Listen

S. Pentecost 16.26 Matt. 18:21-35

‘So also my heavenly Father will do to you, if ever you may not forgive, each, your brother, from your heart…’

And what did the King do to the unforgiving servant? He delivered him to the torturers (the Greek is torturer! God has torturers? You heard it from the Man himself! 😉 until he should pay all the debt.

Now you see why I’m always saying with scriptures that forgiveness of sins is a deadly serious business, a matter of life in Paradise forever, or in an eternal black site hanging with the torturers? Hopefully, you see!

I think 99% of Christendom does not understand the forgiveness of sins. Just like the opposite of sin is not good works, but FAITH—because justification (being declared righteous!) is not something we do or manifest, but something God does to and for us, for free, and that we receive like beggars in the non-rejection of a smidge of faith—so forgiveness (like justification!) is not something we do or accomplish by our thoughts, intentions or actions, but it is something God always already has done for the whole world by his own death on the cross, once for all…

If you get this, you’re a Xn. If you don’t, you’re not, simple as that…

But why does Jesus make it sound like forgiveness is something you DO? Well he doesn’t make it sound like that! Our English translations let us down as usual on that last verse. That last verse is not a tit for tat—God will do this if you do that…

For one thing, the Greek isn’t an imperative or active verb, but an aorist subjunctive—a definite MAYBE! “So also my Father will do to you if ever you may not forgive…” Your passive non-retaliation is not like the Father’s active DOING!

Here’s why: forgiveness is God hisownself wiping out all sin by his death on the cross, making all good! As faith non-rejects this gift, so forgiveness is not rejecting God’s taking away the world’s sin. God has forgiven everyone, everything! If you think you can receive God’s forgiveness for your sins while withholding it from your brother, well; you can’t! Forgiveness is all-inclusive, not a ‘la carte!

Faith is a Way you see and inhabit God’s world. It’s not an ideology, not system of ethics you must enact—though this is the way most of Christendom, including most of the LCMS 🙁 has usually construed it. But that is not the Way of Jesus and the Apostles!—theirs is a more Buddhist kind of non-doing—just going with the Flow of the Universe like Jedi do with the Force 😉

Since most people, when I ask them, think the opposite of sin is good works, so most people think forgiveness is an action we perform when someone has wronged us, something we have to give or withhold. But forgiveness is, in reality, something God has always already done by dying on the cross of our sin which he took on himself when he was baptized by John in the Jordan River—where Israel, a nation of priests, had dumped the sin of the world for God to take up, take as his own fault, and pay the price with his blood on Golgotha and his 3 day rest in the tomb…

There is one important element of this parable of the unforgiving servant that demonstrates this: the size of the debt the slave owes (a Greek δουλος is a slave, not a servant, I have to tell you. Just like they had torturers back then, they had slaves as well and God still has them! We are slaves—all of us—whom God chooses—for Christ’s sake!, to treat as sons and daughters 😉

So; size matters!

I did the math for you. A talent is 75 pounds of gold; so he owed 750,000 pounds of gold, this slave. At current rates (and most think gold was worth much more in the ancient world before fiat currency) it’s 48.5 billion dollars. That’s BILLION with a B. And in the ancient world there were not only no billionaires, there weren’t even millionaires. Economists tell us that even the Kings of the European Middle Ages were rarely worth more than 4 or 5 times the average worker, but that’s another sermon for another time 😉

The point is: this is, for an ancient person, an absolutely UNFATHOMABLE amount of debt to wrack up! 48.5 BILLION is a number that is absurd and impossible for ancients even to imagine (frankly, in a just and sane world, it should always be unfathomable 😉

Only GOD HIMSELF could pay such a debt. So, this King who forgives the servant his debt must be GOD! And how did the servant wrack up the debt? Simply by being born into Adam’s sin! Because sin is unbelief! It is the rejection of God’s forgiving all our sin and insisting we can make payment ourselves by what we think or do or feel…

And you know the only thing in the universe that is worth this 10,000 talents of gold? The life of God hisownself! The blood Jesus shed on Golgotha is literally priceless—making 48.5 billion look like a penny!

So when you are baptized into Jesus’ Name (and dying and living 😉 you get that 10,000 talents of heavenly gold deposited in the vault of your heart.The gift is yours by not completely rejecting it. If you have a smidge of faith (mine’s mustard seed-sized 😉 you have it ALL, way more than 48.5 billion. If there is a tiny part of your mind that holds open this might subjunctively be true, then you see the world as it really is: poor beggars enriched with God’s own Treasure, eternal life in his Kingdom, wonderful beyond telling or imagining…

Think of it like this: if someone—a drunk driver—runs over and kills your only child, a beautiful toddler, and the wretch is careless and impenitent to boot, would you forgive them? No? Because they aren’t sorry! Because it’s too grievous a sin and you need them to pay!

Well; what would it take for you to forgive your child’s murderer? If you could drive another nail into Jesus’ hand, or stab him in the other side with another spear, would that do IT? Would Jesus’ anguished cry of pain atone for your child’s death? And if you say “NO! I wouldn’t want to hurt Jesus!”

Well; I’m saying: yes, you do… when you won’t forgive, you’re saying Jesus didn’t suffer enough on the cross!

And perhaps you see what we’re talking about, now? Because we are the murderers of God’s only Begotten Son! And by his death, he has forgiven all the world, all our sin! You don’t need to understand it. You don’t need to feel kindly toward your child’s murderer. You just need to see like David “YOU THE MAN!”—you’re the murderer of God’s own Son whom he forgave much more than 48.5 billion… (!)

When you don’t completely reject this outlandish good news, you see the world as it is. Anger, hate, fear—all fly away, as the Faith that is forgiven and forgives ALL (and Peace 😉 surpassing understanding, guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.