16 Pentecost Year A 2023
Matthew 18:21-35
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, 25 and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
So many calendars!
This week was the beginning of Roshashana, the Jewish new year, which begins ten days of reflection on the past year, culminating in the day of atonement, Yom Kippur.
We Christians are in the last weeks of the church year, which usually begins in December with Advent. This is the time of the year when we begin to hear scriptures about the last judgment.
It may interest you all to note that the Old Testament forbids loaning money with interest to fellow Israelites, but allows it to foreigners. It especially forbids loaning money with interest to the poor. Also, within Jewish law, there is the Jubilee year. Every fifty years, all debts were cancelled and slaves freed, as a sign of God’s grace.
When I hear my fellow Christians suggest that America was founded to be a Christian nation, I wonder what they would say about these laws? Would we be forbidden to collecting interest from fellow Americans? Would we be required to forgive all debts every fifty years? Somehow, I doubt it.
Debt very much drove the economy of ancient Rome, as it drives our economy today, though in different ways. In Rome, it was the hierarchical system of patronage that looked something like that depicted in the movie the Godfather. One secured loyal lackeys by giving gifts or favors, and those lackeys were expected to come through for you when you needed them. Likewise, one accepted gifts from higher-ups with the understanding that this obligated one to support them when they needed one’s service.
The parable that Jesus tells would therefore have been quite shocking, and he embellishes it with wild exaggeration. The debt of the first slave in modern money would be something like five billion dollars. What king, no matter how rich, would loan that kind of money, even to a favored slave?
It would not therefore have been at all surprising to Jesus’ audience that this poor slave was not ready to repay such a debt. Nevertheless, the king does as lenders might well have done in that society: he plans to liquidates the slave, his family and his possessions, selling them all to who knows who.
The slave does as any one of us would likely do. He falls on his face and begs. So far, I think most of us would identify with the slave, yes? Poor guy, threatened with unimaginable loss.
And then the king does something that Jesus’ listeners would really have found shocking. He pities the slave so much that he not only releases him, but forgives the entire five billion. Five billion dollars! Do you think any billionaire on Shark Tank would say to anyone who cried to him about owing him five billion dollars, “Oh, just forget about it”?
But that’s what this king does.
Wow. And so, if we’ve been identifying with this slave, we are rejoicing! I ran up some debt doing some graduate work for ministry. I would have qualified for the forgiveness the government was going to give me, until the Supreme Court struck it down. Oh well. Forgiveness is not a thing in the American economy, I guess.
But the slave walks out of that meeting with a huge unmanageable burden entirely lifted from him.
And then he runs into another slave. A denarii was a day’s pay for a soldier or day laborer, so we could probably put the second slave’s debt of 100 denarii at around $7,500. Hardly skipping a beat, the first slave has the guy by the throat, shouting “Pay what you owe!”
The second slave does exactly the same thing the first slave does: he falls on his face and begs. We who are listening to the story, we who identify with the first slave, who understand just how generous that king had been, think we would remember the king’s generosity and say, “You know what? I was just forgiven a five billion dollar debt. You know that $7500 you owe me? Just forget it. You don’t owe me anything.”
But that slave doesn’t do that. He throws the second slave in prison, as was the law at the time, and for centuries thereafter. If the second slave had family or friends who would come through with the payment, he would be released. If not, he would die in prison.
Just last week, we heard about the process for discipline in the church. You will remember that it was a collaborative process, gathering more and more of the church until a final decision was reached. Just so, other slaves who witness these events are disturbed by the slave’s cruelty and report it to the king.
The king snaps right back into the ways of the world. That moment of amazing, unimaginable grace is over. “I forgave you,” the king rages, “but you could not forgive your fellow slave!”
And instead of merely selling the slave, his family and his possessions, he turns the slave over to be tortured until his his whole debt of five billion dollars is repaid.
A story that could have ended with an ever-unfolding elimination of debt, as all who owed were forgiven and then turned to forgive the next, instead ends with one slave in prison and another being tortured.
And then Jesus utters a dark threat: ‘So my heavenly Father will to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
He’s talking about judgment day, the vision of many in Israel at that time. With the exception of the Sadducees who reduced the scriptures to ethical instruction and rejected much of the supernatural stories, most Jews believed that there would come a day at the end of the age when all the dead would be raised and judged, and all the inequities that had been suffered would be set right, all the unrewarded good would be rewarded, and all the unpunished wrongdoing would be redressed. Those who had been faithful would receive rewards according to their faithfulness, and those who had been unfaithful would receive according to their disobedience.
Remember Jesus’ main message: the kingdom of heaven had come near. Jesus called all who heard him to repent, to turn in a new direction based on the good news of God’s nearness. Those who do would be welcomed into his kingdom, and those who do not would be tossed into the outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth, or into the everlasting trash fire of Gehenna.
There was a lot of writing about this in the early days of our Disciples movement. The American Revolution’s success and the amazing unity of the thirteen former colonies accomplished through the newly minted constitution seemed to point to God’s immanence. Many believed Jesus would come again any moment now. There was a lot of writing about dispensations and millennial expectation. But, as we’ve seen with so many predictions about the end times, they came to nothing.
I’ve come to the conclusion that judgment day started when Jesus rose from the dead, and it has continued to this day. God is near now. And God has been near for these two thousand years.
When I hear my fellow Christians angrily carrying on about sin, the sounds seem to come from some dark pit, and I can hear the squeal of their grinding teeth. This is because they presume to take the judgment seat in God’s place. God protect me from playing God, for when I do, God tosses me right out of his kingdom. And when I’m sitting in the seat, I rule with a pitchfork and a torch, for yes, I am an angry and vengeful God.
And indeed, every time I am caught up in resentment and grievance, I am cast out of God’s kingdom into an outer darkness, where I uselessly gnash my teeth. Or I am cast into a fiery furnace, or a lake of fire, or anyway, a lot of burning is involved. Burn, baby, burn. In other words, is the day of judgment not today?
The God who loves so generously curses us only when we don’t. In the course of my life, I made it something of a habit to get thrown out of God’s kingdom, and I have traversed a number of regions of Dante’s inferno.
Grievance and vengefulness and resentment sickens the soul, and when nations are sickened, violence often follows. Forgiveness is therefore as urgent a command of the Lord as any I can think of. It’s the difference between entering the kingdom and living in hell. It’s spiritual life-or-death.
And what a relief it is to live in humility! To be comfortable as a friend among friends, a worker among workers, one among many, no more or less important than anyone else. It’s a peaceful place. It’s a peaceful place to know that no matter how hard I try, my worst instincts will sometimes rear their ugly heads, but that the Holy Spirit is at work in my soul, and I am being healed. My loneliness is at an end, for the Spirit has bound me to you and to Christ. I am a sinner among sinners, made holy only by God’s grace.
But most of all, I am relieved of the burden of trying to control the world. I let go of my attempts to grab the Godzilla’s tail of reality and make it do what I want it to. What a relief that is indeed!
And what a cross it can sometimes be to live in compassion! To care about people you don’t know. To show up for others when no one else will. To speak up for the voiceless and take the flak for it. To hurt for people who are angry at you, and long for reconciliation. To forgive others even when it hurts. To share with the church and with those in need, and have to do without to do it. To stick with the church even when our fellow members are being jerks. To love those jerks until they straighten up. And to always give the greatest love and compassion to those who most need it, even if it means neglecting the ones that don’t.
This is the Way of Jesus. This is life in the Holy Spirit. This is the kingdom of heaven breaking into the world.
It’s not a particularly dramatic approach to saving the world, but it’s the sly thief-in-the-night way of the kingdom of God. People intermingling in the population with the Holy Spirit of God’s compassionate love guiding their ways and words weave a spell too deep for mere mortals to cast, a permeation of the Spirit that undermines the powers of evil and turns what is evil into good.
Justice is God’s, and mercy is ours.
Amen.
