First Congregational Church UCC, Auburn, MA September 17, 2023
Romans 14:1-12 Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. 2 Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. 3 Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them. 4 Who are you to pass judgment on slaves of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6 Those who observe the day, observe it for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.
7 For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 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.,* 11 For it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God.”
12 So then, each one of us will be held accountable.,*
Matthew 18:21-35 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, 25 and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
In the Book of Genesis, we hear the story of Joseph, that guy with the technicolor dreamcoat… sold into slavery by his not-so-loving brothers, exiled him to Egypt. You’ll remember that Joseph didn’t have it easy in Egypt – he ended up for a while in prison, and was in danger of losing his life.
Things then began to go well for Joseph, and he ends up, according to the story, being the chief of staff to the pharaoh. Wealthy, famous, powerful, and still handsome. But things hadn’t gone well for the brothers… there was a famine, and they were nearly destitute. And one day they realized the only thing between them and starvation was their brother Joseph.
But would he help them? Could he forgive their attempt to kill him, their selling him into slavery, forcing him into exile. Would he forget all the bad stuff? What would he make them do.
What would Joseph do? Would he forgive and save their lives? Or take revenge?
Every one of the lectionary’s lessons for today asks the same question. What does forgiveness mean in this time, in this place, with this set of people? Joseph has to figure out whether or not, and how, to forgive his family. In the letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul asks us to think about how to forgive people who fixate on the smallest things: Who are we to pass judgment on another? He asks, and he’s right… who are we to decide? (This is, by the way, one of the organizing principles of our kind of church – because we believe that all decisions are best made by groups of people, not one person speaking for everyone else…)
Our Gospel lesson takes the idea of forgiveness another step along the way.© According to Matthew, Peter asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive someone… as many as seven times? . . . no, Jesus responds, more like seventy times seven. Even if you forget that in the Hebrew Scriptures “seventy times seven” was their way of saying “forever”, it’s still a lot of forgiving. It’s a way of saying, “forgiving is our job, our calling”.
And then there’s the story Jesus adds on… the one about a slave who owed a ton of money to his master. The master forgives him, right? And then the slave goes out and threatens the people who own him money, even throwing one of them in jail. The master hears about it, and the forgiven slave finds himself in more terrible trouble.
Now forgiving is not just an interesting sidebar in Bible stories. It’s part of our daily life, and not just in the easy stuff. In one of the papers I read, this week there was a letter to the advice column that went something like this: Dear Carolyn: My daughter isn’t speaking to my mother, and my mother is upset. Mom knows she interfered in my daughter’s family – she repeatedly let one of the kids do something they just weren’t allowed to do – and Mom says she’s sorry, but she can’t stop doing it. And so my daughter won’t let her visit, won’t let her around the kids, won’t let her take them for the day. Mom’s so upset, I just want my daughter to let Mom back in her life; Mom’s getting on, and I wouldn’t want her to die before this is cleared up and no one is angry anymore.
Our faith tells us that forgiving is our business, but there is nothing in the Biblical witness that suggests that forgiveness is connected to giving people permission to do it again. The Bible’s examples are pretty cut and dried, but no one thinks that when Joseph forgives his brothers, he’s looking to let them kidnap and sell him again. And the exact problem in the story from Matthew is that the slave who was forgiven, doesn’t take that as a sign to change his ways.
The daughter in the letter from the newspaper – can “forgive” her grandmother, but that doesn’t mean she has to give grandma access to the kids again, not when grandma has said clearly that she intends to continue subverting her granddaughter’s authority with her own children.
Forgiveness is about our relationship with the person who has hurt us. We often confuse it with repentance, which is the work the other person does to repair the damage their deeds have caused. In the newspaper story, if grandma said I’m sorry and I won’t do that again and then didn’t do it again, that would be repentance. And then forgiveness and repentance together would have created restoration, the rebuilding of a relationship.
Now, here’s the challenge for us… because we have a job to do. We know what happens when we forgive one another, we have seen what a difference real repentance can make, and how good restoration can be for us and for our community. Our challenge is to use those tools — forgiveness, repentance and restoration – to make our world better today.
Our world is in a heck of a mess. And it can be discouraging to see how vile people can be to one another these days. This is one way we can make a difference. We can, in our own friendships, at work and at school, be people who practice forgiveness, live out repentance and nurture restoration, and as we do it, please God and rebuild our world.
Let’s do it… let’s talk about the places we see problems, and see what we might do to help things get better. Let’s see where we can practice our faith and make the world better.
Amen.
© 2023, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 