Friends – this is at the very heart, the crux, of our Christian faith and life. Yes, it makes our faith unique… forgive your enemies from your heart!

The sermon text follows the sermon video.

Click here for sermon video: https://www.zionepiscopal.com/Sermon%20Videos/sixteenth-sunday-after-pentecost-9-17-2023.html

Sermon Preached at Zion Episcopal Church, Washington NC
Sunday September 17 2023
The Reverend Alan Neale
“How many times?”

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness. Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me. Forgiveness is the final act of love” – Reinhold Niebuhr.

Over the past few months Zion church has suffered a leakage problem. Month after month, the church’s water bill was far, far higher than normal. Our industrious Junior Warden, Kim Watson, discovered a leak… the City of Washington Public Works Department, forgave us the large bill and charged a regular amount. Then… another leak occurred, again Kim discovered a leak… and the City of Washington Public Works Department, forgave us the large bill and charged a regular amount. And then, you are sensing a pattern yes?, yet another a leak, yet another petition to our benevolent Public Works Department and… but… this time “sorry, the policy is two reductions and then… no more”.

Peter, in our Gospel, could imagine offering forgiveness seven times! Perhaps I should alert our City Fathers of Biblical precedent?

Today’s Gospel (from Matthew 20) confronts us with what is, I believe, a unique divine challenge to forgive… even our enemies. It is forgiveness of enemies that was the theological grenade that Jesus threw into the maelstrom of theological debate. It is forgiveness that is so sorely needed in our homes, our schools, our politics and, yes, even our churches. For churches, at their authentic best, are called to be laboratories of grace rather than pressure-cookers of resentment, grudges and petty anger.

Now, often our Gospel parables are, to quote the Sir Winston Churchill, “riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas”. Not so today’s Gospel… the call to extended and generous forgiveness is absolutely plain, the temptation to resist the reciprocity of forgiveness (forgive as you are forgiven) is obvious, the risk of becoming hard-hearted and callous is evident.

In preceding verses, Jesus has been teaching the church (a common quest for Matthew) how to deal with argument, dissension and offence.

And now, Peter, never one to shy away from a challenge, picks up the theme and, I imagine quite boldly, offers to lead the way in forgiveness a la Jesus! And yet, Peter’s attempt is guarded and limited. His forgiveness only extends to members of the church (only this week I read, a Christian is marked not by whether she/he loves Jesus, but whether he/she loves Judas!); and his forgiveness has a warranty on it… seven times. Rather like taking medicine prescribed once a day for seven days! And, remember, please these stories in Matthew are now being recounted years and more after the events. And so, doubtless, glances were cast across the room as the story describes Peter exploring limited forgiveness whereas he was soon to be in need of profound and constant washing of forgiveness… as he denies his Lord, as he weeps his frailty.

Jesus’ response to Peter’s question takes forgiveness out of the “countable” category and places it into the realm of the incalculable. It is God’s compassion and abundant mercy that makes forgiveness possible, whether transgressions are large or small.

As I read these verses, I asked myself often two questions:
What energizes forgiveness?
What inhibits forgiveness?

The king has need to settle enormous accounts with his slaves; one of them owes ten thousand talents. A talent is a measure of weight about 130lbs. In monetary terms, a talent was roughly equal to about 15 years of wages… so, our king is owed the equivalent of some 150,000 years of annual income… more than 3,000 financial life sentences. Friends, this was no petty debt!

But… the king is energized, enabled, empowered to such a massive gesture of forgiveness because he is deeply and powerfully moved and because he sees the whole picture of the one he forgives (wife, children, possessions). “To understand is to forgive” (Pascal). “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always. Forgive.” The one Greek word for “out of pity” is, in Greek something like, splagchnizomai – it is used twelve times in the New Testament, 11 times for Jesus and then… this parable. To love, to forgive as deeply as Jesus we need help… hence the special prayer/collect for today… “O God, without you we are not able to please you…”.
When you, when I, are having trouble forgiving another… do what Jesus did, ask the Father (“Father, you forgive them”), do what Stephen said as his accusers stone him (“Father, you forgive them”).

And what inhibits forgiveness? Oh, my friends, here no one series of sermons, here no one collection of books can fully delve into what causes this life-renewing stream to be blocked.

Just one comment from today’s Gospel: Matthew 18:28 “But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves… and seized him by the throat”. This wretched man, forgiven so much, was indifferent, mindless of what he had received… there was no reflection, there was no wonder, there was no gratitude.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all (Isaac Watts)
And maybe, because he so little grasped the wonder of his status… he felt ready to grasp the neck of some poor fellow.

But note… forgiveness does not mean embracing violence perpetrated against us. It does not mean giving free reign to those who would do us harm. It does not mean a ready acquiescence to those who are stronger than us. The context is key and this context is God’s Kingdom of Love.

My dear friends, fellow disciples in Christ, I urge you (as I urge myself) to walk these days “forgiven and forgiving”. And if you find this a challenge, write this down and come talk and pray with me when I return in two weeks.

I finish, FORGIVE ME, with an image (not altogether) befitting of this august and proper body… I see an image of disciples for Christ even as sniffer dogs… seeking out opportunities to forgive, seeking out opportunities to be forgiven knowing that nothing is as impossible as ten thousand talents and nothing is as unimportant as one denarius!

AMEN