The Freedom of Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-35

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."

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Today we get Peter - curious, impetuous, trouble-making Peter - asking Jesus some hard questions. “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” “Seriously, Jesus, how many times does someone get to get away with something before I can cut them loose and send them away?” “What’s the limit?”  “Where’s the line in the sand?” “How much do I have to take before I can say ‘enough is enough’ and feel good about it?” 

Peter seems to be wielding forgiveness like some kind of weapon; like he’s using the act of forgiveness as a kind of bargaining chip – like he only has so much of it to give and then the well of his forgiveness will run dry. Forgiveness for Peter seems like a way to gauge the sort of investment he has to make when it comes to sharing God’s grace; like he wants to know just how generous he has to be in the name of Jesus before he can go back to being his regular, old, sinful, broken, score-keeping, grudge-holding, un-forgiving self.

And so, after telling him in not-so-many words that there’s really no limit to how often we’re called to forgive, Jesus tells Peter that story about the unforgiving servant.

The story goes that a king wants to take stock of his estate, to balance his books, perhaps, and so it’s time to collect on his debts. When a slave shows up with a debt too large to pay, the king threatens to sell him off – and his wife, kids and possessions, to boot – so they will both get what’s coming to them. When the poor, pitiful slave begs, though, the king lets him off the hook. And even more than that, really. The king doesn’t just give him more time to pay or simply reduce his interest rate or knock some money off the principle that he’s owed. He forgives him the entire debt. He erases it. Scratches it from his books. The king sends the slave off with a balance of zero – and a smile on his face, I’m sure.

Only until that same slave comes across an acquaintance who owes him some money. And when his buddy can’t pay up, he tosses him in jail until he gets what’s rightfully his.

And when the king hears the news, he’s furious. He calls back the first slave and lets him have it. “I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have forgiven your fellow slave as I forgave you?” And because he doesn’t get it, that slave is sent off to be tortured until he can even up things with is lord.

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” (He said it all much more simply in Matthew, Chapter 6.)

But first of all, I want us to look at how this parable ends in a different way than maybe we’re first inclined to hear it. When I hear this bit about being “tortured” – or in other parables we hear about “being thrown into the outer darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” – I get a little scared. Because that’s terrifying, actually – the weeping and gnashing of teeth, I mean – as I think Jesus means for it to be, frankly.

But I like to remind myself – and anyone who will hear it – that I don’t think this is meant to be about hell or the end of time. I don’t believe Jesus means to suggest we’re going to spend eternity in the company of the devil when we don’t get things right; when we don’t forgive as well or as often as we should. (So let’s all breathe a sigh of relief about that.)

You’ve heard me say before that so often – if not most often – when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, he’s not necessarily talking about life after death; or life on the other side of eternity. He’s talking about the impact and blessing of living life – as we know it – in the kingdom that is alive and well among us. And I think we’re allowed to consider “the outer darkness” or this torturous “weeping and gnashing of teeth” stuff, in the same way. I mean, truth be told, just like we don’t have to wait to experience God’s presence “on earth as it is in heaven” every now and again, we don’t have to wait until we’re dead and gone to suffer the consequences of our sinfulness or our less-than-faithful ways, either.

And I think this is especially true when it comes to the way we practice forgiveness – or not.

I still remember a family from my time as a hospital chaplain back in seminary. There were two brothers who’d been fighting for years – holding a grudge, keeping score, had already drawn lines so deeply in the sands of their lives to the degree that they weren’t speaking to each other, or even able to be in the same room together peaceably.

It got so bad for these brothers that when their mother lay dying in the hospital, they’d worked out a plan whereby their visits were timed just so, so that – while they wanted one of them to be with her 24-hours a day - only one of them was able to be by mom’s side at any given moment. If one brother showed up while the other was there, he’d wait down the hall until his brother left – in the opposite direction, down another hallway, using a different set of elevators or stairs or whatever.

No matter how much she begged them – or how close she came to dying – this mother couldn’t convince her sons to be together at her deathbed. When she did finally die, only one brother was there to hold her and the other was in the hallway waiting, with so much more than just the hospital room door between him and his family. It’s not too much to suggest that he and she and they and their family were each tormented and tortured by the unforgiveness that kept them from loving one another. Do you know anyone lives like that?

I saw a meme on Facebook, just this week which – to be honest – probably wasn’t meant to be about forgiveness, but it struck me that way, in light of today’s Gospel. The meme said simply, “Just because you carry it well, doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”

“Just because you carry it well, doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.”

This is the kind of “torture” I imagine Jesus was talking about … the burden of unforgiveness. This is the sort of pain that the lack of forgiveness inflicts. It’s exactly the opposite of what God would have for us and it’s the sort of distance and division and desperation that only true forgiveness can cure. But damn, do we carry it well!

And God doesn’t want that for us.

And it’s important to know that forgiveness doesn’t always mean one side is right and another side is wrong. Forgiveness isn’t about proving a point or staking a claim on the truth or accepting or approving an apology, even. Forgiveness isn’t about winning. It’s about being made free.

Yes, to forgive another is a wonderful gift to give away. But it’s also something we do for ourselves, just the same. We do it because we don’t want to live in bondage.  We forgive because grudges and memories of sin are heavy burdens to carry. We forgive because we know it’s been done for us in more ways than we can count. And we forgive because to refuse it is to refuse God’s place in our lives.

I’m certain God wants forgiveness to bless the life of the one who offers it, just as much as it might liberate the ones who do the damage. And we find ourselves on both sides of that equation from time to time, do we not?

It’s why God, in Jesus, made it to the cross and up from the tomb. (“Just because he carried it well, doesn’t mean it wasn’t heavy.”) And it’s why God’s forgiveness is so big: so that all of our debts are forgiven and so that we can live differently because of it – not carrying the burden of our grudges or our shame, but carrying the light of God’s grace and mercy into – and for the sake of – the world.

Amen

On the Road & Changing Course

Acts 9:1-22

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.

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Just to re-cap… Saul – a good, faithful, perfectly-pedigreed, First Century Jew – better known as Paul to most of us, was persecuting other Jews for following Jesus. He had the blessing of the high priest who sanctioned the threats and murder he breathed against those early disciples and, on the road to the city of Damascus, while “Paul” was still called “Saul,” he was blinded by the light (before it was a hit song), he started hearing voices, and then couldn’t eat or drink for three days. He heard the voice of Jesus, that is, and all the rest was prepping him for the big change – the life-changing, transformational, conversion – that was to come.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the city of Damascus, Ananias, an already faithful follower of Jesus – someone who knew about Saul’s wicked ways – started hearing voices, too. The voice of Jesus, telling him to go out, find Saul, lay hands on and heal his enemy – this man who might have killed him, if given the chance – Aanias was to heal Saul from the blindness that struck him on that road. And Ananias does what he’s told. Saul gets healed and the scales fall from his eyes. And Saul, becomes Paul, who we know to be the first, greatest evangelist, missionary, and church planter in all of Christendom.

I’m probably more cynical than I should be – or at least more cynical than people expect a Pastor to be – but I’m pretty suspicious of “call stories” and “conversion stories” like Paul’s, and others I’ve heard. It’s not that I’d ever say they couldn’t or didn’t happen. If that’s what someone says they’ve experienced, I believe them. I just know that sort of thing hasn’t happened to me, I’m not sure I have the faith to believe it really could, frankly, and I’m almost certain I wouldn’t want it to, because it seems kind of terrifying – blinding lights, hearing voices, days without eating, “something like scales,” falling from my eyes. Thanks, but no thanks.

But I heard a modern-day conversion story of sorts that rivals Paul’s, for my money.

It’s the story of a white guy named Ken Parker who marched in that “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in 2017. You know the one that pretended to be about protesting against the removal of Confederate statues and monuments, but that was really about white power and white pride and blatant racism, according to people like Ken Parker, who were part of it. This is the protest that ended in the death of Heather Heyer, the 32 year-old counter protestor who got run over by a car, at the end of the day.

Anyway, this event for Ken was just one of many – but also one of the last – where he was “breathing threats and murder,” as Saul might have said it, against Jews and people of color as a proud white nationalist and “Grand Dragon,” even, of the Ku Klux Klan. As Ken Parker says it, he was there to “stand up for [his] white race.”

But strange as it sounds, like Saul, Ken started hearing voices, too. Not the voice of Jesus, exactly, but, as part of the rally experience, he connected with a Muslim film maker who was creating a documentary about hate groups and that particular event in Charlottesville. Her name was Deeyah Kahn, she was brown, and she was kind to Ken, in spite of knowing exactly who he was and what he was up to – and he noticed and remembered it, and his wheels started spinning.

Some time after the chaos in Charlottesville, Ken Parker ended up in a conversation with a Black pastor, named William McKinnon, III. That conversation continued, over time, until Ken accepted an invitation to attend Easter worship at that Black pastor’s mostly-Black church. A month after that – when the scales had fallen from his eyes, you might say – Ken Parker stood before that congregation, shared his story, confessed his  racist sins, and was welcomed with hugs and hand-shakes and grace, in spite of it all, ultimately to be baptized into the faith in that place, to complete his own life-changing, transformational conversion.

Now, while I can’t not love that story, I don’t think Ken Parker is the star of the show. I mean, I’m not as impressed or inspired by Ken Parker – the grown, white supremacist knucklehead who finally saw the error and terror of his racist ways. I mean I don’t think he’s really the hero here, or the kind of example or inspiration most of us need, from what I can tell.

I’m more impressed and inspired by the likes of that film-maker, Deeyah Kahn, the Muslim woman, who was able to be kind and respectful and patient enough with the likes of Ken Parker – someone who was or would have been none of those things to her (kind, respectful, or patient, I mean) if given the chance. 

And I’m impressed and inspired, of course, by Pastor William McKinnon, III, and the people of the All Saints Holiness Church, who would so faithfully dare to welcome the likes of their greatest enemy into their midst, hear his story, believe in his repentance and redemption, and love him because of it.

See, they all play the role of Ananias – if not the voice of Jesus – in the story of Saul’s big change on the road to Damascus; Ananias, the one who healed Saul’s blindness and revealed for him the power of God’s love and mercy. Like Ananias, Deeyah Kahn, Pastor McKinnon, and the people of his church, did the Lord’s bidding. They confronted their enemy and their fears with faithfulness. They overwhelmed Ken Parker with grace and mercy, with forgiveness and a second-chance. And they showed him the Kingdom and welcomed him into it alongside them.

And that’s how I’d like to be – and how I’d like us all to be – in the world and in the Church more often:

agents of change for the brokenness that surrounds us;

kind, respectful, forgiving, open to and speaking the language of God’s love in Jesus, so that our greatest fears will be relieved;

so that our hearts – and the hearts of those from whom we are so divided – would repent and be reconciled, one to another;

so that all sins could be confessed, not in shame or for the sake of ridicule, but with the hope of forgiveness and with the expectation of redemption;

and so that the scales would fall from every eye until all can see the fullness of God’s love and be changed for the better because of it, for our sake and for the sake of the world, that has so many changes, so much conversion, such transformation yet to be realized.

Amen

NOTE: I gleaned the information I learned about Ken Parker from the following story, if you’d like to read more and/or see and hear from some of those mentioned. NBC News