Matthew 18:21-35

Let me tell you a story about a seminary friend of mine when he was just starting his internship. His second or third Sunday with that congregation, they had a special potluck for him after worship. The potluck was a chance for the congregation to get to know him better and they even had a little Q & A time where members could ask him anything they liked.

Also at this potluck, they had a “card shower.” The internship committee had invited people to give gifts of money or gift cards to help my friend get settled in and by the end of lunch he had a large stack of envelopes. Some were simply cards with sweet, welcoming messages. Others had gifts cards to local stores or restaurants and some people chose to include a check or cash. It was a wonderfully generous way to welcome him into their community and to help provide for him during that transition time.

But as my friend began to open the cards, he became a little concerned. There were so many people to thank! He began making a list of who gave what and wondered what he could do in return for them. This abundant outpouring of love that he hadn’t yet had the chance to earn was a bit unsettling. What would he be able to do to show his gratitude?

It was a troubling moment for him. As we talked about it, we discussed how hard it can be to accept things we feel like we haven’t earned and how uncomfortable it is to feel like you are in someone’s debt.

My friend didn’t want to owe anything to the people he would be serving with. He wanted to love them, yes, and learn from them and be a pastor to them, but he didn’t want it to be out of any obligation. Being in their debt was something he wanted to avoid.

“Debt” is an interesting word. I looked up the dictionary definition: it’s “the state of owing something or of being under an obligation.” We tend to hear debt and think about finances: credit-card debt or student loan debt. It’s the money you’ve borrowed and have to pay back and if you don’t, you can face severe problems and penalties.

But we use the word “debt” in another way. The Lord’s Prayer in the Gospel of Matthew is a little different than what we say every Sunday morning here. We say “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” On the other hand, Matthew says “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Here, debt is much more than mere money. It is about our relationships with one another and how we treat people.

This morning’s series of readings are all about relationships and how we treat people and, at their core, they are about the offering of forgiveness and grace.

The first reading from Genesis concludes the story of Joseph and his brothers. If you aren’t familiar with this particular Old Testament story, it’s a great one that I encourage you to take the time to read or, at the very least, check out Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (They made a movie of it in 1999 starring Donny Osmond!)

Anyway, Joseph is the favorite son of his father, Jacob. He is given this beautiful coat as an outward symbol of his favored status and, instead of being humble, he’s actually kind of a brat about it. He would have these symbolic dreams where his brothers bowed down to him and would tell them all about it. The brothers were so jealous and angry with Joseph that they end up selling him to be a slave in Egypt. This sets off a whole course of events, but eventually Joseph, thanks to his prophetic dreams, becomes one of Pharaoh’s advisors.

Today’s reading, however, comes much later. The family has already been reunited. Joseph has been with his father at his deathbed. But Joseph’s brothers are worried that Joseph still carries some resentment and anger—and their fear isn’t unreasonable. They did a pretty awful thing. And so they come to Joseph and say that Jacob said Joseph should forgive them.

Joseph wouldn’t have it any other way. He knows that his brothers wronged him, but there is no scoreboard in his mind. He forgives them and, what’s more, he intends to provide for them. He goes above and beyond what is asked and far past what he might owe them.

This forgiveness isn’t given so that Joseph might hold it over them at some future date. It is a gift, offered freely and simply.

Which takes us to our Gospel reading. Jesus uses exaggeration to show how unnecessary it is to keep a tally of wrongs and the times forgiveness is offered.

How many times are we told to forgive? Seventy-seven, or seventy-times-seven, depending on the translation. The actual number isn’t really important. I hope none of us are keeping a written account of who sins against us and numbering it one through seventy-seven or one through four-hundred-and-ninety. You could, I suppose, but waiting for someone to hit that magical seventy-eighth or four-hundred-and-ninety-first sins seems like a rather depressing waste of time. The point is that forgiveness isn’t trackable, or it shouldn’t be. It should be an ever-flowing font that flows from God to us and through us out to others.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Like so many other times in his ministry, he tells a parable to get his point across.

There is a king who wants to settle his accounts and finds a slave who owes him ten thousand talents. The slave doesn’t have it, and so asks for time to be able to pay it back.

To keep this in perspective, one talent was worth more than fifteen years of labor. The slave would have to work a hundred and fifty thousand years to come up with this money. It’s never going to happen. The slave knows it. The king knows it. This debt will never be repaid. And yet, the king forgives it. He could have sold the slave to make some of his money back. He could have told the slave that even though the debt would never be repaid in full to keep working at it. But he doesn’t. He wipes the slate clean.

I said earlier that grace is something that flows from God to us to others. Apparently, this slave didn’t get the memo, because his first reaction upon seeing someone who owed him money is to throw him into prison when he can’t pay what he owes.

Jesus tells us of these two men, the king and the slave, who are faced with the same situation and yet handle it so very differently—and it’s clear whose example we should follow. The slave isn’t in trouble at the end of the story just because he demanded to be repaid. He is faced with torture because he was given grace and yet was unable or unwilling to show that same grace to others. We are to forgive the debts of others, forgive their sins against us, not because they’ve “worked it off” or because they “deserve it” but because we have first been treated in this way.

And it’s really hard. On our terms, the way we would want it, seeing the way God’s forgiveness is freely offered, God isn’t fair and life isn’t fair—but, oh, how we want them to be!

Fairness on God’s terms can be unsettling. It can be uncomfortable. It can mean accepting things you don’t feel you deserve and offering things you aren’t sure you can give.

Accepting grace when you know you are a sinner and offering forgiveness when you’re not sure you have forgiven.

But that’s where the real beauty comes in. It’s not all our doing. We are imperfect, sinful beings, but capable of acting in amazing, saintly ways because of what God can do through us. We may not be sure we should receive grace or salvation, but God—sometimes working through others—gives it to us anyway. We might not feel ready to forgive someone who has wronged us, but that forgiveness doesn’t come only from us—it’s God’s forgiveness flowing through.

Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s.”

We are God’s. We belong to God. Our sins and our virtues, that imaginary tally of wrong-doing and good-works—they belong to God, too, and God has wiped the slate clean. Abundant forgiveness from an ever-flowing font of grace, from God, to us, and out.

Amen.

– Rev. Rebecca Ajer Frantz, Lutheran Church of Our Saviour

Image from Sundays & Seasons. All rights reserved.