14^th November 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 14 September 2014

Lessons - Psalm 19:1,7-14; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Why do you despise your brother or sister? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.
(Romans 14:10)

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35) is the climax of a series of sayings where Jesus has warned disciples against causing others to falter. He encourages them to exercise pastoral discipline in a spirit of humility and with a keen desire to restore to the community of faith those who have lost their way, without condoning wrongdoing (vv 1-17).

Peter has been given the incredible but dangerous authority to forgive sins and to withhold forgiveness (Matthew 16:18-20). Now, not unreasonably, he wants more guidance on what can be a tricky business. How often should he forgive a wayward brother or sister? Having seen and experienced forgiveness in Jesus' person and ministry, Peter knows that God's grace is extravagant!
Realising that the three times laid down in Jewish law is too conservative, he desires to be liberal-minded by suggesting the perfect number, seven.

Jesus' reply floors him. The precise meaning of what Jesus says is unclear - it could be 'no, not 7 times but 70 times 7 (490), or 77'. With either number Jesus exposes Peter's calculating approach to forgiveness. Unlike Jesus, he is thinking of the limits of grace. Jesus is saying that acts of mercy are to be unlimited.

(There is an amusing sketch on Sesame Street that sends up the legend of George Washington's honesty in admitting to his very forgiving father that he had chopped down a cherry tree. In it, George is forgiven every time he confesses to cutting down yet another tree - until the orchard is bare! Of course, it pokes fun at insincere confession and shallow forgiveness.
However, would Peter have understood Jesus' reply to endorse the father's
reaction?)

As usual, Jesus illustrates with a story that does not directly speak to Peter's concern. Instead, he tells a parable that shows how easy it is to forget the magnitude of God's grace to us and how hard it is to forgive even one person who has wronged us!

The King's servant owes an astronomical amount of money - larger than the total income of two Roman provinces. Unable to pay, and facing a life sentence in prison with the loss of his assets, wife and children, he pleads for mercy. 'Please give me time and I promise to pay back everything.' (v26)

Astonishingly, the King does not insist on his rights before the law. He has him released from prison and cancels the debt that he had absolutely no hope of repaying. (v27)

If the parable had ended here, we may grumble at the King's disregard for the law, his flippant attitude to bankruptcy and his encouragement of irresponsibility. But most of us are flabbergasted by the King's magnificent gesture. What an incredible, undeserved and unparalleled act of kindness!

But the parable does not end there!

We might have expected a sequel that shows the servant's unutterable joy and gratitude for this entirely unexpected act of grace. But what we find is unutterably shocking!

This man, whose huge debt had been cancelled, immediately demands from a 'fellow servant' repayment of a debt a millionth of what he had owed. He 'grabs the fellow by the throat' (v28) and, despite being implored to show mercy in exactly the same words that he had used (v29, v26), he 'refused'.
Unlike the King, he insists on his rights and has the chap imprisoned until the debt is paid.

The King, hearing about this grotesque hypocrisy from 'distressed servants', is so 'angry' at this 'wickedness' (v32) that he 'handed him over to be tortured until he repaid the whole debt' (v34). As the size of the debt was beyond his ability to repay, this was akin to a life sentence in a prison camp without reprieve or possibility of release.

What precisely is his 'wickedness'? Not terrorism, child abuse, genocide, racism, immorality and suchlike, all of which are also 'wicked'. No! His 'evil' is refusing to show a fellow-servant in his debt the same mercy that he had received for a much, much larger debt. Instead of being so overwhelmed, humbled and grateful by this act of grace that it transforms his relationships, he is unwilling to be merciful to other servants. He is a 'wicked hypocrite' who is rightly condemned by the one who had earlier freed him from his debt and the terrible punishment that was due to him by law.

No doubt we, too, are distressed and horrified by the man's scandalous behavior. How could he?

Notice, however, how Jesus draws us into the picture! Who do you and I identify with in the parable? Are we thinking about times that we have experienced forgiveness for wrongs for which we have sought pardon? Or, are we thinking of wrongs that others have done to us and for which they ask our pardon?

At the end of Scene 1 we are delighted that a man's huge debt has been set aside. But Scene faces us with the uncomfortable truth about ourselves. We too have selective memories. We too insist on our rights. We too would rather hang on to grievances than forgive those who seek mercy. Too easily we forget grace has been extended to us. We ignore wrongs that we have done to others but keep score of the wrongs done to us. 'We have been thoughtless in our judgments, hasty in condemnation, grudging in forgiveness.' (Covenant Service, Uniting in Worship, p69.)

This episode begins with Peter thinking about the measurable limits of grace.
It ends with a parable that shows how hard it is forgive one person and how easy it is to be a hypocrite.

At its heart the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is about the unsurpassable grace of God - the God whose good and righteous purposes for our life together all of us have rejected. We are the man who cannot repay the 'debt' to God for the ways in which we have wronged him. We are the man whose 'debt', incredibly, is forgiven! We are the man who forgets that the magnificence of God's undeserved love for us is to be lived out in our relationships as 'fellow-servants' of Christ.

In the parable Jesus points us to the astounding mercy of God, to whom we owe a debt that cannot be repaid. It summons us to show the same mercy to those who 'owe us'. And it warns us that failure to do so is a 'wicked' violation of our calling that will be severely punished (v35). God is rightfully 'angry' when grace received is not grace given!

This is a hard saying. But it awakens us to the magnificence of God's transforming grace that has been displayed for us and all people in the person and ministry of Christ. This is splendidly expressed Isaac Watt's hymn 'When I survey the wondrous cross' (Together in Song, 342).

Let us earnestly pray that we may be servants of the King of Kings, whose 'sovereign grace (as Charles Wesley knew) to all extends, immense and unconfined ... to reach all human kind' (Together in Song, 122). Let us not forget that, as people who owe God a 'debt of gratitude' for 'not counting our sins against us' (2 Corinthians 5:16ff), we are called to forgive those who have wronged us and sought our pardon.

Therefore, as God has been gracious beyond measure to us and set us free to serve him, let us rejoice in the gift of grace and 'receive' each other as we have been 'received' - as undeserving recipients of the immeasurable love of God!

Prayer: Father of goodness and mercy, in the name of Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Amen _________________________________

Rev Dr Max Champion is Minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia.

Dr Champion is a member of the Board of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.