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You cannot read Scripture in its full context without constantly being challenged to think and rethink what you thought you already knew. Case in point: Last week we read Matthew 18:15-20, in which Jesus teaches us how to deal with wrongs that are committed in the church. He says that when a member of the church sins, the church must confront him.
Today we pick up our reading in the very next verse, and lo and behold if Jesus doesn't seem to be reversing course. Last week he said if someone sins against us we are to confront him. This week he tells us if someone sins against us we are to forgive him. Did Jesus forget what he just said?
No, of course He didn't! Jesus knew full well what He was saying. And I think it was by divine inspiration that Matthew put these passages together, because God wants us to wrestle with the difficult balance that is required here. Holding these two passages in creative tension with each other is part of the challenge of living the gospel. Grace is always more complex than we think. This morning I don't claim to solve the whole mystery of grace for you, but I can hopefully provide some context to help us understand how we balance the call of accountability with the obligation of forgiveness.
To begin that balancing act we need to first identify the audience to whom Jesus is speaking in these verses. This is not a general lesson on forgiveness for all people in all places. Christians, you see, are not the only ones in the world who talk about forgiveness. Everyone from therapists to talk show hosts to politicians knows at least something about the concept.
We, as followers of Christ, must be careful to always distinguish between what our Lord says to us from what the leading voices of the day are saying to us. Jesus didn't teach common sense; he taught the gospel. That is why we must first recognize that Jesus isn't speaking to anybody and everybody here about a concept that all people already equally understand. He is speaking to a very peculiar group who has a very peculiar way of life. Specifically, he is speaking to the church.
"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?" That was Peter's question. "Brother" is a fellowship word. Peter isn't asking here about strangers or acquaintances; he is asking about brothers and sisters in the community of faith. And Jesus answers Peter's question with that community in view. Jesus assumes that we are dealing with people who have already entered into a covenant relationship of faith with each other, a relationship formed through Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is teaching Christians how to forgive each other.
Does that mean Christians are not called to extend forgiveness to those outside the church? No, it does not mean that at all. Earlier in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). And in the model prayer, he teaches to ask God to "forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors"(Matthew 6:12) -- a petition that hardly seems to have limits. Forgiveness is to be our posture towards all people, not just towards fellow Christians.
Nevertheless, Jesus has a more narrow focus here. Jesus is speaking to a way of life that holds uniquely within that peculiar set of relationships we call the church, because the church is where we learn how to be forgiving and forgiven people.
You've all heard the expression that charity begins at home. In other words. the habits and the practices of being kind and generous are habits and practices that we first learn at home. They are patterns of behavior that are either ingrained in us from our earliest days, or they are not. And how are those patterns ingrained in young children? Not from abstract teaching, but from concrete modeling.
If children on a consistent basis see Mom and Dad speaking to one another kindly; if the regular pattern in the household is for everyone to chip in appropriately to the household chores; if conversation around the dinner table is regularly peppered with words of encouragement and support -- in other words, if kindness and generosity is the pattern even in the routine things of daily life, then the foundation stones are being laid for a charitable way of life. Children will then carry that virtue with them into other arenas outside the home.
Well, as with charity, so with forgiveness. Forgiveness is first learned at home. And home, for Christians, is the church. You see, forgiveness isn't an abstract concept to be learned in a philosophy class. Forgiveness is a concrete and routine way of life. It is a set of practices and habits that can only be learned through repeated rehearsal. Just like playing the violin or throwing a curve ball, you can only get good at it by doing it over and over again.
Forgiveness isn't an isolated heroic act; it is a virtue. That is to say, it is the outgrowth of a regular pattern of life. And for Christians, church is the place where that pattern is learned. Church is the home base where Christians learn how to forgive by actually offering and receiving to each other through routine and repeated behaviors.
This week on the evening news I saw a brief interview with a woman whose family had been the victim of a horrible crime. She was already speaking about the need to let go of anger and seek to forgive the one who had wronged them deeply. I have a hunch that if we knew more about this woman's life story we would find that she has had lots of experience and practice with forgiveness in the past. You don't just reach down and muster up the courage to forgive every now and then -- especially not when you have been hurt deeply. We are able to forgive only to the extent that we have developed that ability over time with the people who surround us in the community of faith.
"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me?" Peter asked. The leading rabbis of the day had debated the matter and concluded that three times was the maximum. Peter, who by now had probably grown accustomed to Jesus turning conventional wisdom on its head, attempted to open the door a little wider by more than doubling that amount. How about seven times?
But Jesus completely blew the door off its hinges. "I tell you not seven times, but seventy-seven times." More than one commentator has suggested that the number seventy-seven is an allusion to the Old Testament account of Lamech ( See, for example, Douglas R. A. Hare, "Matthew," in Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, James L. Mays, ed. [Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993], 216).
In Genesis 4:24, Lamech, a descendant of Cain, declares that if anyone wrongs him he will avenge himself up to seventy-seven times. In other words, Lamech boldly declares that his posture towards the world will be one of revenge and retaliation. Jesus effectively reverses that. He says that within the context of the Christian community our posture towards one another is to be one of reconciliation and forgiveness. Not just seventy-seven times, but as many times as it takes.
To make sure we get the point, Jesus tells us the parable about a servant and his king. You've probably all seen the caricature artists who work at street festivals and amusement parks. These artists sketch portraits of people, but as they do they intentionally exaggerate certain features so that the image ends up looking funny or amusing. But despite the disproportionate quality of the thing -- the big ears or the goofy nose or the droopy eyelids -- you can still look at it and tell that it's a picture of you.
Well, that's how this parable functions. It's a caricature portrait of the church. Everything is out of proportion to a silly extreme: a slave who owes a bazillion dollars to a king, a king who threatens to throw a slave into slavery, a slave who cannot see any connection between his extreme predicament and the much more reasonable situation of a fellow slave. None of it makes rational sense, but despite the silliness of it all, when you read this story you say, "Hey, that's a picture of us."
This is exactly what Jesus wants us to see. The church is a community that has forgiveness at its core. It is who we are and what we do. There might be some things about us that are up for grabs. We might be able to debate whether our worship style should be traditional or contemporary, but there is no room whatsoever for us to debate whether or not forgiveness will be a way of life for us. It isn't optional. We as a church exist only because the king has canceled a debt we could never repay. If we cease to live a forgiving lifestyle, we cease to be the community God called us to be. The church is the place where the craft of forgiveness is taught, or the church isn't the church.
Having established that, we are better equipped to return to our opening challenge. What is the context of this tension between accountability and forgiveness? The context is church.
Both last week's passage and this week's passage assume that the community of faith is in full view. These aren't general teachings that anybody can just naturally understand. These passages only make sense if we are first part of a community where both truth telling and forgiveness are regular habits. There is no point in me confronting you about your sin if I have not first been shaped as a person who is capable of forgiving you for that sin.
By the same token, all our talk about forgiveness becomes meaningless babble if we don't take sin seriously enough to actually tell one another the truth about it. One requires the other. And it is the habits and practices of authentic Christian community that teaches us how to do both.
One of those practices is represented by the table before us this morning. The bread and the cup of our Lord's Supper are not abstract concepts. They are concrete bits of our earthy existence that remind us of the kind of community we have been called to be. In a moment, as the trays are passed from one person to the other, we will literally be feeding one another with the symbols of our Lord's sacrifice. This meal calls us to remember Christ who died for us that our debt might be canceled. If this is how the king has treated us, should we not also likewise treat one another?
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