Canceling the Debt

Matthew 18:21-35

Have you ever had one of those embarrassing moments in life you wish you could erase from your memory banks, but just can’t.  I recall my sophomore year of college at Concordia in Austin Texas.  We were performing the famous Rodgers & Hamemrstein play The Sound of Music, and I was playing the part of Uncle Max.  It was our second performance, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself, because things were going so well.  And then disaster struck.  I had just finished a scene and I was supposed to exit and wait in the wings for about a minute, then come back on stage for the next scene.  But I forgot.  I forgot what scene I was supposed to be doing.  So instead, I walked calmly off stage into the dressing room and proceeded to take off my costume.  The moment of panic came as I stood there in my underwear and realized my mistake.  In five seconds I had to be back on stage, fully clothed.  You’ve never seen anyone get dressed so fast in your whole life.  I think I could have been named the quick change artist of the year.  Thankfully the actors on stage stalled for me and I made it back with my heart racing 20 miles a minute.  In the end it turned out all right, but nevertheless it was an embarrassing moment for me, because I forgot what I was doing.

Forgetfulness – it can be very annoying and frustrating.  It not only embarrasses us, it can also get us in trouble or danger.  And the worst part is, the one thing we want to forget, namely those shameful, humiliating, and painful moments, is the one thing we cannot erase from our memory.  How good it is to know that there is someone who can – someone who can clear the memory banks; someone who can wipe our slate clean; someone who can take even our deepest, darkest sins and iniquities and erase them so completely, it’s as if they never existed.  Of course, that Someone is our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and that’s what His forgiveness is all about.

That’s what Jesus was talking about in our Gospel lesson for today, when He answered Peter’s question:  “LORD, HOW MANY TIMES SHALL I FORGIVE MY BROTHER?”  You see, Peter was troubled by this notion of forgiving and forgetting the offenses of people who have sinned against you.  In fact, he probably thought he was being generous in forgiving his brother seven times.  After all, the Rabbis said you should only forgive three times and on the fourth offense you should exact punishment.  So, Peter was being generous in doubling that and adding one more for good measure – 7, the perfect number, that ought to be the perfect amount of forgiveness. 

But notice Jesus’ response:  “I TELL YOU, NOT SEVEN TIMES, BUT SEVENTY-SEVEN TIMES.”  Or as some translations put it:  “seventy times seven.”  In Greek, that phrase can go either way.  Seventy-seven times is reminiscent of Lamech in the Old Testament, who wanted to take revenge on his enemies seventy-seven times.  That is the exact opposite of the kind of forgiving heart Jesus was talking about in our text.  And yet, who among us doesn’t wrestle with those kinds of vengeful thoughts and attitudes?  Our neighbor insults us, and we shoot a zinger right back at them.  A co-worker stabs us in the back, and so we find a way to manipulate things and pull a power ploy on them.  A guy cuts us off in traffic and we curse at him under our breath.   A family member hurts us, and we hold onto that hurt instead of letting it go.  In these and many other subtle ways we display the vengeance of Lamech.  For as someone once put it:  “I’ve buried the hatchet, but I’ve left the handle sticking up.”

Well, it was in response to that sinful lack of forgiveness that Jesus said:  “I TELL YOU, NOT SEVEN TIMES, BUT SEVENTY-SEVEN TIMES.”  Or:  “seventy times seven.”   And perhaps the multiplication factor is a better translation, because Jesus’ point is not the number but the idea of limitless, unconditional forgiveness.  After all, God does not number our sins.  He does not keep a little black book in which He records all our offenses.  And that’s a good thing, because as the Psalmist said:  “IF YOU, O LORD, KEPT A RECORD OF SINS, O LORD, WHO COULD STAND?  BUT WITH YOU THERE IS FORGIVENESS!”  No, the only thing God counts is our tears, so that He can comfort us with pardon and peace.  The only thing He numbers is the hairs of our head, so that He can care for us and protect us from death and hell.  In other words, He forgives us completely and unconditionally and forgets all our offenses.  And as His children we are called to do the same – to forgive one another without restraint.

In order to drive that point home, Jesus told the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, the man who owed his master 10,000 talents, which in our terms would be roughly 20 million dollars.  Since he didn’t have the money, his master ordered that he and his family be sold into slavery to recover his losses, which was not an uncommon thing in those days, if you couldn’t pay your bills.  Naturally, the servant fell on his knees and begged for mercy, begged for another chance to pay off the debt.  Our text tells us, that the master was so moved by this that he had compassion on his servant and canceled the debt.  Simply put, he forgot about and acted as if it never existed.

It goes without saying that the parable is actually about you and me.  Our lustful thoughts, our hurtful words and unkind deeds, as well as our sinful nature itself are an insurmountable debt to God that we can never repay.  In the context of our Gospel lesson, it means that all sin is a mismanagement of God’s good gifts, and because of that we are bound up in slavery to our iniquity and ought to be locked up in the dungeon of hell forever.  Amazingly enough, like the servant at times we foolishly think that if God would just give us one more chance, we could make up for it.  If we just try a little harder to be nice, do a few more good works, somehow that will cover our debt.  But that’s like trying to pay off 20 million dollars one penny at a time, when you’ve got no job and no prospects, because you’re in jail! 

In short, it’s impossible.  There’s no way we can make up for our sins or earn God’s favor and salvation.  And so, when we beg Him for another chance to pay, mercifully He doesn’t give us one.  Instead, He gives us something much better – His complete and total pardon and forgiveness.  He cancels out our debt.  As a matter of fact, He cancelled it out long ago, when Jesus was crucified on Calvary.  That’s where our bill was paid in full.  He’s the one who was put in prison to pay off our offenses.  He was locked up in the dungeon of hell on the cross, so that all our iniquities have been annulled. 

For that reason, God has forgotten all about your sins and transgressions and He treats you as if they never even existed.  It’s like when the first missionaries among the Eskimos in North America sought to translate the Scriptures into their native language.  They often had difficulty finding terms that were equivalent to biblical words.  One such difficult word was the word forgiveness.  They could find no single term that was identical in meaning, so they made a compound noun which literally meant ‘Not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.’  That’s just what God’s forgiveness in Christ is all about.  Once we’ve repented of our offenses and given them to Jesus He doesn’t even think about them anymore, and we don’t have to either.  We can release them and let them go, because they’ve been cancelled out and cover up in the blood of Jesus Christ.

That being the case, you would think that the servant in our text would be so overjoyed, that he’d want to share the wealth.  But instead, he went out and found a fellow servant, who owed him a hundred denarii – roughly 20 bucks, and throttled him.  And even when the man begged for mercy, he was unrelenting and threw him in prison.  It could be that he was still operating under a false sense of works-righteousness, thinking he was going to take that $20 and use it to pay back the master.  Or it may’ve been just that mean streak that lives inside all of us.  Either way, he refused to forgive his brother. 

Dear friends, how sad it is that all too often that’s how we treat one another.  And  it’s exactly that kind of unforgiving attitude that Jesus came to save us from.  Which is why in our text He said:  “THIS IS HOW MY HEAVENLY FATHER WILL TREAT EACH OF YOU UNLESS YOU FORGIVE YOUR BROTHER FROM YOUR HEART.”  It’s obviously a very harsh word of Law.  But it’s not meant to destroy us or drive us away from God.  Quite the opposite – it’s intended to bring us to our knees in repentance and to drive us into God’s loving arms of forgiveness.  For Jesus’ point is not that God’s forgiveness is conditional on something we do.  No, His forgiveness is free and abundant in Jesus Christ our Savior.  Rather, Jesus’ point is that when we keep track of our brother’s sins and refuse to let go of them, or try to get revenge on him, the ones we’re really hurting are ourselves.  For such unforgiving attitudes are a lack of repentance and faith that blocks God’s forgiveness from coming to us.  Which is why Jesus urges us to daily repent of that sin and whole-heartedly receive the treasures of His pardon and forgiveness, so that we are then empowered to go out and share the wealth with others!

A college student, who was studying law, once ran a stop sign and got pulled over by a Sheriff’s Deputy.  Thinking that he was smarter than the Deputy, he figured he’d have a little fun at the deputy’s expense.  So, when he was asked for his license and registration, he said:  “What for?”  “You didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign.”  “I slowed down, and no one was coming.”  The Deputy repeated, “You still didn’t come to a complete stop.  License and registration, please.”  “What’s the difference?”  “The difference is, you have to come to a complete stop, that’s the law.  License and registration, please!”  At that point the student said, “If you can show me the legal difference between slow down and stop, I’ll gladly pay the ticket, but if not you let me go without a ticket.”  Taking up the challenge, the Deputy replied, “All right.  Exit your vehicle, sir.”  Whereupon he took out his nightstick, started to beat the student and said:  “Now, do you want me to stop or just slow down?”

        Dear friends, how wonderful it is to know that that’s not now God treats you and me.  He doesn’t beat or incarcerate us, in spite of all our crimes against us.  Instead, He has completely halted the punishment against us and withheld His condemnation for the sake of Jesus Christ His Son.  He has completely pardoned and forgiven us, and canceled out our debt.  And He wants us to deal with one another in the same merciful manner.  May His loving forgiveness empower us then to do just that – with the aid of the Holy Spirit to forgive and forget, for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

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