September 17, 2023
Scriptures: Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35
While at first this scripture seems like a story of the correct behavior we should all exercise when it comes to forgiving one another, and reminds us of how God may be upset with us from time to time and act as a ‘stern disciplinary father’ for our misdeeds, I personally think it might be fully missing the point to only see this passage in that way.
Indeed our passage is a story and does have a message to teach us, but it is not a story predicated on some notion of crime and punishment. Our passage is not about positioning ourselves such that we enjoy the love and favor of God because of our innocence and good behavior, nor is it about a God waiting around, lurking out there just to keep an eye on how we are behaving, just waiting to pounce on us and punish us severely every time we do not do or say the right thing.
And, if we are truly honest with ourselves, then we must admit that there are times when we all are sinful and act in ways that are self-centered. Largely due I imagine to our inherited human nature…a ‘nature’ originally based on a very real need for and focus on self-preservation. All of us were hard-wired from the very beginning of the human story when such fight or flight behavior was necessary for our survival. But that is no longer the case today. As Jesus taught us, we have moved past the need for that to be our primary focus. His ministry sought to teach us that ways rooted in violence and power-based living strategies, were not in fact the way of our loving God. Rather, he taught the complete opposite, holding that the way of love and non-violence was in fact in keeping with the true nature of our God.
Jesus’ teachings emphasized over and over that God, the one he called ‘Abba’ or ‘Father’, was in fact solely and fully a God of love…not one of wrathful and seeming unforgiving judgment. He came to teach of the all-forgiving love of God and of the unconditional love offered to each one of us, regardless of how far we may have strayed from being loving and compassionate with each other.
Now I must admit, the concept of a God who is ‘only loving’ rather than judgmental might be more difficult to grasp, because it seems that a judgmental and wrathful God seems easier to understand, and to follow. And especially if the goal of life is merely to stay on God’s good side. For it is far easier to see the world in black and white, and to pick a side on which to dwell. But that is not what we hear Jesus teaching. Truly imitating a God who only loves, means that our behavior must be the same, and that is not an easy task. Unfortunately it seems it is far easier to be ‘good or ‘righteous’ in the eyes of our culture’ than it is to be holy in the eyes of God. This God of love is far more difficult to follow than just a few ‘proper’ or ‘acceptable’ social rules and expectations.
And so I would propose, and this is critically important, that today’s story is not so much about how well we forgive one another, but rather, a story that seeks to teach us that being right with God…has everything to do with how much each one of us has already been forgiven…being right with God…has everything to do with how much each one of us has already been forgiven.
For knowledge of our own weakness and failures is critical in teaching us how to love one another. And I would further submit, that unfortunately many, if not most people within the center of our culture are largely unaware of their own personal sin, weakness, and/or complicity in societal structures that are themselves sinful. And as a result, they have no idea of the degree to which they are loved and have been forgiven by God, even in spite of their personal history.
In truth, there is an incredible sense of humility to be found in knowing who you truly are in relationship to God. To first acknowledge, and then accept the ‘you’ that stands fully exposed spiritually before our God. There is also a liberating sense of freedom that results from the awareness of the Lord’s complete acceptance and love of you…just-as-you-are.
Today’s story – if read from a ‘literary distance’ as the parable that it is, speaks clearly to our need to understand this forgiveness we each have received. For when one truly and fully confronts, and then accepts the degree to which they have already been forgiven, they will find that they are no longer able, or might I dare say ‘allowed’ to stand in judgment of another. For just as the one who was so generously ‘forgiven first’in our scripture story was not allowed to continue on in unforgiving and unloving ways, so too do we face the same prohibition. Truly knowing the degree to which we have been forgiven and are still accepted by God, births within us an inability to be less than totally forgiving of another.
If we were and are forgiven, and released from all of our debts and obligations…then we simply cannot hold another in contempt for doing much the same. We too must imitate our God in being the first to forgive, the first to seek reconciliation of relationships, and the first to stand in defense of those wrongly accused.
If we can find a way to let go of any previous notions of a ‘wrathful’ God for just a minute, and instead begin to see God as one who accepts all with an equal and total love, and if we can find our way as Christians to being a part of the one human family created in the wonderfully diverse image of God…
…and if we can look for and find an understanding of God that truly makes room for everyone, including each one of us fully forgiven…
…then we will find ourselves in a strange new place. For we have so long relied on an ‘us or them’ view of our relationships with the rest of humanity. We are so used to defining ourselves as separate or different from someone else. As such, coming to know God as one ‘God for all of humanity’ whose love and acceptance is extended equally to all may be hard to grasp.
And I say that this may be a strange place, for if we truly decide to never pass judgment on another, then we may feel as though we have lost a lot of our life-structure and self-definition. How can we move to a place of never passing judgment on another? Who am I, if I am so used to being ‘not you’? In other words, if we truly love God, and if we truly believe that our God is all-loving and all-forgiving, and if we seek to follow the words of Jesus when he told us to love one another just as he loved us…then we will find ourselves in a brave new world. A world where compassion and love, rather than judgment and violence are the guides to our thoughts and actions. A world where the ‘godly love’ we may share, is our first and primary consideration, and where one day injustice and inequality, become vestiges of a sinful past.
So when I read this story of the one who was greatly forgiven and then in turn refused to forgive another who owed far less, I hear the Lord calling out to us. Calling us first to know who we are, and second, to follow him exactly in all of his ways of love and forgiveness.
For unless you can hold both the degree to which you have been forgiven and are still loved, in the same moment…you will not be able to extend any real depth of love and forgiveness to another.
Oh Lord, let us turn away from any tendency we may ever have to be those who were once forgiven, but then turned and refused to forgive another…
…amen
