Trapped In Evil

Matthew 18:21-35

Most of the time, you and I have to stop and think for a moment when asked, “What’s today’s date?” We go back to what’s usually an important reference point, and then count forwards or backwards from there. For preachers, we always know the Sundays. The September Sundays this year are 4, 11, 18, and 25. I can rattle those right off. There are some other dates that almost everyone doesn’t have to stop and think about. Christmas – December 25^th; we know when it’s getting close and don’t have to stop and figure out the date. Independence Day is July 4^th; our nation’s birthday. August 29^th will be one of those dates for people in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama – the day when Hurricane Katrina came ashore for the second time and changed lives forever. The birthday of your kid is usually a joyous date to remember – for me March 21^st and November 24^th are happy days. The anniversary of the death of a loved one can be a real downer.

What about today? Do you realize that this is the first time September 11^th has fallen on a Sunday since that dreadful day in 2001? Most of us remember exactly what we were doing when we heard planes were crashing into the World Trade Center and in a field in Pennsylvania. Since that time, the slogan “9/11 We Will Never Forget” has been seen on bumper stickers, magnetic signs, ribbons hung on trees, and bombs dropped in Afghanistan. For some, this slogan and this date marks a moment in history when brave people did heroic things. For others, this anniversary date is a time of deep sadness. The past four years has been filled with experiences like the empty chair around the kitchen table at meal times or a missing father or mother at a child’s soccer game. For still others, this slogan, “9/11 We Will Never Forget” means that we will remain perpetually angry.[1] We will never forgive those responsible for what they’ve done and the hardship they’ve created. We will carry the grudge and the bitterness to our grave.

Do any dates on the calendar, anniversaries, or memories arouse this in you – perpetual anger? On August 18, 2005, in Wichita, Kansas, relatives of the ten murder victims of Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, lined up and told the judge what they thought of him. They used words like: sub-human, animal, cockroach, evil incarnate, and demon to describe Rader. And this was all done on live on at least four cable television networks.[2] For some of these people, their loved ones had been dead…well, actually murdered…for years now. Yet, these people haven’t forgotten. How could they? It’s all very real for them. Is it realistic to hope that one day they could forgive Rader?

Our text today from Matthew’s Gospel is one of those passages where we hope Jesus is simply exaggerating to make a point. You know, like when we say, “I’ve got 10,000 things to do today.” When Jesus says we should forgive 77 times, we hope he’s just trying to get our attention. Well, maybe he is trying to get our attention but unfortunately for us, it doesn’t seem that Jesus is over-exaggerating his expectations to make a point. Quite frankly he expects that we forgive completely as we’ve been forgiven. So does this mean that forgiveness is even for Dennis Rader, terrorists, and the neighbor down the road who has really screwed us over? Apparently so.

Today, there are countless churches across America who are wrestling with this text. Congregations are full of people who know they should forgive, who intellectually understand that there’s merit in doing so, but who also find it nearly impossible to make it happen.[3] Are you one of them?

This passage begins with Peter asking a question about the threshold of forgiveness. In Peter’s world, if you forgave someone three times for an offense, it was usually considered enough. So Peter, just to be on the safe side, goes up to seven. He knows Jesus can be a bit radical, and with seven being one of those key biblical numbers – you know, the creation of the world being completed in seven days – he plugs in the number “7” because he’s guessing that Jesus will talk about ‘complete forgiveness.’ Jesus blows Peter out of the water with his answer. Did Jesus really mean 77, or 490 times, or whatever your translation of the Bible says? Is forgiveness an exercise in using our calculators to arrive at a certain number or is there something else here?

Jesus then goes on to tell a parable. One servant owes a king 10,000 talents. In our money today, that’s about a bazillion dollars. This servant begs and pleads and surprisingly is forgiven! Now, most of us would write off a buck or two that someone owes us, but a bazillion dollars? As Jesus tells the story, this newly-forgiven servant happens upon a guy who owed him 100 denarii – again in our money, that might be about 1,000 bucks. It’s still a lot of money but not a bazillion dollars. Well, the forgiven guy won’t pass on the favor, and when the king finds out about it, he is furious! He has the guy picked up, verbally blasts him, and then says I’m going to have you tortured until the bazillion dollars is paid in full…which basically means never. The king says to the first servant, “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?”[4] This makes us a bit uncomfortable but then we really start squirming when Jesus says, “So my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”[5]

Forgiveness is a risky business. Most of us want to be forgiven, yet if we understand what Jesus is saying, then being forgiven means we must forgive. And that makes us vulnerable because when we forgive, we open ourselves up to being hurt again and our natural human inclination is to protect ourselves, not open up to more hurt.

So we modify forgiveness. The version of forgiveness most of us utilize is the kind where we keep an itemized list of particulars on file of what someone has done and the next time they screw up or do us wrong, we whip out the list and pounce! But that’s not forgiveness! Or maybe we have a forgiveness cut-off level. We’ll forgive for this but not that. Or we’ll forgive this person, and all these other people, but not this one person for this one wrong. If that’s the version of forgiveness we employ, do we really know what forgiveness is about? And perhaps we are then the ones Jesus is talking at the end of the passage who did not forgive from their hearts.

Forgiveness must be complete. We must wipe the slate clean as much as it’s humanly possible to do so. Some have said that human forgiveness is God’s way of letting us in on the constant re-creation of the world. Each time we forgive, newness can happen in that relationship. Each time we forgive, the bitterness and anger we’ve carried don’t weigh us down.

I think I know what Jesus was saying here. But I know I have a ways to go in implementing this teaching in my life. So having said that, here’s some questions for myself and for you this morning?

1. Who do I need to forgive today? Who’s at the top of your personal cut-off list for forgiveness?

2. Who do I need to be honest with? Forgiveness is not about lying to ourselves or others. Often, when we can name an evil, expose it to the light of Christ’s forgiveness, then we can loosen the grip it has on us. Is there someone you need to be honest with?

3. Are you willing to see God’s power in forgiveness? We’ve seen God’s power in our weather lately in powerful ways. Are we open to seeing that same power at work in our lives.

Don’t be trapped in

[1] This idea of perpetual anger comes from L. Gregory Jones, Practicing Our Faith, Dorothy Bass, Editor (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997), p. 137.

[2] “Even in BTK Murders, Reconciliation is Priority,” Vital Theology, Volume 2, Issue 6, August 20, 2005, p. 3.

[3] Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, and James D. Newsome, Texts For Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year A, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 484.