The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew,

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.  When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.

So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.  But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’      Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.
When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place.

Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.

Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’
 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18:21-35 )

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The narrative  that preceded this week’s Old Testament lesson told us  of the cries of the Israelites when they were trapped between the sea and the Egyptian army. How they blamed Moses, and God and wished they had never left Egypt.

This week we read how God took pity on them, causing strong winds to blow on the waters of the sea and the waters to separate so they could cross safely.

The story of the Hebrews in the wilderness is one of deliverance, rebelliousness, forgiveness, drifting away from God, being welcomed back, sinning, forgiveness – just like the lives of many of us, don’t you think.

I used to think the Hebrews were an ungrateful lot. I used to think they were whiners in the bad times and arrogant so and so’s  when things went well.

Then I realised that the story of their struggle is an allegory of the struggle of each of us as we live our lives.

We too whine and blame God when things go wrong, and yet when things go well, we tend to take the credit ourselves.

We drift away from Him, and when we wander back, beaten down, remorseful, sorry about what we have done, He welcomes us back.

And isn’t it good to come back?  Isn’t it good when we know we are forgiven, and loved and wanted?

The Christian knows that, but what about those who don’t wander back?  What happens to them?

The story is told  in Spain of a father and his teenage son whose relationship had become strained.  So the son ran away  from home. 

The father, broken-hearted,  began to search for the rebellious boy.  Finally, in Madrid, in a last desperate attempt to find him, the father took an ad in the newspaper.

The ad read: “Dear Paco, meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven. I love you.   Your father.”

The next day 800 Paco’s showed up outside the newspaper office.

Seeking forgiveness and love from their fathers.

And there were 799 fathers somewhere, too arrogant, or too unforgiving, or too lost themselves, to make the effort to be reconciled with their children.

I don’t know why children and parents fall out.  There seems to be a  different reason in every case.

But one lesson that we parents have to learn is something that Paul tells us in this week’s epistle. 

He is talking to people who have ‘fallen out’ over some religious ritual.

“Hey,”  he says, “ Some abstain from eating meat to glorify God, while others eat it  for the same reason.  Why should one treat the other as if he were a sinner?”

If you act one way to glorify God, and she acts another way to glorify God, then that’s fine.  Both are glorifying God.

He is saying in effect,  “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”    Don’t be too quick to judge each other. As God is not  quick to judge us.  

Jesus tells the story of one man who had done wrong against his boss, and was forgiven.

He was happy to have been let off. He had panicked and groveled, and cried for forgiveness and his boss had relented and forgiven him.

But what lesson did he learn?

He must have learned the wrong lesson. He may have thought, “Oh, he forgave me because I am such a good worker. He forgave me because I am valuable to him. Because I am special. Or, I am such a good persuader.”

That must have been the lesson he learned  – wrong! – because when he was in the position of  deciding whether or not he should  forgive someone,  he  had them  thrown into prison.   But he hadn’t been forgiven because of any personal virtue. He was forgiven because his boss took pity on him.

If he had figured that out, then he might have been a bit more forgiving of the man who offended him.

It’s hard to know how he couldn’t see it.  Everything was out in the open, wasn’t it?    Most often,  our sins are committed in secret.

It is so easy to secretly destroy a reputation by passing on something and saying that  you were only repeating what someone else told you.

It is so easy to lie about your circumstances when someone has asked you for help.   “ I am sorry. I am tapped right out.”  No-one really knows.  

There are, of course,  many ways we can sin in private,  away from the eyes of others, and still present a face of virtue to the world.  No-one need know.

And aren’t we glad, because we have all done something that we don’t want anyone else to know about?

There was a movie called, “We Know What You Did Last Summer.”

The idea  must have come from a real incident which happened fifty or so years ago, when  two girls sent an anonymous letter to a man, saying simply, “ We know what you did.” 

They weren’t aware of anything wrong that this man had done. It was just a silly joke

But the man committed suicide.

I wonder how any of us would feel  if  we thought our worst sins were public knowledge?

One welcome result might be that people would stop criticising others.  We can only criticize when we appear to be virtuous.    

That poor man  would not have killed himself if he had known that our sins don’t need to be there, even in the secrecy of our heart.  We are told that  because of what Jesus did,  then our sins can not only be forgiven, but they will be forgotten

Forgotten!

That comes about when we are once again in a loving relationship with God.

And if we are in a loving relationship with God then we won’t want to judge others.

In fact we will be forgiving and forgetting the sins of others as ours have been forgiven and forgotten.

Because we will want to be back in a loving relationship with them too.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

I forgive you,  you forgive them, they forgive others, and so on.

Imagine if the sins of the Croatians against the Serbs, and the sins of the Serbs against the Croatians, and  the sins of the Albanians against the Serbs, and the sins of the Serbs against the Albanians had been forgiven – years ago – the tragedies of Bosnia and Kosovo would have been avoided.

Imagine if the sins of the Israelis against the Palestinians and the sins of the Palestinians against the Israelis, and the Catholic Irish against the Protestant Irish and the Protestant Irish against the Catholics, and so on had been forgiven. 

Instead, it has been like the famous feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, hasn’t it?

That feud lasted for decades. Somewhere in the mountains of the southern United States.  It went something like  – ‘You killed my brother because my cousin killed your uncle, so I am going to kill you, and you will try to kill me, and if you do my father will kill you,’ and so on.

Whole peoples have been behaving that way haven’t they?    But in  broken relationships between nations, just as between individuals, someone has got to be the one who says, “Stop. It’s  enough.”

That’s what God did, didn’t he. He said, “ Enough is enough. This has got to stop!”   

And he stepped in Himself, in the person of Jesus to show us how love and forgiveness work.

And  love and forgiveness do work!

If given the chance.

Here is a lovely poem by George Roemisch published years ago, titled ‘Forgiveness.’

Forgiveness is the windblown bud which blooms in placid beauty at Verdun.

Forgiveness is the tiny slate-gray sparrow which has built its nest of twigs and string among the shards of glass on the wall of shame.

Forgiveness is the child who laughs in merry ecstasy beneath the toothed fence that closes in  D

a Nang .

Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet which still clings fast to the heel of the shoe that crushed it.

Forgiveness is the broken dream which hides itself within the corner of the mind oft called forgetfulness, so it will not bring pain to the dreamer.

Forgiveness is the reed which stands up straight and green when nature’s mighty rampage halts, full spent.

Forgiveness is a God who will not leave us after all we’ve done.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.