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“Forgive? Why Me? Matthew 18:21-35
Diane Mix Sermon: March 15, 2015
In one of his books, Ernest Hemingway writes about a young man who wrongs
his father…and runs away from home to the city of Madrid.
Out of great love for his son, the father takes out an ad in a Madrid newspaper,
“Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana 12 noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. Papa.”
Paco is a common boys name in Spain….when the father arrived at the hotel, he
found eight hundred young men named Paco….all waiting for their fathers…aching to
be forgiven for the wrongs they had done.
There is a universal longing…a hunger in every human soul to hear those words:
“I forgive you.”
But to forgive – that’s way harder. As theologian William Willimon writes: “the
human animal is not supposed to be good at forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an innate,
natural human emotion. What is innate is vengeance, retribution and violence. It is
natural for the human animal to defend itself, to snarl and crouch into a defensive
position when attacked, to howl when wronged, to bite back when bitten. Forgiveness
is not natural. It is not a universal virtue.” (Pulpit Resource. Vol 24, No3, Year 1)
But Jesus tells us we must forgive when we feel we have been used and abused
and treated when we have been hurt by words said or unsaid…actions taken or left
undone.
We need to forgive the neighbor whose trash heap totally wrecks my window
view.
The friend who always misses appoitments…
The parent who messed-up my life…the sibling who blames me…the boss who
has it in for me….
We need to forgive ourselves…for that we have done to another.
Jesus tells us we must forgive. How many times, Lord?
“Is seven times enough?,” Peter asks. “No, says Jesus. Not seven times or
even seventy seven times. Other Greek translations say seventy times seven, or 490
times.
Of course, Jesus isn’t talking about a literal number here. He is talking about
forgiving countless times. As many times as you have been forgiven…so must we
forgive.
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WHY? We ask??? WHY do I always have to be the one to forgive?? Jesus
tells the parable: The king loaned his servant money, and then decided to call in the
loan.
It was an incredible debt – 10,000 talents….let’s say about 12 million dollars
today. For a first century laborer, of course, the loan would be impossible to pay.
The king orders the servant and his family sold into slavery. But the servant
begs for mercy…he PLEADS for his life.
And for some strange, who would ever think it reason…the king relents. The
king goes WAY beyond decreasing the debt or giving the servant time to pay it off.
No, the king totally forgives the debt….cancels it completely. The servant and
his family are completey free to go.
So, what does the servant do? HE goes out and finds another servant…one who
owes HIM money….the equivalent today of about $1.80….grabs him by the throat and
demands, “pay me what you owe!” and throws him into prison.
In short the king hears about all this.
The king, of course, is God, who says, in effect, since I have forgiven you all
your debts…your sins…transgressions and wayward ways…..How can you not forgive
the other?
Why should I….we….always be the ones to forgive? Why should it always be
me who has to let MY resentment go…bite the bullet and forgive the other?
We forgive NOT because of who they are or what they have done to us. We
forgive because of who God is, and all that God has done for us. We are called to offer
the other God’s Grace.
And let’s be clear, refusing to forgive the other is like drinking poison and
expecting THE OTHER to die. Refusing to forgive is carrying around poison in your
own gut.
Going back to Hemingway’s story about the father taking out a newspaper ad
addressed to his son, Paco. “Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana, 12 noon Tuesday. All
is forgiven, Papa.”
“Papa” needed to let go of his bitterness or resentment or anger in whatever it
was that broke relationship with his son. He needed to forgive in order to rebuild his
relationship with his son.
Wouldn’t we all do the same? Or not. Sometimes the wounds are too deep…the
memories too fresh to allow ourselves to forgive, right now.
Those who come to me who have been abused or wounded horribly….in the
marathon bombing….will those victims ever get to forgiveness for Tzarnev?
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I thought about that this week as I read the victims testimony. One woman said
she had lived in fear of Tzarnev since the bombing, but facing him in the courtroom she
realized she had let the fear go, and she longer felt a victim.
The poison she had swallowed was no longer killing her.
It’s said that when Leonardo da Vinci was painting the masterpiece “the Last
Supper,” he became angry with a man who was sitting for him….I don’t know, maybe
the man was squirming around and da Vinci couldn’t accurately see his model’s face.
The great painter dismissed the man and went back to work. He tried to paint
the face of Jesus.
He couldn’t do it. There was so much anger and hostility inside him….. da Vinci
put down his brushes, went outside, found the man and asked his forgiveness.
Only then did he have the calm within to paint the face of his Lord.