Heart of the Matter

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on September 14, 2008, the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Exodus 14:19-31
Psalm 114
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

One of my favorite novels is John Irving’s The Hotel New Hampshire.[1] Set from the beginning of World War II to the current day. It’s the story of a couple named Win and Mary, their children, and their truly odd, often bizarre, sometimes dangerous adventures. The author creates a family that is so off-center, these adventures pale next to their personal adventures of self-discovery.

Near the beginning of the book, Freud, an old Viennese Jewish circus performer, prophesies that the two main characters are going to marry soon, have a family, and live some interesting adventures. As Freud leaves America, returning to Vienna before the war begins in Europe, he offers one piece of advice to the young woman. He bids her come close and says, “Forgive him.” “For what?” she asks. “Just forgive him” he says again. This advice becomes very useful to her. Throughout the book, she is forced to forgive him time and again.

“Forgive him.” “For what?” “Just forgive him.”

“Forgive him,” Jesus says. “Forgive her,” Jesus says. “Forgive them,” Jesus says. “Forgive yourself,” Jesus says. “How often?” Peter asks, “Seven times?” Seven is a generous number, the Pharisees told the people three times is enough, and seven is more than twice that. In the day, seven was the perfect number. So it’s the perfect number of times to forgive.

“Seventy-seven times” Jesus replies. Seventy-seven! That’s more times than I can keep track. I can’t imagine how long it would take to forgive someone that many times either. How long does it take to go through the Trust-Betrayal-Forgiveness-Repeat cycle? I can’t imagine living long enough to give someone seventy-seven chances to betray me.

And that’s the point. Not that we won’t live long enough, but that counting is futile. If we’re keeping track we haven’t forgiven. When we count the number of sins someone commits against us, it’s like we are biding our time until the seventy-eighth so we can tell the offender what we really think of them. This isn’t forgiveness; this is revenge being best served very cold.

To make his point about forgiveness, Jesus shares a parable with the disciples; the story of a Gentile king reconciling accounts with his subjects. In comes a slave who owes his master 10,000 talents. When the disciples heard this sum they would have been aghast. This is more money than they can imagine. It would be worth more than the revenue of Herod’s taxes against Syria, Phoenicia, Judea, and Samaria combined for eleven years.[2]

To us, these numbers seem outrageous, but they don’t really speak to us culturally. In figures we can understand, by my estimation 10,000 talents comes to just short of $72 million.[3] Frankly, this number is so big I have an idea what it is, but I have no idea about how much it really is. Bankers know. Some Lotto winners know. I don’t. This is the sort of awe struck feeling Jesus gave the disciples.

When the slave told his master he didn’t have $72 million on him, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. This is how we know this is the story about a Gentile king; this restitution would not have been allowed under Jewish law.[4] “Then the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’” Jesus finishes this part of the story saying, “Out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.”

After leaving, this slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a debt of 100 denarii. This is a debt we can understand; the denarius was the day’s wage for a laborer. To us, this would be 20 weeks pay; not cheap, but we have a handle on this.

“The man seized his debtor 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.’” You gotta love how Jesus makes a point; the two requests for patience are nearly identical. After the man refused; the slave who had owed 10,000 talents went and threw the one who owed him 100 denarii into prison until he would pay.

When the remainder of the fellow slaves heard of this, they went to the king to tell him what had occurred. The king was outraged with what had happened and was ready to pass judgment. “You wicked slave!” You know when the king leads with that it isn’t going to get any better for you. “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?” With this, in anger his lord handed the wicked slave over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.

Now, it is important for us to remember that this is a kingdom parable. This parable begins with the phrase, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” This isn’t a parable that tells us to go and do likewise. So when we look at the characters, there is the Gentile King, the lord of the land, and all the slaves.

The king is generous, very generous. He gave one of his servants $72 million. Then he removed the debt. This is a generosity we cannot match, we just don’t have the resources either to give or to forgive so extravagantly. As for us, the debts we owe against one another don’t compare to the debts we incur against the lord of the land, or the Lord of our lives.

When we consider our forgiveness upon one another, there is something important right on the surface of this parable. Simply, we learn that when we fail to forgive one another, we are the ones that get hurt. The parable makes this clear, the man who was thrown in jail to be tortured was not the one who owed a debt; he was the one who did not forgive a debt. When we fail to forgive, when we hold a grudge, we get hurt.

In the kingdom of heaven, when we ask the Lord for forgiveness, we are forgiven. This is grace; this is the gift of unmerited favor we gain, not earn but gain, when we receive Jesus Christ as Lord. The Lord forgives us our debts, whether it be three times, seven times, or seventy-seven times. Whether our debt is 100 days wages or $72 million worth of sin, the Lord forgives.

We don’t earn the Lord’s forgiveness by forgiving either. But when we fail to forgive one another, we hurt ourselves. The Lord forgives our transgression; when we don’t, we have to do the work of holding a grudge. We have to invest time and energy, emotion and bile in clinging to something which can be released through the love of God.

Please don’t misunderstand this; forgiveness does not excuse hurtful behavior. Forgiveness is not an invitation for someone to treat you like a doormat. It’s not the reopening of a cycle of betrayal. I believe whoever said forgive-and-forget had it wrong. Forgive-yes, forgetting just means we didn’t learn the lesson. So yes, forgive, but forgiveness doesn’t mean get abused again. As there is grace in forgiveness, and there is also judgment and justice.

Eagles lead singer and drummer Don Henley wrote this song about the painful end of a relationship:

I'm learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again

I've been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore[5]

Henley sings that even after the relationship is over, even after the lover has gone to be with another, he knows the heart of the matter is forgiveness. The song doesn’t say what happened with the relationship. There are no lyrics about who did whom wrong. But in the end, he knows that anger is wrong, bitterness is wrong, begrudging is wrong. The heart of the matter is forgiveness.

Even if—especially if the person whom we are to forgive doesn’t love us, the heart of the matter is forgiveness.

Earlier in worship, we made confession of sin against God and against one another. We confessed, “We are quick to anger when we feel we’ve been wronged. We do not hasten to seek reconciliation even when we would rather things were less stressful and tense.”

And through God’s grace, we receive the assurance of pardon, “‘Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.’ To be at one with Christ is to live in assurance that our sins are forgiven!”[6]

“Forgive him,” Jesus says. “Forgive her,” Jesus says. “Forgive them,” Jesus says. “Forgive yourself,” Jesus says. In this, we are at one with Christ living in assurance that our sins are forgiven.

[1] Irving, John, “The Hotel New Hampshire.” New York: Dutton, 1981.
[2] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VII, Nashville: Abingdon Press, page 382.
[3] Actually, $71,818,337.69. This figure presumes the talent is valued at 20.4 kilograms of silver per talent (according to the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, page 382) and the kilogram weighs 2.679229 pounds troy. The price of silver was found at Goldline.com, http://www.goldline.com/d/index.php?id=186&term=silver%20price&gclid=COmBj9O62ZUCFRJxxwod5mdVYA, retrieved September 13, 2008.
[4] Ibid, New Interpreter’s Bible
[5] Henley, Don, “The Heart of the Matter.” Track 10—“The End of the Innocence,” Geffen Records, 1989.
[6] Kirk, James G., “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship, Revised Edition, For Years A, B, and C.” Louisville: Geneva Press, 2001, pages 109-110. At First Presbyterian in Berryville, we use prayers from this book for Call to Confession, Confession of Sin, Assurance of Pardon, and Offering Dedication.