The Unforgiving Servant

²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

[Matthew 18.21-35]

Today’s Gospel reading is all about forgiveness, and it’s an interesting subject to talk about because we think we know what we mean by forgiveness, but I’m not sure we get it right.

When you think about it, humans aren’t very good at forgiveness, and I want to illustrate my point with four words: Diego Maradona, Margaret Thatcher.

From the Daily Express, June 23, 2014, after Gary Lineker met with Maradona in an interview in Brazil:

Goalkeeper Peter Shilton refused to appear on the show after the Argentine said he wouldn't apologise for using his hand.

Last year Shilton admitted: "It riled me that a player of his stature couldn't openly admit his guilt. I blame the officials though. They failed to spot a few keys decisions that went against us in that quarter-final and it cost us dearly.

On the 25th anniversary of Maradona's cheat goal, former England star Chris Waddle said he also understood why the nation still hated the Argentine.

This from the Daily Telegraph on April 17, 2013:

While protesters in London encouraged demonstrators to turn out with whistles, banners and horns to disrupt the funeral in London, across the country banners and effigies of the former Prime Minister were hung in celebration.

In former mining communities in the north, where hatred of Lady Thatcher is still strongly felt, there were a number of parties to mark her death.

In Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, pubs were decorated with banners and former miners gathered to hang an effigy of Lady Thatcher outside the Union Jack pub, with signs reading “Thatcher the milk snatcher”.

People dressed in National Coal Board clothing gathered outside the pub and several National Union of Mineworkers banners were displayed.

A coffin was also brought out to parade through the street before being set alight, and one house displayed a sign which read: “The Lady’s not for turning but tonight she’ll be for burning.”

I have my own experiences of failing to forgive.  I’m still aggrieved about being passed over for promotion, twice.

I know all the reasons for it happening: the guy in charge was young, inexperienced, and tended to let their emotions cloud their decisions; his family disliked my family, and he’d taken a personal dislike to me. So, someone else got the job, and then when they left another someone took over.

Now some people would say that it’s in the past and that I should forgive and forget, and that might be true, but I still feel the sting of rejection.

Other people might point out that I’ve gone on to bigger and better things, and I have, it was about six months after that second rejection that I left the Cubs and I’ve never looked back, but I know I would have made an excellent sixer.

So, with these three people in our minds, Maradona, Margaret Thatcher, and my Cub Scout leader, I want us to really look at forgiveness.

And there are two questions to answer: how and why?

First the how?

We all know the phrase “forgive and forget”, but is it Biblical?

Who thinks it’s in the Bible?

I checked the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version (that’s the one we use every week), the New International, God’s Word, English Standard and the New American Standard Bible.  None of them use the phrase forgive and forget.

William Shakespeare uses the phrase in a couple of his plays, Miguel Cervantes uses it in Don Quixote, but the two earliest uses that I can find are in the Odyssey by Homer, and in

in Aesop’s fable, the Man and the Serpent.

 “A Countryman's son by accident trod upon a Serpent's tail, which turned and bit him so that he died. The father in a rage got his axe, and pursuing the Serpent, cut off part of its tail. So the Serpent in revenge began stinging several of the Farmer's cattle and caused him severe loss. Well, the Farmer thought it best to make it up with the Serpent, and brought food and honey to the mouth of its lair, and said to it: "Let's forget and forgive; perhaps you were right to punish my son, and take vengeance on my cattle, but surely I was right in trying to revenge him; now that we are both satisfied why should not we be friends again?"

"No, no," said the Serpent; "take away your gifts; you can never forget the death of your son, nor I the loss of my tail."

Injuries may be forgiven, but not forgotten.”

So you can see here that Aesop basically tells us that you don’t forgive and forget.

And when you really think about it, that makes sense, we aren’t in charge of the things that we remember, or the things that we forget. If we were we’d never forget loved one’s birthdays, and we would all forget Timmy Mallett singing Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.

Forgetting is something that happens outside of our control, but forgiving, that’s a conscious decision to let go of our hate and anger.

And here’s the important point: if we really, truly forgive, we don’t need to forget, because the memory of whatever grievance we held has no more power over us.

The second question is why?

Why should we forgive?

Well the simple answer is because we’re commanded to forgive. But that’s a bit of a cop out really, why are we commanded to forgive?

What does Jesus say immediately after teaching the disciples the Lords Prayer?

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

So we’re commanded to forgive other people, or else our sins, our trespasses, will be held against us.

Now I want to look at today’s reading, and especially at the numbers: if there are numbers in any Bible passage they usually mean something important.

…

And what about the Old Testament God, the one who gave the Israelites the commandments and the Levitical laws…?

The Old Testament mostly talks about God forgiving the Israelites, although in Proverbs we get an idea of the other side of forgiveness.

⁹       One who forgives an affront fosters friendship,

but one who dwells on disputes will alienate a friend. 

You see, it’s hard to be a Christian while bearing a grudge.  Imagine we see the person (who we haven’t yet forgiven) and they are in trouble, and they need help.  By helping them we could be an excellent witness for Christ, but by not helping them…

Now I know that it’s really easy to talk about forgiveness from the safety of a pulpit, because there’s no painful consequence, and some of you might think it’s okay to try and forgive someone who’s not committed a big sin, but the people I haven’t forgiven have committed some whoppers.

And that’s what I was talking about at the start, how we talk as though we understand forgiveness, but we don’t really get it.

Look at our legal system: there are laws, and if you break a law you get punished. If you steal something you get a fine, if you steal lots of somethings you get a big fine.  If you kill someone you get a prison sentence; if you kill someone by accident you get a shorter prison sentence.

We read in the papers that someone’s committed a crime, been given their punishment and we say, “What, they only got that, for that? Terrible. Where’s the justice?” By our reactions we show that in our heads we have a really clear picture of which crimes are big and which are small.

But God doesn’t see things that way. And he never has.

Look at the Ten Commandments (shortened version)

³ You shall have no other gods before me.

⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.

⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.

¹² Honor your father and your mother.

¹³ You shall not murder.

¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵ You shall not steal.

¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 

But covet basically means want something.

Can you imagine being in court with God as the judge and He says “Right, you: committed murder: 15 years minimum. You, bore false witness and lied in court: 15 years. You, really wanted your neighbours ox: 15 years.”?

There’d be uproar. God’s got it wrong we’d say.

But He hasn’t: we have. We’ve got it wrong.

When Jesus died on the cross, he wiped the slate clean, forever. Past, present and future.  Which is great for us when we do something wrong because we know we’re forgiven.  But it’s not so easy to take when we realise that other people are forgiven too. So long as they repent, so long as they turn away from that sin, no amount of grievance from us will change that. They are forgiven.

I want to finish with part of a letter that a father wrote to his daughter after he found out she had an unplanned pregnancy.

Though I weep inside, I can’t condemn you, because I sin too. Your transgression here is no worse than mine. It’s just different. Even if my heart did not shout out to love and defend and protect you—as it does—the New Testament tells me I can’t take forgiveness myself and withhold it from others.

We think of sin as acts. But sin is a package, an attitude that expresses itself in different ways and to different degrees. But it all comes from the same sin package you inherited through us. Christ is the only difference.

God forgives this sin as well as others—really forgives and cleanses.

Satan has no doubt tried to tell you that this affects your standing before God. It doesn’t, but it will affect your relationship till you bring the whole matter to Him. There will be a coolness, a separation, an estrangement, until you open the problem by confessing and asking forgiveness.

While we can’t say that God causes failures, He does permit them, and I think it’s clear He uses them to build character and beauty that we’d never have without them. Remember, God’s love is in even this, maybe especially in this.

We’re glad that in a measure, at least, we can help the daughter we love so much. This is a day of testing, but hold our ground we must. God will give us the victory. That’s wonderful. We’re looking forward to your being at home. Love, Dad.

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