Maybe you have no chance to talk about it because that person is gone from your world, either by time and distance or by death.
It feels like you’re driving on the wrong side of a narrow, winding and unfamiliar road, with no shoulder and stone walls built right up to the edge of it. There are numerous obstacles and oncoming traffic whizzing by. But we’ve got to stay on the road and we’ve got to help each other navigate every hazard, every roundabout, every turn. And if we get off course, we have to help each other get back on it. That’s what repentance means.
In part, it’s about guarding our own hearts against the hardness that so easily forms. When our hands get worn by friction, they naturally form callouses that protect them. Our hearts tend to do that naturally, also. Refusing to forgive is horrible for our health. It is like a splinter that festers into a poisonous wound. And calloused hearts have to be tenderized before they enter the Kingdom of God. Do we really want to jeopardize our eternal home by holding a grudge?
And further, remember last week’s lesson as it carries into this passage. We are to be concerned with the restoration of our sisters and brothers. They need our forgiveness as a blessing and example so that together we may all approach the throne of grace without fear.
Finally, have a care for what you don’t know. We don’t know everything about anything. Joseph’s brothers threw him in a cistern and sold him into slavery. Years later their hope of surviving a famine depends on him. He is perfectly positioned to exact revenge on them. Instead, he said, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” Joseph was in position to store up grain for years to prepare for the famine, saving not only his family but also thousands more. We don’t know what God intends for anyone. So forgive as Jesus has forgiven you, and share his grace, truth and love.
AMEN