When my wife, Janel, and I closed escrow on our new home in Concord,
frankly, we were astounded at the amount of paperwork required within
the great state of California to shift ownership of property from one
person to another. I glanced through each page wondering,
"How can I make sense of all this legal language?"
And before signing my name on each page - trying my best to sift
through the legal language - I would look up at my real estate agent,
and say "Bill, what have I just signed?"
For nearly an hour I signed document after document, astounded that
the purchase of a home has become so complicated in our society.
Of all the documents that I signed, I think the one that I found the
most interesting was what is called the Restrictive Covenants, also
known as CC&R's: Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions.
As I understand it, Restrictive Covenants kind of works like this.
Now bear with me, I'm not an attorney, so my explanation may be a
little simple, but that's what works for me.
The Restrictive Covenants represents a kind of an agreement between
the Doll family and our neighbors. And if we want to live in
our neighborhood, then we have to agree to the following rules: We
can't paint our house purple. Our neighbors don't like purple.
I signed that one. The Doll family doesn't like purple houses either.
We can't park a motor home on our street overnight. No problem.
We don't even own a motor home. I signed that one. We
can't add a third story to our new home because our neighbors don't
want to lose their view of the foothills. Ah, that's okay.
I don't want to lose my view either. Restrictive Covenants are
designed to make life easier, or at least that's what we've been told.
In the Parable of the Unmerciful servant, Jesus says, "If you
want to live in my kingdom, if you want to live in the Kingdom of
Heaven, then there are just a few restrictive covenants, some ground
rules, that you have to abide by."
You see, the Kingdom of Heaven is Matthew's way of saying the Kingdom
of God. Remember, Matthew is writing to a predominately Jewish
audience, and so he's not going to use the name of God because he's
remembering the Jewish restriction against using or vocalizing the
name of God. And so Matthew says the Kingdom of Heaven.
But when we read the two, when we read Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew
or Kingdom of God in other gospels, it's the same thing.
We really can't make this differentiation between the two. And
Jesus uses parables to illustrate truth about his kingdom.
And so Peter asks this question, and Jesus responds to Peter's
question with a parable. But Peter's question really isn't that
unusual, is it? It's a question that most of us have asked at
one time or another. How many times should I forgive my bother?
How many times should I forgive my spouse? How many times
should I forgive my neighbor? The question really isn't that unusual.
What's unusual is Peter's proposal. You see, Peter thought he
was being generous in saying, "Seven times, Lord?"
Why did Peter think he was being generous? You see, Jewish
tradition said that you only had to forgive three times, and the
fourth time, you didn't owe a person your forgiveness anymore.
If someone offended you a fourth time, then you were under no
obligation to forgive. But Jesus says, "Peter, I tell you
not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
Now, Jesus isn't placing a cap or a limitation on the number of times
that we should forgive. It's not as if I should run around with
a notebook and every time that my spouse offends me make a little
checklist, and when I get to seventy-seven, I can look at her and
say, "I'm sorry. I'm not going to forgive you anymore.
That was number seventy-eight." That's not what Jesus is
saying.
Jesus is using this number seventy-seven as a means of hyperbole, as
a means of exaggeration. You see, if you only had to forgive
seventy-seven times, then I don't know of a couple out there this
morning that would have made it to your first anniversary.
So seventy-seven is used for the sake of hyperbole - of exaggeration
- to make a point. And hyperbole was typically used within a parable.
Seventy-seven is meant to stand in huge contrast to Peter's generous,
"Seven, Lord?" But as soon as we place a limitation
on the number of times that we're willing to forgive, then the
possibility of genuine forgiveness is shattered. And so Jesus
tells this story to Peter and to the other listeners, a story that
illustrates the unconditional nature of God's love and the unending
mercy of God's forgiveness.
The first servant owes his master 10,000 talents. Now when we
studied the Parable of Talents several weeks ago, we learned that a
talent represented a considerably large sum of money. Some
scholars suggest that a talent may have represented as much as 1
million dollars.
Now for just one moment, I want you to imagine with me. Forget
that you are here and imagine that you're opening the morning mail.
And as you flip through the envelopes, you see this letter from your bank.
"Hmm, a letter from the bank. I'll open that."
And then you read the letter that says your credit cards have been
maxed out at 10 billion dollars. Yikes! None of us would
ever be able to pay back that kind of debt.
And clearly, this is what is meant by 10,000 talents. 10,000
talents isn't so much an amount that can be counted as much as it is
meant to say, "Look at the unending mercy of the king who says
your debt is forgiven, who recognizes that there's no way the servant
could have ever worked enough hours to pay back a debt like that."
The real irony for me is that the servant actually begs for time to
pay off the debt. And as we all know, we would need more than a
lifetime to pay a debt of ten billion dollars. And you and I
know that it doesn't matter how much we work sometimes, how hard we
try, there are times when there is nothing that we can do to pay back
our debt. There is nothing that we can say, and nothing that we
can do to earn forgiveness other than to say, "I'm sorry.
Will you please forgive me?"
I'll never forget how chaotic life was for me when my son, who is now
near two years old, was born. I had just been placed on the
staff of Wintersburg Presbyterian Church in Santa Ana. I was a
full-time seminary student, and I was emotionally exhausted.
After what looked like a normal delivery, David developed a serious
lung infection, and just two hours after his birth, he was rushed
into the neonatal critical care unit at Hoag Memorial Hospital in
Newport Beach. His chances for survival were fair. And as
hard as I tried, I just couldn't keep up with all of my new
requirements at work and all of the demands placed on me at school.
But you know, when I signed up to go to seminary, I knew the rules.
I knew the conditions, and I knew the penalty for handing in a late
paper without written permission from the professor. I knew
that the penalty was an automatic F for the paper. But I went
to school that day without my paper anyway, and I walked into the
classroom knowing that my professor had the full authority to fail me.
And after class, I went to the professor and I pleaded my case before him.
I knew that I had no other choice than to plead, than to beg, and God
answered my prayers that day Big Time. Dr. Thompson looked at
me and said, "Adrian, we all know your circumstance. Just
get the paper in when you can, okay?"
In our parable, the king takes pity on his servant. He looks
down at his servant and he demonstrates unconditional mercy. It
doesn't matter that the servant promised to pay back his debt.
The wise king knew that the servant could never pay back the debt
that he owed, and so he responds to the servant with the grace and
compassion that is reflective of the grace and compassion that God
offers to you and to me this morning.
The debt of the servant is forgiven just as your sins and my sins are forgiven.
And this morning's parable is a reminder that we worship a God of
mercy, a God of compassion, a God of love.
In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes, "And I
pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power
together with all of the saints to grasp how wide and long, how deep
and high is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge."
The love of God is beyond our comprehension.
As we come to the Lord's Supper today, we remember the visible
demonstration of God's love. In Jesus Christ, God paid the debt
that you and I could never, ever pay. This parable offers us
good news because it is a reminder that it doesn't matter what our
past looks like. It doesn't matter what it is that we've done,
nothing can change the fact that God's loves us. And when we
acknowledge our need for God's grace, our need for God's forgiveness,
Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more."
But how ironic, isn't it, that once we experience God's grace and
forgiveness, that we should turn around and demand justice from
someone else? Forgiven of his enormous debt, the wicked servant
turns around and tries to collect the debt that his fellow servant
owes him.
But if we're going to be painfully honest with ourselves this
morning, most of us can identify with the actions of the wicked servant.
Forgiven of our own debt, forgiven of our own sins, we're quick to
turn around and demand restitution from others.
And so the wicked servant demands that his colleague pay back his
debt of a mere 100 denari. Let's think of it this way: A talent
was worth about 6,000 denari. That means that the wicked
servant had been forgiven a debt 600,000 times greater than the debt
that he was forcing his fellow servant to pay back.
So what's the point of the parable? The point of the parable is
this: Once we experience God's unlimited forgiveness, then we have a
mandate to forgive others. God's love is unconditional, but it
also places a severe demand on us. And if we aren't willing to
forgive others, then frankly it is doubtful that we have really
comprehended the enormity of our failures and our own personal need
for God's grace.
This is a really hard parable to digest. It's hard to digest in
a world that so affirms self-centered living - in a world that says,
"My rights first, and then I'll think about you." We
live in a culture that so values individualism that we willingly
neglect the best interest of others in order to serve our purposes.
And consequently, we spend so much of our life wondering, "Why
is it that we don't have a sense of community, a sense of belonging?"
Jesus says, "Remove unconditional forgiveness, unconditional
love from any relationship, and that relationship will suffer."
Within the Kingdom of Heaven, within Christian community, within our
church, real community is only possible when we are willing to
forgive those who sincerely ask for our forgiveness.
Many of you have read about the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in
his ministry as the Chairperson of South Africa's Peace and
Reconciliation Commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu guided the
people of South Africa through the very long, bitter, and painful
task of reconciliation following the collapse of apartheid.
Desmond Tutu and others believed that the future of South Africa
rested on the willingness and the ability of the people, both black
and white, to remember the past, to account for wrongs done, and to
both ask for and to receive forgiveness.
In his book No Future Without Forgiveness, Archbishop Tutu writes
these words, "In the act of forgiveness, we are declaring our
faith in the future: in the future of a relationship and in the
capacity of the wrongdoer to make a new beginning on a course that
will be different from the one that has caused us the wrong. We
are saying in the act of forgiveness that there is the possibility
for a new beginning. It is an act of faith that the wrongdoer
can change. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, 'Blessed
are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.' If I am
unwilling to forgive the person who wrongs me, then how can I expect
to receive mercy when I plead God's forgiveness?"
Forgiving others encompasses a turning away from one's own rights and
a willingness to take on the consequences of someone else's actions.
True forgiveness says, "I will forgive you, and I will deal with
the loss." True forgiveness says, "I'm willing to
support the children that you've turned your back on."
True forgiveness happens when the son or the daughter looks at the
negligent parent and says, "I forgive you. I'm not going
to blame you for my insecurities, for my hang-ups. I still want
a relationship with you in spite of our past." And true
forgiveness brings healing to both parties, the one wronged and the
one who made the mistake. It is a looking toward a future of possibilities.
Forgiveness isn't always easy. In fact, it can be very painful.
In forgiving us, Jesus Christ took on the consequences of our sins as
he hung on the cross.
You see, what is important to God is relationship. And God
says, "I love each one of you so much that I will stop at nothing.
At nothing. I want relationship with you."
And God says, "I will pay the debt that you can never pay."
As we come to the table this morning, we remember our need for forgiveness.
We remember what Jesus Christ did for us. He paid that debt
that we could never pay. We join with the great cloud of
witnesses, the saints who have gone before us, as we remember our
need for God's grace. And so come. Come to the table and
receive God's grace this morning.
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