Gospel for September 17, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 18:21-35
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

It seems that Peter has been listening carefully to the teaching of Jesus.  In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus has carefully outlined a procedure whereby conflict might be resolved within the community of faith.  Peter seems to make the connection between this teaching about methods of reconciliation and Jesus’ earlier teaching about forgiveness.

When Jesus taught the disciples about prayer in his Sermon on the Mount, forgiveness was so central that he reiterated the same point after teaching the prayer:

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors…For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

So Peter’s question seems to be in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching.  He says:

Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?

No doubt, Peter’s expectation was that Jesus would praise him for his generosity, much as Jesus had praised him when Peter recognized Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 16:16-18).  The number seven is a significant number in the Hebrew world view, symbolizing completeness and perfection.  It would seem that Peter is suggesting a very patient, even “perfect” forbearance toward repeat offenders.

But Jesus’ attitude toward forgiveness is far more expansive — we might even say infinite — than Peter’s proposal.  In fact, Jesus’ answer suggests an exponential difference:

Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Once again, Jesus isn’t speaking literally, but symbolically.  If Peter was literal-minded (which might be likely), he may have been testing the limits of forgiveness.  Is seven times enough, he may have been asking.  But If we do the math, Jesus is suggesting the offender be forgiven four hundred ninety times. This is hardly a literal prescription for forgiveness.  Jesus is taking a number suggested by Peter, symbolizing perfection, and expanding it exponentially.  In other words, forgiveness never ends.

Jesus then employs one of his favored means of communication to illustrate his point about forgiveness — the parable.  He likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a king who calls in his debts.  One debtor owes the king ten thousand talents.  This is an astronomically high number.  Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of three hundred metric tons of silver.

Just for the sake of comparison — ten thousand talents is the equivalent to sixty million denarii, which was the coin of the time.  A denarius was the typical day’s wage for agricultural labor.  Today, the United States Department of Agriculture says that the average day laborers’ wages per hour is between $10.50 to $10.80 per hour.  Those wages would probably look pretty good to a day laborer in Jesus’ time.  A day’s labor in Jesus’ time wouldn’t be eight hours a day — it was sunrise to sunset.  So, if we assume that a normal day might be ten hours, perhaps we are talking about a worker earning $80 to $105 a day.  To cut to the chase, the servants debt might be the equivalent of at least four billion, eight hundred million dollars!  This is an astounding debt!  What on earth did this servant intend to do with that money?  And where did he spend it?!

In short, he just doesn’t have it.  And the consequences are dire — his entire family would pay the debt by being sold into slavery!

 But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The servant’s response is to throw himself upon the mercy of the king.  He humbles himself and pleads for mercy.  This man who has squandered what amounts to billions of dollars is completely helpless.  He begs:

 The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’

Despite the huge debt, the king forgives the entire amount, without even requiring a repayment schedule:

 The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

We can only imagine the enormous relief, forgiven of such a huge debt.  And this makes the next events all the more shocking:

But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii,  and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you!’  He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due.

This servant who has been forgiven a debt in the billions of dollars refuses to forgive a debt which amounts to perhaps $1,050.  This is not a tiny amount of money — but it wouldn’t buy a house today, or a new car.  Compared to the ten thousand talents, one hundred denarii is miniscule.  And yet this man, forgiven of a huge debt, cannot find compassion in his own heart to forgive a debtor who owes him much less.

The irony is staggering.  The hypocrisy is shocking.  And the king’s servants, who see this scenario unfold before their very eyes, could not remain silent.  They reported the servant’s behavior to their king.

The king’s moral outrage is palpable:

Then his lord called him in, and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’

What is interesting is that the consequences for the servant’s hypocritical behavior differ from the king’s original judgment.  His family and property are not sold into slavery.  Instead, all of the consequences fall upon the servant:

 His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.

It would seem, as was the fashion in ancient times, that the servant was to suffer at the hands of professional torturers.  He was to pay, as it were, with a pound of flesh.

Lest we miss the point of the parable, Jesus makes it very clear:

 So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.

Those who have been forgiven are to forgive others.  Otherwise, they themselves will suffer the consequences of judgment.  A failure to forgive results in a failure to be forgiven.

APPLY:  

Like Peter, don’t we tend to want to measure our responses to grievances and wrongs?  How many times must we forgive, we ask, just like Peter.  Jesus’ answer is that forgiveness is unlimited.

The truth is that forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian Gospel.  But there is no such thing as cheap grace when it comes to forgiveness.  Forgiveness is costly.

Where we begin is with the ultimate source of forgiveness.  According to Jesus’ parable, forgiveness is equated with something that most of us can understand — financial debt.  Jesus doesn’t single out particular sins.  He suggests that hurts, grievances, and wrongs are equivalent with a sense of indebtedness.

To whom do we owe not only our salvation, our abilities, and even our very existence?  The answer is simple — God himself.  That is who the king in Jesus’ parable represents.  And we all owe a debt to God that none of us can repay.

This debt, incurred by our birth, is increased by our lives that “draw” on God’s account.  And it is our sins — our moral failings, our squandered opportunities, our resentments, lusts, and little selfishnesses — that incur our debt to God.  And this is why Jesus, as the incarnate God on earth, exercises his authority to forgive these debts during his ministry and, finally, on the cross.  When he is crucified at the hands of sinful men, the sinless one says:

Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).

And this forgiveness pivots toward our relationship with others.  Like the servant in the parable, when we have confessed our faith in Christ and asked his forgiveness, we have been forgiven a massive debt that we could never repay.

So, when it comes to hurts, grievances, and injuries that we have suffered from others — no matter how great — do we really imagine that they surpass the debt that we owe to God?  Again, we are like the servant in the parable.  We owe, in effect, billions of dollars to God.  There are people who are indebted to us, who have wronged us in some way — but in comparison, those debts are small.

And Jesus’ central teaching on forgiveness is sobering.  We not only pray it regularly, he stresses it:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

Again, Jesus’ parable is instructive.  When we have been forgiven so great a debt, what right have we not to forgive those in debt to us, especially when that debt is relatively small in comparison. It may be that God can’t forgive us when we refuse to forgive others because our hearts are too hard and too self-righteous to receive his forgiveness.

RESPOND: 

Years ago I learned a principle from the world of cognitive behavioral therapy that has spiritual applications.  It is called the emotional bank.

Here is the concept:  when we are in a relationship, we have a tendency to think that our acts of kindness — like helping out with the chores, or doing someone a favor — is a kind of emotional “deposit” into the emotional bank.  On the other hand, when we do something unkind or wrong, we are also making “withdrawals” from the emotional bank.  We accumulate “capital” by our good behavior, and we lose “emotional capital” by our bad behavior.  If we withdraw more than we deposit, we end up with an emotional deficit with our family, friends, or co-workers.

That may sound a little mercenary, as though it reduces a relationship to a mere transaction. But it’s also pretty honest.  Whether we like it or not, we do tend to think of our relationships as transactional.  We might try to be more noble, but the emotional bank is a handy benchmark.

The parable Jesus tells suggests a similar transactional concept.  The “debt” incurred by the servant is colossal compared to the “debt” he is owed by his fellow servant.  I’m reminded of something else Jesus says elsewhere:

with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2).

The truth is, there is no transaction that we can make with God to receive his forgiveness.  His forgiveness and grace toward us are incredibly costly.  When we forgive, we are in a sense drawing on his “line of credit” of grace toward others.

Once, long ago, when General Oglethorpe of the English Colony in Georgia said, “I never forgive,” the Reverend Charles Wesley retorted:

Then I hope, Sir, that you never sin.

As the cliche says:

We owed a debt we could not pay; Christ paid a debt he did not owe.

Lord, I can never repay the debt I owe you.  But I can follow your example on a smaller scale and forgive those who sin against me.  Give me grace to do so.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"70 Seven Times" by WELS net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for September 10, 2023

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 18:15-20
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the hallmarks of Scripture is realism.  The revealed Word of God doesn’t envision a world that never existed, and never will, but the world as it is.

In the Gospel lectionary for this week, Jesus is addressing the reality of conflict between believers.  He offers a kind of “court of appeals” as a way of dealing with someone who is aggrieved.

He advocates a grievance procedure for the person who feels that they are sinned against.  Notice that he first humanizes the adversary — he calls him a brother:

If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.

This first step is the most basic.  Reconciliation can begin with a one-on-one conversation about the issue that has caused the rift.  If that works, the brotherly relations are restored.

However, realism dictates that there be further steps in the event that personal reconciliation doesn’t work out.

The second step is to meet with one’s adversary in the presence of witnesses who can provide context and testimony, as well as objective, impartial counsel:

 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

This is such good advice.  The two or three witnesses, as prescribed by Deuteronomy 19:15, not only offer accountability for both parties involved, they may be able to offer objective advice to both sides.

There is a third “court of appeals” if you will.  Take the “defendant” to the church assembly:

 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly.

The scope of possible witnesses is meant to expand each time there is not satisfactory resolution to the issue, until the issues are clearly out in the open.  What might have been resolved as a private matter has become a public matter.

Finally, if the adversary refuses even to listen to the church’s decision, representing the collective will of the community, the adversary is to be removed from the community:

If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

The truth is, the unrepentant adversary has done this to him/herself. Refusing to listen to the two or three witnesses and then the assembled church suggests that he/she doesn’t recognize the authority of the church.  Therefore, they are no longer really a part of the community.

Jesus uses the example of Gentile and tax collector because in his time these were groups who were considered outside of the community — some by virtue of their religious orientation (Gentiles), some by career choices that were tainted by insinuations of corruption (tax collectors).

Jesus then explains the derivation of the church’s authority for such decisions:

Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

Earlier in this Gospel, when Simon Peter acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:13-20), Jesus tells him:

I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

However, our present passage suggests that such authority is vested with the community of faith — all of those who have declared their faith in Christ, who are gathered in council together.  This is reinforced when Jesus repeats this formula, about even a small number gathered in his name:

Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them.

Clearly, neither the authority of Peter nor the authority of the church is autonomous.  It is derived from the presence of Jesus in their midst, who is their intercessor with the Father.  This doctrine is reinforced by Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John:

Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.   Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:12-14).

We are reminded that when grievances are heard by the community of faith, the church is empowered to resolve them because Jesus is in their midst guiding them.

This is a pneumatic statement, which means that Jesus is promising to be with the community of faith through his Spirit (Greek: Pneuma).

APPLY:  

Resolution of conflict is extremely important.  For couples in counseling. For governments. For people in work situations.  And especially in the church.  Unresolved conflicts, if left to fester, can and often do escalate into open and sometimes violent hostility.

Jesus provides a sound procedure for resolving conflict.

• If we have been wronged, we are taught to seek direct resolution. This provides the time and space to reduce the tension, forgive and forget.
• If the accused refuses to admit wrongdoing or correct the situation, the second step is to meet with two or three witnesses. Presumably, this offers both parties the opportunity to be heard by objective, impartial witnesses. In contemporary terms, this might be analogous to arbitration out of court.
• If no resolution can be reached, the community of faith becomes involved, and their decision is binding.

From the beginning of Christian history, church councils have been convened to prayerfully debate and resolve issues of Christian doctrine, the Biblical canon, and even moral and ethical matters.  Virtually every Christian denomination has some form of council or synod or conference which represents the whole church.

Today, when this process breaks down it is because some key ingredient has been overlooked.  For example, the aggrieved individual who gossips to friends and acquaintances instead of speaking directly to the person who has offended them.  The process can break down when both parties refuse to seek counseling from objective counselors or witnesses.  And even more seriously, when the corporate body fails to be consistent with the will of God who has promised to be in our midst.

When the Scriptures, the witness of the Spirit, and the corporate will of the community of faith are in harmony, it seems pretty obvious that God’s will should be reasonably clear on ethical issues.

RESPOND: 

How do we prevent conflicts from escalating out of control?  We know that conflict and disagreement will happen.  It seems pretty obvious that we should first talk it out with one another.

William Blake wrote a famous poem called A Poison Tree that illustrates what happens when we don’t work at reconciliation:

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

 And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.  

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.  

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veil’d the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 

Unresolved conflict may not invariably lead to physical death, but it can and does result in the death of many a great friendship.

Lord, search my heart and reveal any harm or hurt I have caused to anyone else.  And give me a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation when someone has offended me.  Give me the courage to address such issues with my brothers and sisters, so that I don’t cause even more damage.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"CropperCapture[96] by jongalloway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for September 13, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 18:21-35
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

It seems that Peter has been listening carefully to the teaching of Jesus.  In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus has carefully outlined a procedure whereby conflict might be resolved within the community of faith.  Peter seems to make the connection between this teaching about methods of reconciliation and Jesus’ earlier teaching about forgiveness.

When Jesus taught the disciples about prayer in his Sermon on the Mount, forgiveness was so central that he reiterated the same point after teaching the prayer:

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors…. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

So Peter’s question seems to be in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching.  He says:

Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?

No doubt, Peter’s expectation was that Jesus would praise him for his generosity, much as Jesus had praised him when Peter recognized Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 16:16-18).  The number seven is a significant number in the Hebrew world view, symbolizing completeness and perfection.  It would seem that Peter is suggesting a very patient, even “perfect” forbearance toward repeat offenders.

But Jesus’ attitude toward forgiveness is far more expansive — we might even say infinite — than Peter’s proposal.  In fact, Jesus’ answer suggests an exponential difference:

Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Once again, Jesus isn’t speaking literally, but symbolically.  If Peter was literal-minded (which might be likely), he may have been testing the limits of forgiveness.  Is seven times enough, he may have been asking.  But If we do the math, Jesus is suggesting the offender be forgiven four hundred ninety times. This is hardly a literal prescription for forgiveness.  Jesus is taking a number suggested by Peter, symbolizing perfection, and expanding it exponentially.  In other words, forgiveness never ends.

Jesus then employs one of his favored means of communication to illustrate his point about forgiveness — the parable.  He likens the Kingdom of Heaven  to a king who calls in his debts.  One debtor owes the king ten thousand talents.  This is an astronomically high number.  Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of three hundred metric tons of silver.

Just for the sake of comparison — ten thousand talents is the equivalent to sixty million denarii, which was the coin of the time.  A denarius was the typical day’s wage for agricultural labor.  Today, the United States Department of Agriculture says that the average day laborers’ wages per hour is between $10.50 to $10.80 per hour.  Those wages would probably look pretty good to a day laborer in Jesus’ time.  A day’s labor in Jesus’ time wouldn’t be eight hours a day — it was sunrise to sunset.  So, if we assume that a normal day might be ten hours, perhaps we are talking about a worker earning $80 to $105 a day.  To cut to the chase, the servants debt might be the equivalent of at least four billion, eight hundred million dollars!  This is an astounding debt!  What on earth did this servant intend to do with that money?  And where did he spend it ?!

In short, he just doesn’t have it.  And the consequences are dire — his entire family would pay the debt by being sold into slavery!

 But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The servant’s response is to throw himself upon the mercy of the king.  He humbles himself and pleads for mercy.  This man who has squandered what amounts to billions of dollars is completely helpless.  He begs:

 The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’

Despite the huge debt, the king forgives the entire amount, without even requiring a repayment schedule:

 The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

We can only imagine the enormous relief, forgiven of such a huge debt.  And this makes the next events all the more shocking:

But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii,  and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you!’  He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due.

This servant who has been forgiven a debt in the billions of dollars refuses to forgive a debt which amounts to perhaps $1,050.  This is not a tiny amount of money — but it wouldn’t buy a house today, or a new car.  Compared to the ten thousand talents, one hundred denarii is miniscule.  And yet this man, forgiven of a huge debt, cannot find compassion in his own heart to forgive a debtor who owes him much less.

The irony is staggering.  The hypocrisy is shocking.  And the king’s servants, who see this scenario unfold before their very eyes, could not remain silent.  They reported the servant’s behavior to their king.

The king’s moral outrage is palpable:

Then his lord called him in, and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’

What is interesting is that the consequences for the servant’s hypocritical behavior differ from the king’s original judgment.  His family and property are not sold into slavery.  Instead, all of the consequences fall upon the servant:

 His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.

It would seem, as was the fashion in ancient times, that the servant was to suffer at the hands of professional torturers.  He was to pay, as it were, with a pound of flesh.

Lest we miss the point of the parable, Jesus makes it very clear:

 So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.

Those who have been forgiven are to forgive others.  Otherwise, they themselves will suffer the consequences of judgment.  A failure to forgive results in a failure to be forgiven.

APPLY:  

Like Peter, don’t we tend to want to measure our responses to grievances and wrongs?  How many times must we forgive, we ask, just like Peter.  Jesus’ answer is that forgiveness is unlimited.

The truth is that forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian Gospel.  But there is no such thing as cheap grace when it comes to forgiveness.  Forgiveness is costly.

Where we begin is with the ultimate source of forgiveness.  According to Jesus’ parable, forgiveness is equated with something that most of us can understand — financial debt.  Jesus doesn’t single out particular sins.  He suggests that hurts, grievances, and wrongs are equivalent with a sense of indebtedness.

To whom do we owe not only our salvation, our abilities, and even our very existence?  The answer is simple — God himself.  That is who the king in Jesus’ parable represents.  And we all owe a debt to God that none of us can repay.

This debt, incurred by our birth, is increased by our lives that “draw” on God’s account.  And it is our sins — our moral failings, our squandered opportunities, our resentments, lusts, and little selfishnesses — that incur our debt to God.  And this is why Jesus, as the incarnate God on earth, exercises his authority to forgive these debts during his ministry and, finally, on the cross.  When he is crucified at the hands of sinful men, the sinless one says:

Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).

And this forgiveness pivots toward our relationship with others.  Like the servant in the parable, when we have confessed our faith in Christ and asked his forgiveness, we have been forgiven a massive debt that we could never repay.

So, when it comes to hurts, grievances, and injuries that we have suffered from others — no matter how great — do we really imagine that they surpass the debt that we owe to God?  Again, we are like the servant in the parable.  We owe, in effect, billions of dollars to God.  There are people who are indebted to us, who have wronged us in some way — but in comparison, those debts are small.

And Jesus’ central teaching on forgiveness is sobering.  We not only pray it regularly, he stresses it:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

Again, Jesus’ parable is instructive.  When we have been forgiven so great a debt, what right have we not to forgive those in debt to us, especially when that debt is relatively small in comparison.   It may be that God can’t forgive us when we refuse to forgive others because our hearts are too hard and too self-righteous to receive his forgiveness.

RESPOND: 

Years ago I learned a principle from the world of  cognitive behavioral therapy that has spiritual applications.  It is called the emotional bank.

Here is the concept:  when we are in a relationship, we have a tendency to think that our acts of kindness — like helping out with the chores, or doing someone a favor — is a kind of emotional “deposit” into the emotional bank.  On the other hand, when we do something unkind or wrong, we are also making “withdrawls” from the emotional bank.  We accumulate “capital” by our good behavior, and we lose “emotional capital” by our bad behavior.  If we withdraw more than we deposit, we end up with an emotional deficit with our family, friends, or co-workers.

That may sound a little mercenary, as though it reduces a relationship to a mere transaction.   But it’s also pretty honest.  Whether we like it or not, we do tend to think of our relationships as transactional.  We might try to be more noble, but the emotional bank is a handy benchmark.

The parable Jesus tells suggests a similar transactional concept.  The “debt” incurred by the servant is colossal compared to the “debt” he is owed by his fellow servant.  I’m reminded of something else Jesus says elsewhere:

with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2).

The truth is, there is no transaction that we can make with God to receive his forgiveness.  His forgiveness and grace toward us are incredibly costly.  When we forgive, we are in a sense drawing on his “line of credit” of grace toward others.

Once, long ago, when General Oglethorpe of the English Colony in Georgia said “I never forgive,” the Reverend Charles Wesley retorted:

Then I hope, Sir, that you never sin.

As the cliche says:

We owed a debt we could not pay; Christ paid a debt he did not owe.

Lord, I can never repay the debt I owe you.  But I can follow your example on a smaller scale and forgive those who sin against me.  Give me grace to do so.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"70 Seven Times" by WELS net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for September 6, 2020

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Matthew 18:15-20
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the hallmarks of Scripture is realism.  The revealed Word of God doesn’t envision a world that never existed, and never will, but the world as it is.

In the Gospel lectionary for this week, Jesus is addressing the reality of conflict between believers.  He offers a kind of “court of appeals” as a way of dealing with someone who is aggrieved.

He advocates a grievance procedure for the person who feels that they are sinned against.  Notice that he first humanizes the adversary — he calls him a brother:

If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.

This first step is the most basic.  Reconciliation can begin with one-on-one conversation about the issue that has caused the rift.  If that works, the brotherly relations are restored.

However, realism dictates that there be further steps in the event that personal reconciliation doesn’t work out.

The second step is to meet with one’s adversary in the presence of witnesses who can provide context and testimony, as well as objective, impartial counsel:

 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

This is such good advice.  The two or three witnesses, as prescribed by Deuteronomy 19:15,  not only offer accountability for both parties involved, they may be able to offer objective advice to both sides.

There is a third “court of appeals” if you will.  Take the “defendant” to the church assembly:

 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly.

The scope of possible witnesses is meant to expand each time there is not satisfactory resolution to the issue, until the issues are clearly out in the open.  What might have been resolved as a private matter has become a public matter.

Finally, if the adversary refuses even to listen to the church’s decision, representing the collective will of the community, the adversary is to be removed from the community:

If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

The truth is, the unrepentant adversary has done this to him/her self. Refusing to listen to the two or three witnesses and then the assembled church suggests that he/she doesn’t recognize the authority of the church.  Therefore, they are no longer really a part of the community.

Jesus uses the example of Gentile and tax collector because in his time these were groups who were considered outside of the community — some by virtue of their religious orientation (Gentiles), some by career choices that were tainted by insinuations of  corruption (tax collectors).

Jesus then explains the derivation of the church’s authority for such decisions:

Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

Earlier in this Gospel, when Simon Peter acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:13-20), Jesus tells him:

I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

However, our present passage suggests that such authority is vested with the community of faith — all of those who have declared their faith in Christ, who are gathered in council together.  This is reinforced when Jesus repeats this formula, about even a small number gathered in his name:

Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them.

Clearly, neither the authority of Peter nor the authority of the church is autonomous.  It is derived from the presence of Jesus in their midst, who is their intercessor with the Father.  This doctrine is reinforced by Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John:

Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.   Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:12-14).

We are reminded that when grievances are heard by the community of faith, the church is empowered to resolve them because Jesus is in their midst guiding them.

This is a pneumatic statement, which means that Jesus is promising to be with the community of faith through his Spirit (Greek: Pneuma).

APPLY:  

Resolution of conflict is extremely important.  For couples in counseling. For governments. For people in work situations.  And especially in the church.  Unresolved conflicts, if left to fester, can and often do escalate into open and sometimes violent hostility.

Jesus provides a sound procedure for resolving conflict.

• If we have been wronged, we are taught to seek direct resolution. This provides the time and space to reduce the tension, forgive and forget.
• If the accused refuses to admit wrongdoing or correct the situation, the second step is to meet with two or three witnesses. Presumably, this offers both parties the opportunity to be heard by objective, impartial witnesses. In contemporary terms, this might be analogous to arbitration out of court.
• If no resolution can be reached, the community of faith becomes involved, and their decision is binding.

From the beginning of Christian history, church councils have been convened to prayerfully debate and resolve issues of Christian doctrine, the Biblical canon, and even moral and ethical matters.  Virtually every Christian denomination has some form of council or synod or conference which represents the whole church.

Today, when this process breaks down it is because some key ingredient has been overlooked.  For example, the aggrieved individual who gossips to friends and acquaintances instead of speaking directly to the person who has offended them.  The process can break down when both parties refuse to seek counseling from objective counselors or witnesses.  And even more seriously, when the corporate body fails to be consistent with the will of God who has promised to be in our midst.

When the Scriptures, the witness of the Spirit, and the corporate will of the community of faith are in harmony, it seems pretty obvious that God’s will should be reasonably clear on ethical issues.

RESPOND: 

How do we prevent conflicts from escalating out of control?  We know that conflict and disagreement will happen.  It seems pretty obvious that we should first talk it out with one another.

William Blake wrote a famous poem called A  Poison Tree that illustrates what happens when we don’t work at reconciliation:

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

 And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.  

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.  

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veil’d the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 

Unresolved conflict may not invariably lead to physical death, but it can and does result in the death of many a great friendship.

Lord, search my heart and reveal any harm or hurt I have caused to anyone else.  And give me a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation when someone has offended me.  Give me the courage to address such issues with my brothers and sisters, so that I don’t cause even more damage.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"CropperCapture[96] by jongalloway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for September 17, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 18:21-35

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

It seems that Peter has been listening carefully to the teaching of Jesus.  In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus has carefully outlined a procedure whereby conflict might be resolved within the community of faith.  Peter seems to make the connection between this teaching about methods of reconciliation and Jesus’ earlier teaching about forgiveness.

When Jesus taught the disciples about prayer in his Sermon on the Mount, forgiveness was so central that he reiterated the same point after teaching the prayer:

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors…. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

So Peter’s question seems to be in the spirit of Jesus’ teaching.  He says:

Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?

No doubt, Peter’s expectation was that Jesus would praise him for his generosity, much as Jesus had praised him when Peter recognized Jesus as the Christ (Matthew 16:16-18).  The number seven is a significant number in the Hebrew world view, symbolizing completeness and perfection.  It would seem that Peter is suggesting a very patient, even “perfect” forbearance toward repeat offenders.

But Jesus’ attitude toward forgiveness is far more expansive — we might even say infinite — than Peter’s proposal.  In fact, Jesus’ answer suggests an exponential difference:

Jesus said to him, “I don’t tell you until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.

Once again, Jesus isn’t speaking literally, but symbolically.  If Peter was literal-minded (which might be likely), he may have been testing the limits of forgiveness.  Is seven times enough, he may have been asking.  But If we do the math, Jesus is suggesting the offender be forgiven four hundred ninety times. This is hardly a literal prescription for forgiveness.  Jesus is taking a number suggested by Peter, symbolizing perfection, and expanding it exponentially.  In other words, forgiveness never ends.

Jesus then employs one of his favored means of communication to illustrate his point about forgiveness — the parable.  He likens the Kingdom of Heaven  to a king who calls in his debts.  One debtor owes the king ten thousand talents.  This is an astronomically high number.  Ten thousand talents is the equivalent of three hundred metric tons of silver.

Just for the sake of comparison — ten thousand talents is the equivalent to sixty million denarii, which was the coin of the time.  A denarius was the typical day’s wage for agricultural labor.  Today, the United States Department of Agriculture says that the average day laborers’ wages per hour is between $10.50 to $10.80 per hour.  Those wages would probably look pretty good to a day laborer in Jesus’ time.  A day’s labor in Jesus’ time wouldn’t be eight hours a day — it was sunrise to sunset.  So, if we assume that a normal day might be ten hours, perhaps we are talking about a worker earning $80 to $105 a day.  To cut to the chase, the servants debt might be the equivalent of at least four billion, eight hundred million dollars!  This is an astounding debt!  What on earth did this servant intend to do with that money?  And where did he spend it ?!

In short, he just doesn’t have it.  And the consequences are dire — his entire family would pay the debt by being sold into slavery!

 But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The servant’s response is to throw himself upon the mercy of the king.  He humbles himself and pleads for mercy.  This man who has squandered what amounts to billions of dollars is completely helpless.  He begs:

 The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!’

Despite the huge debt, the king forgives the entire amount, without even requiring a repayment schedule:

 The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

We can only imagine the enormous relief, forgiven of such a huge debt.  And this makes the next events all the more shocking:

But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii,  and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you!’  He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due.

This servant who has been forgiven a debt in the billions of dollars refuses to forgive a debt which amounts to perhaps $1,050.  This is not a tiny amount of money — but it wouldn’t buy a house today, or a new car.  Compared to the ten thousand talents, one hundred denarii is miniscule.  And yet this man, forgiven of a huge debt, cannot find compassion in his own heart to forgive a debtor who owes him much less.

The irony is staggering.  The hypocrisy is shocking.  And the king’s servants, who see this scenario unfold before their very eyes, could not remain silent.  They reported the servant’s behavior to their king.

The king’s moral outrage is palpable:

Then his lord called him in, and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’

What is interesting is that the consequences for the servant’s hypocritical behavior differ from the king’s original judgment.  His family and property are not sold into slavery.  Instead, all of the consequences fall upon the servant:

 His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.

It would seem, as was the fashion in ancient times, that the servant was to suffer at the hands of professional torturers.  He was to pay, as it were, with a pound of flesh.

Lest we miss the point of the parable, Jesus makes it very clear:

 So my heavenly Father will also do to you, if you don’t each forgive your brother from your hearts for his misdeeds.

Those who have been forgiven are to forgive others.  Otherwise, they themselves will suffer the consequences of judgment.  A failure to forgive results in a failure to be forgiven.

APPLY:  

Like Peter, don’t we tend to want to measure our responses to grievances and wrongs?  How many times must we forgive, we ask, just like Peter.  Jesus’ answer is that forgiveness is unlimited.

The truth is that forgiveness is at the very heart of the Christian Gospel.  But there is no such thing as cheap grace when it comes to forgiveness.  Forgiveness is costly.

Where we begin is with the ultimate source of forgiveness.  According to Jesus’ parable, forgiveness is equated with something that most of us can understand — financial debt.  Jesus doesn’t single out particular sins.  He suggests that hurts, grievances, and wrongs are equivalent with a sense of indebtedness.

To whom do we owe not only our salvation, our abilities, and even our very existence?  The answer is simple — God himself.  That is who the king in Jesus’ parable represents.  And we all owe a debt to God that none of us can repay.

This debt, incurred by our birth, is increased by our lives that “draw” on God’s account.  And it is our sins — our moral failings, our squandered opportunities, our resentments, lusts, and little selfishnesses — that incur our debt to God.  And this is why Jesus, as the incarnate God on earth, exercises his authority to forgive these debts during his ministry and, finally, on the cross.  When he is crucified at the hands of sinful men, the sinless one says:

Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).

And this forgiveness pivots toward our relationship with others.  Like the servant in the parable, when we have confessed our faith in Christ and asked his forgiveness, we have been forgiven a massive debt that we could never repay.

So, when it comes to hurts, grievances, and injuries that we have suffered from others — no matter how great — do we really imagine that they surpass the debt that we owe to God?  Again, we are like the servant in the parable.  We owe, in effect, billions of dollars to God.  There are people who are indebted to us, who have wronged us in some way — but in comparison, those debts are small.

And Jesus’ central teaching on forgiveness is sobering.  We not only pray it regularly, he stresses it:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you don’t forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 5:12, 14-15).

Again, Jesus’ parable is instructive.  When we have been forgiven so great a debt, what right have we not to forgive those in debt to us, especially when that debt is relatively small in comparison.   It may be that God can’t forgive us when we refuse to forgive others because our hearts are too hard and too self-righteous to receive his forgiveness.

RESPOND: 

Years ago I learned a principle from the world of  cognitive behavioral therapy that has spiritual applications.  It is called the emotional bank.

Here is the concept:  when we are in a relationship, we have a tendency to think that our acts of kindness — like helping out with the chores, or doing someone a favor — is a kind of emotional “deposit” into the emotional bank.  On the other hand, when we do something unkind or wrong, we are also making “withdrawls” from the emotional bank.  We accumulate “capital” by our good behavior, and we lose “emotional capital” by our bad behavior.  If we withdraw more than we deposit, we end up with an emotional deficit with our family, friends, or co-workers.

That may sound a little mercenary, as though it reduces a relationship to a mere transaction.   But it’s also pretty honest.  Whether we like it or not, we do tend to think of our relationships as transactional.  We might try to be more noble, but the emotional bank is a handy benchmark.

The parable Jesus tells suggests a similar transactional concept.  The “debt” incurred by the servant is colossal compared to the “debt” he is owed by his fellow servant.  I’m reminded of something else Jesus says elsewhere:

with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2).

The truth is, there is no transaction that we can make with God to receive his forgiveness.  His forgiveness and grace toward us are incredibly costly.  When we forgive, we are in a sense drawing on his “line of credit” of grace toward others.

Once, long ago, when General Oglethorpe of the English Colony in Georgia said “I never forgive,” the Reverend Charles Wesley retorted:

Then I hope, Sir, that you never sin.

As the cliche says:

We owed a debt we could not pay; Christ paid a debt he did not owe.

Lord, I can never repay the debt I owe you.  But I can follow your example on a smaller scale and forgive those who sin against me.  Give me grace to do so.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"70 Seven Times" by WELS net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.

Gospel for September 10, 2017

START WITH SCRIPTURE:

Matthew 18:15-20 

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

One of the hallmarks of Scripture is realism.  The revealed Word of God doesn’t envision a world that never existed, and never will, but the world as it is.

In the Gospel lectionary for this week, Jesus is addressing the reality of conflict between believers.  He offers a kind of “court of appeals” as a way of dealing with someone who is aggrieved.

He advocates a grievance procedure for the person who feels that they are sinned against.  Notice that he first humanizes the adversary — he calls him a brother:

If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.

This first step is the most basic.  Reconciliation can begin with one-on-one conversation about the issue that has caused the rift.  If that works, the brotherly relations are restored.

However, realism dictates that there be further steps in the event that personal reconciliation doesn’t work out.

The second step is to meet with one’s adversary in the presence of witnesses who can provide context and testimony, as well as objective, impartial counsel:

 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

This is such good advice.  The two or three witnesses, as prescribed by Deuteronomy 19:15,  not only offer accountability for both parties involved, they may be able to offer objective advice to both sides.

There is a third “court of appeals” if you will.  Take the “defendant” to the church assembly:

 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly.

The scope of possible witnesses is meant to expand each time there is not satisfactory resolution to the issue, until the issues are clearly out in the open.  What might have been resolved as a private matter has become a public matter.

Finally, if the adversary refuses even to listen to the church’s decision, representing the collective will of the community, the adversary is to be removed from the community:

If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.

The truth is, the unrepentant adversary has done this to him/her self. Refusing to listen to the two or three witnesses and then the assembled church suggests that he/she doesn’t recognize the authority of the church.  Therefore, they are no longer really a part of the community.

Jesus uses the example of Gentile and tax collector because in his time these were groups who were considered outside of the community — some by virtue of their religious orientation (Gentiles), some by career choices that were tainted by insinuations of  corruption (tax collectors).

Jesus then explains the derivation of the church’s authority for such decisions:

Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will have been released in heaven.

Earlier in this Gospel, when Simon Peter acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:13-20), Jesus tells him:

I will give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven (Matthew 16:19).

However, our present passage suggests that such authority is vested with the community of faith — all of those who have declared their faith in Christ, who are gathered in council together.  This is reinforced when Jesus repeats this formula, about even a small number gathered in his name:

Again, assuredly I tell you, that if two of you will agree on earth concerning anything that they will ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the middle of them.

Clearly, neither the authority of Peter nor the authority of the church is autonomous.  It is derived from the presence of Jesus in their midst, who is their intercessor with the Father.  This doctrine is reinforced by Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John:

Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.   Whatever you will ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it (John 14:12-14).

We are reminded that when grievances are heard by the community of faith, the church is empowered to resolve them because Jesus is in their midst guiding them.

This is a pneumatic statement, which means that Jesus is promising to be with the community of faith through his Spirit (Greek: Pneuma).

APPLY:  

Resolution of conflict is extremely important.  For couples in counseling. For governments. For people in work situations.  And especially in the church.  Unresolved conflicts, if left to fester, can and often do escalate into open and sometimes violent hostility.

Jesus provides a sound procedure for resolving conflict.

• If we have been wronged, we are taught to seek direct resolution. This provides the time and space to reduce the tension, forgive and forget.
• If the accused refuses to admit wrongdoing or correct the situation, the second step is to meet with two or three witnesses. Presumably, this offers both parties the opportunity to be heard by objective, impartial witnesses. In contemporary terms, this might be analogous to arbitration out of court.
• If no resolution can be reached, the community of faith becomes involved, and their decision is binding.

From the beginning of Christian history, church councils have been convened to prayerfully debate and resolve issues of Christian doctrine, the Biblical canon, and even moral and ethical matters.  Virtually every Christian denomination has some form of council or synod or conference which represents the whole church.

Today, when this process breaks down it is because some key ingredient has been overlooked.  For example, the aggrieved individual who gossips to friends and acquaintances instead of speaking directly to the person who has offended them.  The process can break down when both parties refuse to seek counseling from objective counselors or witnesses.  And even more seriously, when the corporate body fails to be consistent with the will of God who has promised to be in our midst.

When the Scriptures, the witness of the Spirit, and the corporate will of the community of faith are in harmony, it seems pretty obvious that God’s will should be reasonably clear on ethical issues.

RESPOND: 

How do we prevent conflicts from escalating out of control?  We know that conflict and disagreement will happen.  It seems pretty obvious that we should first talk it out with one another.

William Blake wrote a famous poem called A  Poison Tree that illustrates what happens when we don’t work at reconciliation:

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

 And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.  

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.  

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veil’d the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 

Unresolved conflict may not invariably lead to physical death, but it can and does result in the death of many a great friendship.

Lord, search my heart and reveal any harm or hurt I have caused to anyone else.  And give me a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation when someone has offended me.  Give me the courage to address such issues with my brothers and sisters, so that I don’t cause even more damage.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
"CropperCapture[96] by jongalloway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.