22Nd Sunday After Trinity October 23, 2016
St. Matthew 18:21-35
22nd Sunday after Trinity—October 23, 2016
Rev. Bradley A. Drew
So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.
In Jesus’ Name,
Dearly Beloved:
Glad you came to church, today, aren’t you? What a happy message from Jesus:
“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
I’m sure you didn’t come to church today just to get beatup and told, “Youhad better get with it, people; and if you don’t start doing better, it’s off to hell with you.”
I’m sure you have people in your life who are telling you that all the time, already. And if not, you have the law of God itself, written in your heart, thatis telling you that all the time:
“You had better get with it; and if you don’t, it’s going to be off to hell with you.”
I’ve told you this before. I’ll tell you again:
God does not put His church here to condemn anyone.
For:
“God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”
And, as you and I just prayed in the Introit this morning:
“If You, Lord, shouldmark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.”
Feared, not because God’s forgiveness is just a gimmick, just for show, not for real.
No—it is.
And that is the Lord’s point in today’s parable.
And it is Good News for you and me, not Bad.
God establishes His church so it can proclaim every Sunday:
Jesus did better for you. Never once did He fail God. Never once did He fail His neighbor. Never once did Jesus fail at faith, at love, at forgiveness, at mercy, at anything God commanded—or else.
Never once did Jesus hear the law in His heart, or in His Word, telling Him:
“You had better get with it, Jesus; and if you don’t, it’s going to be off to hell with You!”
Never once did Jesus hear that, because Jesus did better—for us.
Better, not for Himself—but forus, for all of us.
And not just better, but perfectly.
Jesus did perfectly, at everything—for everyone.
And we know His perfection is for everyone, because Jesus took His perfection to the cross for everyone and He sacrificed it there—for all of us.
Not for some—but, all of us.
His better, for all.
His perfection, for all.
His love, for all.
His faith.
His goodness.
His mercy.
His righteousness.
His all, for all.
And by His sacrificefor everyone on the cross God declareseveryone forgiven, now, in His sight.
And by His sacrifice for everyone on the cross God declares everyone holy, now, in His sight, reconciled to Him, His children, objects of His grace and mercy.
No sins to accuseany of us, any longer. No sins to condemnany of us, any longer. No sins to send any of us off to hell, any longer.
No sins to tell anyone–they are not important to God, are not His children to care for, are not heirs of eternal life.
They are, promises the cross.
They are, you are, promises the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross.
You are, promises the forgiveness of sins.
Eyes off of you, and on the cross—
That’s what Peter needed to hear; that’s what we need to hear, when it comes to God and us and each other and to all our sins.
Eyes off of us, and glued to the cross—
God doesn’t forgive anyone because they ask Him to.
They don’t.
We don’t.
Certainly not always.
Certainly not for every sinwe commit.
We don’t even know most of the sins we do commit—so beyond measuring is our sin, our debt, before God.
God forgives us—because Jesus suffered and died for us, for all of us, on the cross.
God doesn’t forgive people because they show Him some promise of improvement, some hope of never committing the same sins again.
God forgives us—because Jesus suffered and died for us on the cross, for all our sins.
God doesn’t forgive us because we checked off the right boxes, answered all the questions just so, or because there is something about us that attracts His forgivenessto us.
There isn’t.
Not a thing.
God forgives us—
Because Jesus suffered and died for us on the cross.
AND BECAUSE JESUS SUFFERED AND DIED FOR US ON THE CROSS:
He isthere, now, every day:
Drenching us with God’s forgiveness, dousing us with God’s forgiveness, lifting us all the way to Himself, to the Father’s right hand, with forgiveness.
In His Word—
By His Water—
And at His Supper.
See God’s forgiveness as that radical, as that reckless toward you, as that absurd—stretching over you “as far as the east is from the west.”
See God’s forgiveness like that, and you are seeing God’s forgiveness the right way.
That’s the point Jesus is makingwith you and with me when He tellsus of the servant who has been forgiven 10,000 talents.
Nobody in Jesus’ Day, or in anyone else’s, forgives a debt like that. That’s just ridiculous. That’s just absurd. Unheard of.
How much is 10,000 talents?
Aservant in Jesus’ day earned 1 denarius a day. If he worked every day, he’d earn 365 denarii a year.
But, servantsweren’t allowed to work on Sabbath Days. So, subtracting those, along with several other Jewish festivals and holy days, a typical servant in Jesus’ worked about 300 days a year—earning about 300 denarii a year.
Every 10 years, he’d earn 3000 denarii. Every 20 years, 6000.
6000 denariiis equalto—1 talent.
Only 9,999 more to go.
You would have to work 200,000 years just to get to 10,000 talents. You couldn’t do it. It would be laughable to think otherwise.
Spending nothing at all on yourself—to say nothing about all the interest that would be adding up every day against your 10,000 talent debt—you just couldn’t do it.
Not only could you never pay it off; you could never even begin to pay it down—just a little!
Laughable, if not pathetic, to believe otherwise.
And that’s the Lord’s point.
Whatever our debt is before God, we can’tpay it off.
We never could.
In fact, not only could we neverpay off the whole debt of our sin against God, we couldn’t even begin to pay it down just a little.
Like the national debt, it just keeps increasing every second, with every sin of thought, word and deed we commit.
It’s an impossible debt to get ahead of, let alone to everstart paying down.
Sure, in some self-righteous way, we will beg God to have patience with us, promising, “I’ll make it up to you, God, I promise. Have patience with me, and ave pHaI will pay You all.”
But:
To our eternal joy, God ignores this self-indulgent snobbery, this self-righteous confidencein our imagined ability not only to begin paying off what we owe, but to pay it off completely—
He ignores all of that.
AND—
Are you listening?
And—
For Jesus’ sake, because Jesus went to the cross for us;because Jesus suffered and died for us; because Jesus gave Himself for all of us……
God declares the whole thing erased, now; canceled, wipedoff the books, forgiven—once and forever.
And:
As we will hear on Reformation Sunday, next Sunday—
“If the Son sets you free, you shall be free, indeed!”
Not maybe free.
Not sort of free.
Not free, if only……
No. Free indeed!
The Books will not be reopened. The debt will not be revisited.
“Paid in Full.”
Or, as Jesus will cry out on the cross:
“It is finished.”
Those were the words the tax-man wrote down on your note when it had been paid off, in full:
“It is finished.”
“But, I still sin! My debt is still increasing!”
“No, it’s not”—promises the cross in your Baptism.
“No, it’s not—promises the cross in the preaching of the gospel today and in the words of holy absolution.”
“Your debt is completely gone!”
“But, I’m still the same poor miserable sinnertoday that I’ve always been. I still ever offend God. I still justly deserve His present and eternal punishment.
“True. But, Jesus ownedthat for you, when He took your place on the cross. Now, with His Body and His Blood at His Supper He promises you—His cross never quits on you. No matter how big the debt, no matter how mounting, how impossible—He’sstill got that. All of that!
For you.
Past, present, and future.
Paid in Full, by His sacrifice on the cross.”
And now:
The happy truth Peter needs to hear, and so do we—
Forgiveness is never ours to hold onto.
Thank God.
Imagine the terror if it was?
“Hold on!”
“Don’t let go!”
“Don’t drop it!”
“If you do, you’ll be lost!”
That’s the way of death, not life.
That’s the way of terror, seeing forgiveness so poorly, so small, in our own hands, now, as something we must hold on to, that belongs to us—and not to God.
No.
Forgiveness is never ours, like that
It is God’s.
Always God’s.
He earned it.
He created it.
He brought it into being.
He established it as His new reality, our new reality; as His new creation, our new creation—when He put His Son on the cross for you and for me, for all people.
Forgiveness isn’t oursto hold onto—and to keep for ourselves.
It is ours to share, now, to pass along to the next poor sinner—whoever he or she may be.
If I refuse,and want to hold on to it just for myself…..
I don’t have a people-sized problem—says Jesus—I have a God–sized problem.
“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
Jesus says “brother” because He knows as annoying and unhappy as it may be when some nameless face in the crowd sins against me, when it is a “brother” who sins against me—that’s a whole different story.
Now I have a challenge on my hands.
Will I forgive….him?
When my brother does sin against me, and he most certainly will, Jesus says:
“Hold on, a second.Don’t get so caught up in that sin—that you forget all the sin My Father in heaven has already forgiven you, is still forgiving you, promises always to forgive you—so that heaven remains yours. So that life remains yours. So that God remains yours, and you, His.”
“Aspainful and hurtful as the sins of others may be, especially if it’s a brother—and, if it is a brother, it will be the 10th time, or the 20thtime, or the 70thtimes 7th time:
You knowthat still pales in comparison to everything God puts up with from you—because I went to the cross for you and suffered and died there for your debt, for all your debt.”
You know—
If Jesus wanted to put an end to our sinning against each other here and now, He would have forbidden marriage;at the very least, He would have established monasteries instead of churches; places where you and I could live apart from each other, and not with each other.
Jesus puts us together, in families and in churches—SO THAT, bumping in to each other, sinning against each other, as He knows we all will….
We will be forced by His words, especially His Words today—
To stand in front of His cross, to find not in each other but in His cross our life with God and our life with each other.
Not how well we all get along.
But, how well forgiveness is going on among us.
Not how much we like each other.
But, how much we forgive each other.
Not: am I holding on to forgiveness, today.
BUT: is forgiveness holding on, today?
To me?
To you?
To all of us?
Yes, it is promises Jesus.
Yes, it is promises the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for everyone.
Yes, it is promises your Baptism into Christ.
Yes, it is promises God’s Word.
Yes, it is promises the Holy Supper.
God’s forgiveness is still holding on to us, to all of us!
See God’s forgiveness as that reckless, as that crazy, and absurd, and radical.
See it still stretching over you “as far as the east is from the west.”
Then, and only then, you will be ready to hear Jesus say:
“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
“Will we?”
We’re not listening, if we are not hearing Jesus calling usto stand there with Him, right there at His side, at the Father’s right hand.
Because that is where we are.
That is where God’s forgiveness has taken us.
“I don’t belong there. My debt’s too huge, too great.”
True.
But, stand there with Jesus, anyways.
Because that’s where God’s forgiveness has placed you; that’s where God’s forgiveness has landed you.
Right there, in heaven, with Jesus.
Right there, with Jesus, with all the other saints, at the Father’s side.
Saints because of the cross.
And from there, in heaven, with Jesus, the sins others commit against us will seem so small, so tiny, in comparison—like everything else when you’re standing on a tall building, or flying way up high in an airplane—
Standing up so high, alongside Jesus, in heaven, we WILL say:
“Oh, what of that? That’s nothing at all. Here, I forgive you. I forgive that. I forgive all of that. Because God already has. And God has scooped all of us up into heaven now with His forgiveness.”
“Here, taste and see that the LORD is good.”
“Yeah, this forgiveness means we’re all sort of stuck with the likes of each other.”
“But, imagine what God’s forgiveness means God is stuck with – when it comes to all of us?”
Seeing God’s forgiveness as that crazy, that absurd, that reckless, covering even the likes of us…
Jesus knows—lifted so high by God’s forgiveness:
We will have to look down just to see heaven.
And, from way up there?
You and I will gladly, from the heart, forgiveeven the brother who sins against us.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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