St. Ansgar's Lutheran Church

Prayer:

Is there a limit to forgiveness? Is there a boundary beyond which we are off the hook to forgive someone who has wronged us? Peter seemed to think so. How many times must I forgive a person who has sinned against me? Three times seemed generous. Seven times, downright godly.

Jesus goes to the heart of Peter's question - the unbelieving, unforgiving heart. "Not seven times but seventy times seven." Perfect forgiveness multiplied without measure. That is, after all, what we ask from God, isn't it? We who confess that we "justly deserve His temporal and eternal punishment." We cannot place limits on God's forgiveness, and so we cannot put limits on ours.

The poet Heinrich Heine once said, "My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door.

Then, if God wanted to make me completely happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from those trees. I would forgive them all the wrongs they have done me - forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they are hanged!"

Many years ago, a good friend of mine by the name of Sam, visiting one late summer as we were having man to man talk and among others, we talked about some of hurts we felt were dished out by those close to us. Sam shared, how he was hurt by a good friend, who stay with him for three months and took advantage of his generosity and trust.

His friend used him and family, the hurt was so deep, Sam felt strongly to travel to Europe confront this person and give him peace of his mind. So we discussed the pros and cons, but Sam was so resentful, revengeful and felt justified to go to Europe and he did. His moment came for Sam, he when arrived at his friend’s house rung the door bell and his friend answered the door bell. Sam was invited in, the rest is history as told me the confrontation between him and friend. When he came back he was more depressed than when he left.

The servant obviously couldn't pay the debt so the king took the usual action and ordered him and his family to be sold into slavery until the debt was paid off, which would have taken 150,000 man-years of labor, an eternity for all practical purposes.

The servant begged for mercy. Actually, he begged for time and patience. I don't know what plan he had in mind, but it couldn't have been legal, moral, or ethical.

There was no way that a servant could have rounded up that kind of money, no matter how much time he had. But the king in an amazing display of undeserved kindness simply forgave the debt, wrote across the note, "paid in full" on the books, and sent the servant on his way a free man.

The servant got up from his knees, dusted himself off, and went out to celebrate came across a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii, which loose change compared with the debt the king had just written off. We might have expected a bit of kindness on the part of one who has just received his life back.

Instead, the servant grabbed his fellow servant by the throat and demanded payment in full. And when he begged for the same kind of mercy and patience as the first servant had, he found himself thrown into debtor's prison. Now when the king got word of this he was outraged and called back the servant.

"You evil servant! I forgave you all that debt because you asked me, and what do you do? Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?" In his anger, the king had the servant thrown into jail until he paid off all the debt. To put an eschatological spin on the words of the king :

Unforgiveness hurts only the one who refuses to forgive. We think we're hurting those who have hurt us. We wind up only hurting ourselves. It's like punching yourself in the nose because someone insulted you. That'll teach them.

Unforgiveness is a spiritual cancer that eats away at our bones, demeaning us, robbing us of vitality and joy, driving us to say and do things that are beneath our dignity as God's children.

Unforgiveness diminishes us, it makes us small. Marriages are diminished when husband and wife do not forgive each another daily. Homes are diminished when parents and children do not forgive each another. Our children hear a great deal of discipline talk and law talk, but do they hear Gospel talk, forgiveness-in-the-name-of-Jesus talk?

Our schools and workplaces and communities are diminished when we do not forgive our neighbor and co-worker. Our congregation is diminished when we who kneel together to receive the Lord's mercy are at each other's throats, trying to get even.
Unforgiveness is a hardening of the heart, diminishes the power of prayer and faith

When we refuse to forgive, we put ourselves in opposition to God and destroy our own desire to be forgiven. People who harbor grudges rarely, if ever, are found on their knees confessing their sins before God.

People who try to settle the score for every wrong done to them rarely, if ever, acknowledge the score God settled when He hung Jesus on a cross to pay the price for their sinfulness. Those who refuse to be reconciled with others also refuse to be reconciled God.

Unforgiveness is false theology. We speak of God's free grace in Jesus Christ, how God does not deal with us as our sins deserve, but that He deals with us kindly and graciously because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That's what we call "the Gospel" which we hear in the church and proclaim in the world. But we deny that Gospel when we demand that others work to earn our forgiveness.

We cannot pray, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," while at the same time withholding mercy from those who sin against us. We cannot be on our knees and at each other's throats at the same time.

Unforgiveness is a restriction on the freedom Christ has won for us. It is a form of slavery. When we do not forgive those who sin against us, we are giving them control over our emotions, our decisions, our actions. They now run our lives. The word "forgive" means to set free, to cut loose, to dismiss. When something is forgiven it no longer has power.

When a debt is forgiven, it no longer has any claim over our money. When sin is forgiven, it no longer has any power to condemn. When we refuse to forgive others, we are chaining ourselves to them by the power of their sin in a perverse and destructive bond that ties up our freedom as the free children of God.

To forgive "from the heart," as Jesus says, is an act of the will. Forgiveness isn't a feeling. You don't have to be in a forgiving mood to forgive. The essence of forgiveness is in words - "I forgive you" and in actions shaped by those words.

Forgiveness means we do not return evil for evil, anger for anger, sin for sin.

We don't do to others what they have done to us. When God forgives us, He does not act on our sins. He doesn't damn us as our sins deserve because He has damned our sins in the body of Jesus. God deals with us in love because of what Jesus has done.

To forgive does not mean to forget. The king did not forget for a moment the debt he forgave. Forgiveness is not Holy amnesia. God does not forget the sins He forgives. Instead He refuses to act on them because he remembers that He has already done them to death in the death of Jesus. God doesn't get even with us because Jesus evened us up with God by offering His perfect life in our place. Just the same, we don't necessarily forget what we forgive.

Someone will say, "I have my limits beyond which I can't forgive." But it's not that they can not forgive, it's that they will not. Forgiveness is not ours to give. We are not the source. God is. We are simply the conduit, the pipeline. God is the reservoir, and the supply of His forgiveness is as limitless as the death of Jesus. We lose nothing when we forgive. We draw on Christ who gave everything to forgive. We lose everything when we don't forgive.

Jesus appealed to the faith of his disciples when He said, "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back."

God is not stingy with His mercy. It is from the excess, the overflow, that we in turn forgive others, letting flow to others what God has so generously poured out on us. The forgiveness that flows to us from the cross knows no boundaries or limits. God doesn't keep track of how many times we come to Him for forgiveness.

God wipes clean the ledgers of our lives. "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." These word we say each Sunday. Is there any hurt that people can inflict on us that is greater than the hurt we inflict upon the God who made us, who redeemed us, who sanctifies us? I don’t think so.

Is there any sin against us that can possibly compare with our sins against God? Viewed against what we do to God, the things others do to us seem like pocket change, like a hundred denarii compared to 10,000 talents. If we have been so richly forgiven in Christ, how can we not richly forgive?

Sam in our story earlier learned a great lesson as he relates his experience with me. The parable of the unforgiving servant is not intended to make us feel good about ourselves. It is intended to knock us off the high horse of our self-righteousness, so that Jesus can put us on the humble cloak of his crucified righteousness.

No person but Jesus is able to forgive in the perfect seventy times seven way the Law demands. Whatever we do, it will never be enough. Whether three times, seven times, or even 489 times, we will never achieve that perfect seventy times seven.

Only Jesus forgives that way. He forgave those who plotted to kill him. He forgave the soldiers who spit on Him, who slapped Him, who pulled at His beard and whipped Him. He absolved those who crucified. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." He forgives us, in his Word and at the altar.

On the flight home Sam said he took the flight time to reflect on God’s forgiveness in his life and a valuable lesson on forgiveness. We can only forgive in the strength of God’s forgiveness, Sam conceded. God uses us as instruments of his forgiveness, means of his undeserved kindness to sinners, to let his forgiveness flow as freely as we have been forgiven." Sam in our story is me, your very minister Pastor Samuel a servant of God’s forgiveness. My prayer has since been: Lord Jesus, teach me to forgive, and forgive my unforgiveness.

Amen.

Rev. Samuel King-Kabu

September 15, 2002