The Call to Forgiveness
Matthew 18:21-35
Tim Keller tells the story of being a Yankee and pastoring his first church in a blue collar, Southern town. In the church was one man, who hadn’t even graduated from junior high school and thus, could hardly read. He wanted to live a holy life and knew that just because all the other good ol’ boys did things, it didn’t mean that was the way he should live. So he taught himself to read so that he could study the Bible. As he did, he began to examine his own life and read the Scriptures to understand what a holy life was really about. And Tim Keller writes, “A holy life is an examined life... Every single part of it is examined.” That’s where we find ourselves in our Scripture today. In Jesus’ time, the Jewish life was one that was examined and measured against the 613 laws of the Jewish faith. The desire and goal was to live a life of holiness by fulfilling the law and thus being righteous or in good standing in the eyes of God.
But the problem with the law as Paul pointed out is that it can lead to pride. Rather than seeing the law as a gift of God and our unworthiness to be called his people, we can begin to see our own justification and salvation by our hands and efforts. So one day, the disciples come to Jesus and ask, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” In response, Jesus brings a child to him and then says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children (children were meant to be silent and thus had no rights and no voice, the lowest of the low), you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus goes on to talk about what causes people to stumble in their faith and then he begins to talk about sin. Peter comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to 7 times?” The Jewish rabbis taught that you should forgive someone 3 times, but after that there was no forgiveness. Peter thought he was being magnanimous by going above and beyond the normal bounds of forgiveness. So he was probably shocked when Jesus said, “I tell you, not 7 times, but 70 x 7 times.” He then told a parable about a man who owed a king millions of dollars. The king threatened to sell he and his whole family into slavery until the debt was paid, which from jail he would never be able to do. The servant fell to his knees and begged the king for a chance to repay the debt. And then, in what must have been shocking to him and Jesus’ audience, the king cancelled the whole debt and let him go.
Then in another surprising twist to the story, the man meets a friend who owes him a few hundred dollars. He forgets all about how he was treated by the king and demands the debt be repaid immediately. The friend falls on his knees and begs (as he had done with the king) and says, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.” But the man refuses his friend’s request and has him thrown into prison “until he could repay the debt.” His fellow servants report the incident to the king. So the king calls the servant to appear before him and says, “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And then Jesus ends the parable with these words: “In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
This is a story about Gentiles as revealed by several things. It has a king and only Gentiles had kings. The vast amount conjures up images of the Roman Empire and those who collected taxes on Rome’s behalf. The man in debt begins to grovel or fall down worshipping which is something a Jew would never do. And finally, Jewish law forbade a mother and child being sold into slavery to pay off a debt. This story confirmed the stereotypes of how vicious and cruel Gentiles could be. The King’s actions thus become a huge surprise to the crowd because he has chosen mercy at the expense of the justice he deserved to expend. By linking this parable with a discussion about sin, Jesus must be saying that unforgiveness is a sin and we pay a terrible price for it. In fact, it creates baggage in our lives which hold us back and can even cause us to stumble. I went up in June to visit my mother after she had fallen and undergone several surgeries. When I got to baggage claim, people from an earlier flight were still getting their bags. I saw a woman about my age, 5’1” and maybe 105 pounds struggle to pull her red suitcase off the carousel. Before I was able to get to her, she took not one or two but three heaves to get it off the carousel and then almost stumbled and fell. Now here’s the amazing thing: when she got her suitcase and struggled to carry it, it was as tall as her rib cage. I thought to myself, how could anyone travel with so much baggage? And yet, we do it all the time. We carry unforgiveness around with us and it tinges everything we think, say or do. More than that, it keeps us from becoming who God wants us to be. Life is just better when there’s less baggage. That’s why we need forgiveness in our lives.
Bob Franquiz shares 4 things forgiveness isn’t: First, forgiveness is not justifying another person’s actions. When you forgive someone, you’re not saying what they did to you was OK. You are simply letting go of the baggage that is holding you back. Second, forgiveness is not waiting on the passage of time. Whoever said, “Time heals all wounds” is wrong because many times just the opposite is true. Over time people who haven’t forgiven become hardened and distant. Time will only help you if you’ve forgiven because the passing of time lessens the pain. Third, forgiveness is not denying you’re hurt. When you say, “It’s no big deal” your hurt is like a splinter that goes attended, it causes infection and pain. Forgiveness is about accepting your hurt and dealing with it in a godly way. Fourth, forgiveness is not automatically trusting them again. Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean you have to trust them. Forgiveness is a choice we make. Trust is something a person earns through wise choices and actions.
Perhaps the most difficult thing Jesus calls us to do is to forgive and yet it is absolutely essential for our lives and our well being. So how do we forgive when someone has deeply hurt us? First, remember you have been forgiven. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32) Forgiveness is difficult because it’s not the natural reaction when we’re hurt. Our natural reaction is revenge, so they feel the same pain they made us feel. We cannot forgive on our own. Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Jew, spent 4 1/2 years in various Nazi concentration camps during WWII. Wiesenthal, one of the few to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust, recounts a harrowing story in his memoir. While working to clear rubbish from a makeshift hospital, a nurse summoned him to a secret room, where a severely wounded Nazi soldier lay on his deathbed. The soldier told Wiesenthal how he volunteered for the SS and how his superiors ordered him to gun down innocent Jews. Wiesenthanl listened to the soldier as he expressed deep sorrow and regret for what he had done. He said that he wanted to confess his sin to a Jew before he died. Wiesenthal, unable to offer any comforting words of forgiveness, just turned and left the room in silence. We cannot forgive on our own. We need something more. And so we remember that we who are sinners have been forgiven and because of that, we can draw on that forgiveness for others.
Second, respond in gratitude. When we remember the forgiveness we have received in Jesus Christ, it spurs in us gratitude. Here’s the problem in the story that Jesus tells. The man who owes the money never asks for mercy. Instead, he asks for more time. He owed millions of dollars! And we owe a great debt too. Do you have any idea how much we owe a holy and perfect God because of our sins? It is a debt so great we can never repay and yet, rather than exact the punishment we so richly deserve, God chose mercy. “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…(for) we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus...” Eph. 2:1-6 In God’s eyes we were dead, but God, because He’s rich in mercy, made us alive through Christ. That should inspire in us gratitude which then moves us to extend the mercy we have received to others who have hurt us.
Third, realize the power of forgiveness. When the king forgives this man of his debt, he wasn’t just forgiving the debt - he was giving this man his life back. Not only could a debt this large never be repaid, but it was in the right of the king to throw the man into a debtor’s prison until he paid it back. He could also throw his family in prison until the debt was paid. Here’s the point that Jesus is making - when the king forgave the man, he was releasing him from a life of misery. The same is true for us when we show mercy and forgive. The only difference is, when we don’t forgive, we’re the ones in prison. Unforgiveness traps us and keeps us stuck in the place we are. I know one woman who refused to forgive someone and then blamed that person as the reason she couldn’t move on. When a person goes through a painful divorce and doesn’t forgive them, it keeps them from experiencing a healthy relationship in the future. When a person has been betrayed and they refuse to let it go, it keeps them from ever trusting another person again. Why? Because unforgiveness is a prison. When we won’t forgive, we become the man who had been forgiven much but wouldn’t forgive the person who owed him a little.
Here’s the funny thing about forgiveness: when someone hurts you, you can’t stop thinking about it. You keep replaying the scene in your mind. How do you know when you’ve released the other person? When you stop running the tapes in your mind of what the other person did. That doesn’t mean you’re going to magically forget it. But it does mean when you’ve forgiven them and after a season of time, you won’t think of that incident when you see that person. Forgiveness is not easy at first, but once you forgive you realize that the days you spent with unforgiveness was a prison. You had no peace, no rest, only torment because you kept relieving it over and over in your memories, all because we refuse to forgive. That’s why bitter people talk about the same hurts over and over. They can’t move past it. But when you forgive, you open the prison and are set free. So who do you need to forgive? Your parents, a family member, friend, an ex-spouse, one of your kids, your boss or a co-worker? Forgive and be free.
Fourth, you have to receive the forgiveness offered to you. Bon Goff tells the story of his longtime friend Charlie. Charlie was one of those guys who measured his life not by what he was but by what he has given up. He was a graduate of law school and then became an FBI agent. He met Bob for coffee and then said he wanted to use his training to help kids and fight for justice. Bob was involved with conducting investigations and raids to free kids from slavery, brothels and human trafficking in both Uganda and India. But the goal wasn’t just to free the kids but to bring the perpetrators to justice. After hearing this Charlie said, “I’m all in!” Charlie quit his job at the FBI and showed up for a non-paying job with Bob the next day. They went to Uganda to meet the President and all of the judges and then travelled to a town called Gulu where there was a jail. It was dilapidated concrete building surrounded by razor wire covered with rust. Inside were 100’s of young Ugandan boys and girls. Most had been arrested on petty crimes and had been in for 2-3 three years. And none had been to court. As Bob was talking to the warden, he lost Charlie. He started to look for him and found him in the cell of a young man named Kevin who was sharing his crime. He was sitting on the bottom bunk in a dark cell, holding Kevin’s hands and praying for Kevin that he would get our of jail and return to his life. It was a serious crime and that made this prayer all the more audacious.
Several months later, when all of the legal briefs had been written, there were 72 cases to be brought before the judge. The children arrived and then their parents, their accusers arrived and then the judge arrived. The children glanced back over their shoulders at their parents, ashamed they were there. But then the judge surprised everyone and asked the children to leave the courtroom so he could speak to their parents. When the children were gone, he spoke, “Parents, forgive your children.” For the judge knew whether the kids were guilty or not, they would be unable to move forward with their lives without the forgiveness of their parents. When the children were brought back into the courtroom, the judge said, “Children, your parents have forgiven you.” They had received what they needed as much as they needed justice. They had received forgiveness. And Kevin? He didn't go back to jail and saw that the audacious prayer in the dark cell was answered. And then he writes, “What I’ve learned the more time I spent following Jesus is that God delights in answering our impossible prayers. The kind of prayers made in a dark cell by someone holding unwashed hands… But what I forget is that we’re talking to a God who knows that what we need the most is to return to Him, to return to our lives. And like the judge, God knows that we cannot return until we know we have been forgiven.”
