There’s a scene in the movie “Seabiscuit”where the young jockey Red plans to keep his horse just behind the favorite until he makes his sprint and then pull ahead for the win, but his plans change. Another horse and jockey foul him and suddenly Red urges his horse forward and the two lead the race as Red berates the other rider and pushes him repeatedly toward the rail, punishing him for the foul. In the home stretch, all the other horses pass them, and when the race ends, Red and the offending rider finish in last place. When the owner and trainer come to Red after the race and ask him what happened, he’s agitated and angry and he yells, “He fouled me! Was I supposed to let him get away with that?” “He fouled me!”
When we have been wronged, often our emotions run high, like Red’s. We want revenge or retaliation. We want to calculate the cost and make the offender pay.
But Jesus teaches us differently.
In today’s gospel when Peter asks, “how often should I forgive?” (Matt. 18:21), Jesus answers him, “"Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. (Matt. 18:22)
And then he tells the parable of the unforgiving servant to show what the kingdom of heaven is like.
In this parable, a king calls in his debts and one of his slaves, who cannot repay the enormous debt that he owes, falls on his knees and pleads to the king for mercy. And the king takes pity on the slave and forgives the debt. But instead of gratitude and mercy toward others, that slave then threatens another one who owes him a debt and throws that one into prison until he can repay him. When the king hears what his slave has done, he is angry; he calls the man wicked, withdraws his forgiveness and orders him to be tortured.
Immediately we should hear the echo of Jesus’ preaching the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, where he said:
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt. 6:13-15)
We probably also hear Red’s voice screaming, “You want me to let him (or her) get away with that?”
Because often that is how we understand forgiveness. It feels like forgiveness means letting someone get away with something or excusing bad behavior, or even violence. It feels like we are giving something up to someone who has only taken from us. And we feel justified in announcing our judgment and withholding forgiveness.
But judgment isn’t ours to execute. God is the ultimate judge.
As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,
Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. (Rom 14:10)
Forgiveness is a hard teaching from Jesus. As Bishop Michael Rinehart from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod wrote, “Forgiveness is relinquishing my right to get even, and giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” It is not easy to grant forgiveness. And as Jesus tells Peter, it isn’t quick.
Thankfully, the parable doesn’t hide how difficult or tenuous forgiveness is. I cringed when I heard how the king later acted out of anger, and how the unforgiving servant dug an even deeper Pit for himself by refusing forgiveness to the one who needed it.
I’m sure part of my reaction is because I recognize myself in their humanity — wanting to limit who I forgive, depending on how much contrition they’ve shown, or wanting to get what’s mine, forgetting that all I am and have is God’s.
The heart of what Jesus is teaching here is that when we practice judgment and withhold forgiveness, it is as if we are forgetting the forgiveness we ourselves have received,
“the free gift of God’s promise” for you and for me.
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who hid Jews in her home during the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War 2. Before the war ended, she and her sister Betsie were imprisoned at the Ravensbruck concentration camp and Betsie died in the camp in 1944.
After the war, Corrie traveled and preached about forgiveness and reconciliation. In an interview later, she spoke about an encounter she had in 1947 when she traveled to a Munich church. After she spoke at the church, she recognized one of the men there as one of the guards from Ravensbruck. She was flooded with memories of their imprisonment and her sister’s death as she watched him approach her. When he spoke, he told her that he had become a Christian and knew that God forgave him for his cruelty, and now he was asking Corrie for her forgiveness. And in the interview, Corrie revealed with great honesty that she could not answer him immediately, and that in the passing seconds, which felt like years to her, all she felt was anger. She continued,
…I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.[i]
Forgiveness is an act of compassion. Throughout Matthew’s gospel, we hear how Jesus had compassion for the crowds he encountered and how people were transformed afterward by his actions toward them (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32). The same word is used here when it says that the king had pity on his slave –he was moved to compassion for the slave.
When we forgive, we surrender the outcome to God and say, “Thy will be done.” We believe that the past will not control the future, and that a different future is possible. [ii] We believe that God can work in circumstances and people in ways we cannot understand.
Forgiveness recognizes what God has already done for us. As Paul writes in his second letter to the church in Corinth, “When we are forgiven, in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; … everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)
When the unforgiving servant refused forgiveness to the slave who owed him, he refused the new life that had been given to him. He refused the abundance of mercy that had been offered to him. His refusal to be changed and redeemed by God is what led to his own imprisonment; it was a cell of his own making, built on the foundation of unforgiveness.
Jesus shows us we have a choice. We can choose to harden our hearts toward others and remain in bondage to anger and vengeance, or we can choose to surrender ourselves, our hearts and our wills, extending the mercy that we have first been given.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your grace that You do “not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities” but instead offer us new life in Christ.[iii]
We confess that we forget the abundant mercy and forgiveness that you have already given us when we declare judgment on others.
Help us live in the kingdom of heaven here on earth, forgiving others as you have first forgiven us.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen.
[i] Corrie ten Boom, “I'm Still Learning to Forgive.” https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/boom.html, accessed September 11, 2020.
[ii] Sermon Brainwave. Luther Seminary.
[iii] Psalm 103:10
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