Pentecost 15 A: The Puzzle, Riddle, and Parable of Forgiveness
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I find sermons on forgiveness challenging. Not because I don’t think forgiveness is important. It is central not just to our life of faith but also, I’d argue, our life together in this world. Absent forgiveness, how could we possibly stay in relationship with each other? Forgiveness isn’t something that only restores, even frees, the one forgiven. Forgiveness also restores and frees the one who forgives. Forgiveness creates possibility, keeps the future open, offers paths forward formerly not imaginable, and breaks the cosmic law of relentless cause-and-effect to create something new. Forgiveness is life.
Which is why Jesus doesn’t just stretch Peter’s imagination about forgiveness, but breaks it wide open. “Seven times,” Peter asks. “Try seven times, Jesus responds. That is, Jesus is saying, way more than you thought, Peter. Way more than you imagined, way more than seems possible, way more – and this is probably what matters most – than you can actually count and keep track of. Because… to forgive is to live free in the present and hopeful about the future, while to not forgive is to be dragged down and kept captive by the past. Forgiveness is life.
Fine. But saying it doesn’t make it happen. Which is probably what makes this parable so challenging. It’s easy to get stuck on the enormity of the first servant’s failure. How can the one forgiven so, so much refuse to forgive another? That’s a fair question. Yet each of us has probably also struggled to forgive, failed to notice where we have been forgiven or blessed or loved beyond what we can imagine deserving and still not extended the same to another. Goodness, but even the benevolent king, having just forgiven a debt equivalent to the GDP of a small country, seems unable to forgive the first servant’s inability to forgive.
So… is this parable a warning? Forgive… or else! Is it a lesson? The first servant is already tortured by the inability to live as a free and forgiven person. Is it encouragement, albeit negatively framed? Don’t be like the unforgiving servant who was so preoccupied by the debts of others he missed the remission of debt he experienced.
Or… is it simply an accurate description of just how hard forgiveness can be? Because… yeah, it’s hard. Hard to let go of grievances which have not simply left their mark on us but have become part of our identity, part of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Hard to let go of the habit of keeping track, of counting, of always assessing to make sure we’re getting what we think we deserve.
So what do we do with a passage like this other than say, “you ought to forgive”?
Maybe simply, “You have been forgiven.” And it won’t hurt to add, “You will be forgiven.” All things. The things you’ve done. The things you’ve not done. Everything. Always.
Perhaps the only way to address how hard it is to forgive is to remind each other that we have been and will be forgiven. Even this, of course, isn’t a guarantee. After all, the first servant has been forgiven much and still fails. And we will, too. But this is a parable, not an analogy. The king isn’t God and Jesus isn’t promising that God can and will forgive all things… except our inability to forgive. Parables try to capture in narrative form something of what God is like and something of what God desires both for us and from us. Parables try to grab our attention, surprise us by grace, and jolt us to embrace the life God offers us that we might offer the same to others. Parables are also just one part of the story, just one sliver of the larger truth Jesus came to share, and so can’t be read in isolation of the rest of the Gospel.
The parables in Matthew, as we’ve noted before, seem often to have something of an edge to them. But they are embedded in a larger story. This parable doesn’t – and doesn’t have to – bear responsibility for telling the whole story of forgiveness. And one other important part of the story comes a bit later, again featuring Peter and the disciples, when Jesus says that the cup he gives, the blood of the covenant he pours out with his life, is for the “forgiveness of sin.” And these words are only in Matthew. That is, these words do not appear in Mark’s telling of the scene, in Luke’s narrative, or in Paul’s remembrance. But they are in Matthew, spoken on the evening when his disciples will betray, deny, and abandon him, standing like a promise that even when we fail to live into the grace Jesus offers, even when we fall short of extending to others the forgiveness we have received, yet God is still there, forgiving, loving, beckoning us home.
Maybe that’s the place we go. Maybe in hearing once again of God’s forgiveness our gaze will be lifted up from the constant keeping of scores the preoccupies us to see God’s open hand of blessing. No guarantee, of course, but just the promise of grace and recognition that the ability to forgive is ultimately just as much a gift as being forgiven is. And, fortunately, we worship a God who absolutely loves to give us incredible gifts.
Thank you for the gift you are, Dear Partner, and for the many gifts you share with your people all the time and for the gifts you receive in return. I am grateful for your good work.
Yours in Christ,
David
Post image by Jan van Hemessen (c. 1556).
This passage always reminds me of the 5th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Some of the things Jesus taught us to we pray has an element of danger to it. Covenants like this one always do. But for me, Jesus is reminding his disciples — both in this parable and in it’s summation in the Lord’s Prayer — how important forgiveness is to the Lord’s message and the Kingdom Jesus proclaims. Yes, forgiveness is difficult… but without forgiving others we invite judgement upon ourselves because of our hypocrisy. We seek forgiveness — but can we really fully receive forgiveness without sharing mercy and compassion to others in response to this blessing we ourselves accept and receive? I’m not sure we can. As you point out — forgiveness is practical. Any community needs a standard to hold the group together. The Christian standard is objective love. God’s love is just as much about what we don’t do to one another as it is about what we do. It’s the other servants in the story who are upset with the unforgiving servant. They are the ones who bring the unforgiving servant’s injustice to the king. Without the love of God — and the mercy and forgiveness that goes with it — human beings cannot restore trust in community when it is broken. Forgiveness and mercy and the shared humility it provides makes the work of the Body of Christ together possible. We really must forgive if we are to indeed love one another. Jesus commands us to love one another at the same time as Jesus loves us unconditionally. That’s God’s will and God’s grace. Why not pay it forward out of thanks and praise?