Proper 19 Sunday From September 11 to September 17

A Reading From Ecclesiasticus 27:30— 28:7 A Reading From Psalms 103 or 103:1-14 A Reading From Romans 14:5-12 A Reading From The Gospel Matthew 18:21-35 A Sermon by Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy Mercy. You know, my dad didn't do a lot of encouraging me to show mercy in my life. He used to say things like, the meek don't inherit anything. He would use other words that I can't necessarily or won't necessarily use right now, but that was his perspective before Christ. Mercy was not something that he had in large quantities. In fact, choking people about over money seems quite familiar as I read this story. I always paid my debts when it came to my dad for that reason. But once Christ got a hold of him, things changed a little bit and mercy is really something that only is capable in our lives if it reaches to the heart. And so there's a story that we read in the Desert Fathers about Abba Moses, or Moses the black. And he was a fourth century monk in Egypt and someone in their community, a brother, had committed an offense and the monks gathered to consider the matter and they summoned Moses, but he initially refused to come. But when they sent him for him again, he carried a basket of sand with him and there was a hole in this basket of sand and the sand was spilling out behind him as he walked. And so the brothers asked him what he was doing by having this basket that was pouring sand out of the back of him and he said that the spilling sand represented his own sins, which he did not see, which as he came to judge someone else's faults. And hearing him come to this realization that he was focused on someone else's faults while his faults were pouring out behind him that he didn't see, the community released the offending brother without further condemnation. I have to say it strikes me as fascinating how much our modern culture is drawn to desert mystics or desert fathers, those that retreated and detached from the world to draw closer to God, because they often do it as an attempt to escape the church. But what I love about the desert fathers is that they weren't escaping the church. They were escaping the cares of this world. And so this example of them asking Moses the Black to come and to offer counsel on this is not the only time that a desert father was praying and seeking God in the wilderness and they were like, please come and help. Anthony the Great, which is considered almost the father, one of the fathers of monasticism and the idea of living a life of asceticism towards honoring the Lord, was out in the woods as well and Athanasius actually requested, he wrote the book, The Life of Anthony. Athanasius actually requested for him to come and to speak on behalf of the validity of them creating a creed that came out of the Council of Nicaea. And I think that's fascinating because this is somebody that had detached from the world, who was praying out in the desert, who was seeking God and living a life of solitude, yet his counsel was so important to make a matter valid that he didn't say, no, that's too religious for me, all that church stuff. All I need is me and God over here, right? And so people would be drawn to that concept. I don't need anything else. I just need me and God. But the father of monasticism was called into the Council of Nicaea to offer credibility for what they were trying to do at the council. And he didn't say, well, much like Moses the Black, he refused at first because why would you want to leave and come? No one wants to get involved in all that stuff, but he was connected to it. And so he didn't consider himself detached from the church, nor did Moses the Black here. And so what I think is so powerful and why his actions were so important is because what we don't see in the history books is that Moses the Black considered the person that had committed this offense that he was innocent. That wasn't his concern. He was just reminding the others that they had also needed mercy in their lives. And in doing that, it changed everything, right? It teaches us that it's possible to see someone else's failure accurately, and yet it still approached that person wrongly. And I think if something is true and can be said of us, that it's easier for us to receive mercy than it is to extend mercy. We're so quick to receive it, and that same mercy that we receive from God must become the mercy that we extend to others. Today's gospel brings us face to face with that contradiction that we face in our lives. What happens when people who have received extraordinary mercy refuse to extend it? Now I'll say this right out the gate. A lot of times the people that have a hard time extending mercy to others are generally the ones who have also received a lot of mercy. That's a weird reality in our world, right? We've received mercy, and so it's hard for us at times to extend it. We know that these things happen in our lives and how this addresses us. And so what I think is fascinating is you may have noticed in us understanding this story and understanding our normal rhythms on a Sunday that we did not read our Old Testament passage. Well, we didn't have an Old Testament passage in the canon of Scripture today. The lectionary actually teaches us and walks through one of the apocryphal books called Ecclesiasticus or Syric. And so we didn't read that because that's considered a Jewish wisdom book before the coming of Christ, but it's not part of the canonical Old Testament as we receive it. And so we want to be careful and we always try to be diligent in that, but if we were to have read that, you would have heard a difference in what we say at the end of those readings. Instead of it saying the word of the Lord, we would say, here ends the reading. You might be saying, why would you even read something like that? We only want to hear the Word of God read in church. We have to understand what those books represented. They were historical books, right? So imagine if we took that same logic in everything else in life, right? I'm only going to read books that have been inspired by God, but you think every book that's ever been written isn't profitable for something, right? I'm not going to read that. No, other books have been written that are profitable for us, and the church also recognizes books that are profitable, but they're just not considered inspired canon of Scripture, right? But we learn things from them, right? We learn about culture, and we learn about what was going on around that time period. And so this book was written by Ben Sarah, and we have to understand what is being said here in some of this Jewish wisdom literature. Ben Sarah warns that anger and wrath are things a sinful person holds fast. And he describes the vengeful person as someone who keeps a record of wrongs. And then he asked a piercing question, how can someone harbor anger against another person and still ask the Lord for healing? Now again, this was written before Jesus' earthly ministry was even coming to fruition, and so you're hearing the same words in some of these historical writings that this culture was already establishing and already teaching, right? He tells the reader to forgive the neighbor's wrong, remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook the offense. And this happened before Jesus' ministry on earth. So if we were to take this historic writing in Ecclesiasticus or Sirach and hear the words of this man who is offering this same reality to us that we see in Scripture, we see that Sirach gives us the ledger. Psalm 103 shows us the God who refuses to treat us according to that ledger. And Paul tells us in Romans that every one of us will stand before God's judgment seat. And then as Reverend Jessica read for us today, Jesus brings them all together with his story, which is where we're particularly going to rest today as we focus on this idea of mercy reaching the heart. Because we see in Peter's life, Peter wanted a number to how much mercy he should show to somebody. And how much mercy is enough mercy? How much mercy is enough mercy? Right? Today is the Feast of St. John Chrysostom. It's also the Feast of the celebration of the start of the NFL football season, right? It's a holy sacred feast. And, you know, we know the patron saint of field goals comes at one o'clock today. So we're going to be aware of that. But it's also, it's also the Feast of St. John Chrysostom, who was considered, his title, his name was given his golden mouth because he preached such wonderful oracles. And one of the things that we often attribute to St. John Chrysostom is that idea that when we leave from this space, we say all the time that we're like roaring lions, right? After we've received the body and blood of our Lord, right? We think about this reality and how God pours out his mercy in our lives and then sends us out to do something. But I think in the middle of all of that wonderful reality, we find ourselves maybe like Peter, who is coming to Jesus with a situation and saying, Lord, how much do I need to do it? Should I forgive this person? Right? He wants a number. He wants there to be something, right? How often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times, right? It's a good number. He's connecting this reality and it sounds generous because seven is the number of completion. And so Peter thinks he's offered Jesus a spiritually impressive answer. You ever felt that way? Lord, I don't mean brag. I feel like that was a good answer. I feel like I did a good job there. And clinically, Jesus always takes us in those moments and goes, yeah, but. And kind of reorders us back to where we need to be. And so Jesus replies, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. Some translations will say 70 times seven. And while we don't want to focus too much on the precise numbering and the arithmetic, because if you're keeping count so that you know when you may stop forgiving, you probably missed what Jesus is saying there, right? You got one more chance and it's over, right? You keep an account, right? Like one, two. Start early, right? And you know by dinner time somebody's gonna get it. Yeah. May even happen by lunch sometimes, depending on the day. But I want you to think about this, right? What is being said here? I think we can also see something connecting us to Genesis 4 here. Because Lamech boasted that if Cain was avenged sevenfold, then Lamech would be avenged 77-fold. And Lamech in this context represents the old human story in which every wound produces a greater wound, right? And every act of vengeance demands another. The reason why my dad wasn't big on mercy is because he would say, you know, life's not going to give you everything. You just got to take it, right? And so you need to do it. So if somebody, you know, and there's that old adage growing over there. Well, I'm not gonna start a fight, but I'll finish one, right? And you're like, don't start nothing, won't be nothing, you know? I'm gonna be kind to you, but if you push me, you're gonna get all of it. That's not what Jesus is saying here, right? And as much as that sounds rewarding, that's not what Jesus is saying here, right? In the old system, every wound produces a greater wound, and every act of vengeance demands another. But Jesus turns that whole arithmetic inside out. In the kingdom of God, vengeance does not multiply, mercy does. Mercy multiplies. Augustine later made the point with a little kind of holy sarcasm. He says, if you reach offense number 78, should you finally take revenge? Of course not. If Christ has forgiven you only 77 times, Augustine says, then perhaps you may set the same limit. But if Christ has to continue, has continued to forgive you, do not place a limit on the mercy that Christ has not placed on you. So then Jesus, to illustrate this point, begins to tell a story. He tells a parable of a king that decides to settle accounts with his servants. And a man is brought before him owing 10,000 talents. A talent was worth about 6,000 denarii. And a denarius was roughly a day's wage for a laborer. So think about this, 10,000 talents equals about 60 million days of labor. Let's say it again, 60, we'll do like Dr. Evil, 60 million days of labor. Now some of you feel like you've been working a long time and you maybe you haven't had a day off in a while. And today may be your first day off. I don't think any of us have the capacity to understand what 60 million days of labor looks like. Even if that man worked every single day, and a lot of you are hard workers, but even if that man worked every single day, it would take him more than a hundred and sixty thousand years to work it off. Right? To be fair, that's impossible. Right? So Jesus isn't describing a difficult payment plan. It's not like the man was being crushed by high interest rates, and he needed to refinance this this payment plan. Jesus is describing an impossible debt. The servant falls down and says, have patience with me, or have mercy on me. I will repay you, or I will pay you everything. That's an absurd statement. There's no way he's gonna be able to pay it back, right? He doesn't need a little more time. This man needs mercy that he could never deserve. Never gonna pay it back, but he needs mercy. And the king in this story that Jesus shares is moved with compassion, similarly to the way that Jesus was moved when he saw those people coming to him who were like sheep without a shepherd. He was moved deep down inside of his heart and his body, and he helps the man. He gives the servant more than he asked for. He doesn't extend the deadline. He releases the man and forgives the debt. Forgives the debt. That word for forgiveness can also mean to release or to send away. I think that's beautiful when we think about the imagery of what happens on a Sunday. We come in to offer thanks for what he's done for us. We receive his mercy and his grace in our lives, and then he sends us back out. He releases us back out into the world, forgiven, right? That's why you might leave grumbling, but you should leave smiling. You might enter frustrated for the week or the day or stressed out about everything, but you should leave happy, right? Because we've received God's mercy and grace yet again in our lives. So what happens here in this moment? I think we can see a picture of what Jesus is doing with his grace for us. We are not people who merely needed more time to get our spiritual finances in order. What I just need some more time. We had a debt that we could never pay, right? Never pay, and he provided for us. We were not people who could handle this. We were buried beneath a debt we could not pay, and God released us by mercy. So then what happens? The servant went out and he forgave all the debts of everybody else that had ever come to him. He was merciful because he had received so much mercy, right? No, that's not what happened. He goes out. He finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, right? So think about this. The 10,000 talents, right, was essentially a hundred and sixty thousand years of labor that this man had to work off. The person that owed him a hundred denarii roughly owed him about a hundred days of labor, right? You could conceivably do that in a year, right? I'll work it off. I'll work it over time. I'll figure it out. So compare a hundred days to a hundred and sixty thousand years. This man comes to this person that owes him roughly a hundred days of labor, and Jesus isn't belittling the wrongs that people have done to us. He's not saying that this man didn't owe him the money, but he's showing the difference here, right? Because some wounds are deep, and some wounds are going to alter the course of our lives. It's not saying that the debt isn't there, but what happens in this peril is staggering, right? The first debt is 600,000 times larger than the second, and the man who had just been released from an impossible debt grabs his fellow servant by the throat and says, pay me what you owe me, as if he didn't just get freed and relieved from such an enormous debt. And what's crazy is that the servant falls down and repeats almost the exact same words. Have patience with me. Have mercy on me. I will pay you. And we don't see that this forgiven servant, hearing these own words coming out of another man's mouth, he doesn't strike him as hypocritical. It doesn't strike him in any way, shape, or form. He doesn't even recognize himself in the man that was kneeling before him, who had just been in that same situation. This is where I think the forgetfulness of Moses' basket that we talked about, Moses the black, his basket that was pouring sand behind him, the forgetfulness of that reality is helpful for us to see. The servant can see what his neighbor owes, but he no longer sees himself as someone who lives by mercy. He wants compassion for himself and strict accounting for everybody else. Does that sting a little bit? I think it does. That we are being instructed by Jesus to be mindful of what He has forgiven us of, and to exercise that mercy in the lives of others. So this man's ledger had changed, but if, again, mercy is going to affect real change in our lives, it has to start where? It has to reach the heart, right? This man's ledger had changed, but his heart had not. He'd been freed from the debt, but his heart had not changed. Remembering our own forgiveness is not really an exercise in despising ourselves, but it is, in fact, how we learn to meet another sinner without imagining that we stand above him. How quickly are we, and you have to see this is how this works, guys. When sin entered the world, and it corrupted humanity, almost immediately after that, you began to see humans looking down at other humans. Cultures trying to overtake other cultures. That's a result of sin, that we look at somebody and think we're better than them. Jesus is correcting that and saying, all of us have fallen short of God's moral standard. So how dare we look at somebody and think that we're better than them? So when the king hears what happens, he says this central question of the parable. Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? Now, if we're looking at this parable, whose mercy came first, the king or the servant? Who showed mercy first? The king, right? The king showed mercy here to this servant. He didn't deserve it. He showed a mercy, and when it got back to him that he wasn't responding appropriately, it wasn't a quid pro quo situation. The king wasn't saying, I'll forgive you if you go and forgive somebody else. He was saying, I expected you to show mercy because you've already received it in your life. I expect you to be merciful because you have already received it. I wasn't expecting you to show mercy so that it would purchase your release. You've already been released. You've already been forgiven. I expected you to do it. And so, this ending is so severe that we see in this text because Jesus says to those who are unwilling to show mercy to those after having received such abundant mercy in our lives, he says, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Jesus, in this way, does not permit us to treat a settled refusal to forgive as a harmless personality trait. That's just who I am. Right? Somebody mess with me, I'll write them off. Moving on. We shouldn't pride ourselves. That's not a personality trait. That is a heart that has not been captivated by the mercy of God. And that is a dangerous place to be. Dangerous place to be. But hear me when I say this though. Forgiveness is not denial. The King settles accounts. Jesus, after his resurrection, did not wake up in the morning and go, where did that come from? What in the world happened? Like he's clearly aware of why he died and who he died for. Yet he still opens his arms and says, come to me all you're weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest. He still offers those comfortable words to us. Forgiveness is not denial. He knows exactly what is owed. And if we're going to understand biblical forgiveness, it starts with truth. You can't release a debt that you refuse to name. But forgiveness is not the automatic restoration of trust either. Trust is rebuilt through repentance, truth, and faithful action over time. Hear this. If you want there to be a restoration of trust, then that takes work. Right? If your life has been one repeated moment of failure and mistakes, and you have chosen every single time to blame everybody else for your problems, instead of realizing that if you truly want there to be restoration, you have to be willing to do the work. But forgiveness is something that frees us of holding that debt over them. But the work of restoration takes work on the other person. Forgiveness is not permission for someone to continue harming you. If someone has abused you, Jesus is not commanding you to return to danger to conceal the abuse or to shield the offender from proper authorities. In fact, Matthew 18 itself includes confrontation in church discipline. Mercy doesn't require the abandonment of justice or wise boundaries. Forgiveness is also not the same as reconciliation. There has to be trust that's built. There has to be justice in order for there to be reconciliation. It requires truth and it requires participation of both people. So, when we see this, we have to understand that you can forgive someone even if you cannot safely be near them. He's not saying forgive them and just let them continue to harm you. You can release vengeance while still telling the truth, while still keeping a boundary, while still allowing lawful consequences to follow, which is why Romans helps us understand why. When Paul asked, why do you pass judgment on your brother? Why do you despise your brother? Then he says, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Forgiveness does not declare that there's no judge. Forgiveness declares that I am not the judge. That we are not the judges. Now, some of you might be judges, in which case, hear me what I'm saying. I'm not talking about legal matters, right? If there are any honorable members in our congregation today, we appreciate you being with us. But, we're talking about matters of eternity. Matters of eternity. And our liturgy is so helpful to remind us of this truth because our liturgy trains us to live this parable. We confess our sins. We hear the announcement of absolution. We exchange the peace. We come to the table. All of this order helps us understand that we don't create peace by pretending that nobody has sinned. We have peace because we know that Christ has made a way for us to receive forgiveness from our sins. We begin with confession and God's mercy and then we carry the peace we've received to one another. Confession is such an important part of our process because we are still in need of his mercy. Every single one of us are, right? Still in need of his mercy in our lives. So, as we prepare our hearts to do that, I want you to think again of Moses arriving with that basket. If the cleaners wouldn't think so ill of me, I would have carried a basket around while I was preaching this morning. Just to illustrate this. But, I want you to imagine it, right? His reminder interrupts our habit of studying another person's faults while overlooking our own. The gospel in this reality takes us beyond simply remembering that we've sinned. We remember that Christ has met us in our sin with mercy. We are forgiving people who are learning how to forgive, right? Learning how to forgive. It doesn't mean that your wrongdoing or someone else's wrongdoing are identical. They're not. It certainly does not mean that a person who has been abused shares responsibility for the abuse. It means that none of us comes to God as a person who has no need of grace. The mercy we need from him must shape how we respond to others, even when the truth requires a difficult conversation or a firm boundary. So, I want us to think about that today. All of us are in need of his grace and mercy.