2023.09.17 | Living Forgiven
“Living Forgiven”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Matthew 18:21-35 (NRSV & LBLA)
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 17, 2023
Today’s text opens with Peter questioning Jesus about how many times one should forgive another. The traditional rabbinic response was “three times.” Peter ventures a more generous proposal saying, “seven times.” Jesus’ response was grandiose by comparison. According to Matthew, Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven.” The implication of Jesus’ response is that we have not truly forgiven another if we are keeping score.
Jesus goes on to offer the following illustration: a royal official had accumulated an astronomical debt to his king. (The sum of 10,000 talents was equal to 150 years of wages for a manual laborer.) When the king demanded payment, the official begged for mercy, and was granted it.
Later that day, the same official had an opportunity to relieve another man of a much smaller obligation amounting to 100 denarii. (This amount equaled about 1/600,000th of what the official had previously forgiven.)
Ironically, despite the grace shown by the king to his official, the official refused to show even a fraction of mercy to his colleague that had been shown to him by the king.
When the king learned that his underling had refused to be merciful to his peer, the king reversed his earlier decision and sentenced the official to prison until the debt could be paid, which was essentially a life sentence because the official had no way to pay his debt.
For those who have ears to hear, Jesus teaches that we are all recipients of an incomprehensible amount of undeserved grace from God. Once we have truly received this grace, we act in accordance with it, by being gracious with ourselves and others and God is glorified.
II
To be clear, Christian forgiveness is not the same as popular understandings of what is sometimes referred to as permissiveness. True forgiveness does not assume that “anything goes.” It does not make light of wrong-doing or injury. True forgiveness does not promote what 12-steppers call “codependent behavior”—it does not make excuses for another’s bad behavior, or minimize one’s own needs in a relationship, so that, for example, addiction and injury persist--and healing for the addict, their loved ones, and the larger society is deferred.
The process of forgiveness is a process. It doesn’t happen instantly; it requires intentionality, good will, and a reasonable amount of time to come into fruition. For those among us who describe themselves as “Friends of Bill’s,” this is called the 5th Step in the Big Book.
My Roman Catholic friends in high school called this process “Confession.” Today they refer to it as the “Sacrament of Reconciliation.”
For us UCC people, the terms “Restorative Justice” used in many of our public schools and juvenile hall processes is more palatable, because we have a lot of spiritual and emotional baggage and terms like “confession, contrition, and salvation” give us the creeps.
Regardless of our denominational background, Christians generally recognize five steps in the forgiveness process. The five basic steps in this process include the following:
Step 1: Reflection has to do with recognizing that something has gone wrong in a relationship. Someone has been injured and there is a need to right the relationship. Sometimes the person who makes the mistake recognizes the error of his or her ways immediately. More often intervention is required on the part of another—to point out the error or wound. Reflection involves naming and understanding the nature of the offense, and its effect on the person who has been wronged and the relationship between the two people or more people involved.
Step 2: Confession is the admission of wrongdoing, by the person who committed the offense, whether intentional or unintentional. In the church we recognize that there are two types of mistakes. Confession—acknowledgement and ownership of my mistakes—sounds like this: “Excuse me, I was wrong; I made a mistake,” or, “I’m sorry; I didn’t do x, which I should have done.”
Step 3: Contrition is one of those peculiar church words that could come in very handy for those who like crossword puzzles and Scrabble. It means to behave in a way that demonstrates that we acknowledge the error of our ways, that we are truly sorry, and that we are making amends for our mistakes.
Sometimes when we mess up, the remedy for our mistakes is pretty clear, and sometimes remedies are less clear so that it is more helpful for us to ask the person whom we’ve hurt, “Can I make things right with you, or is there some way that I can help heal or ameliorate the pain that I have caused you? If so, how, or what?”
Step 4: Forgiveness if it comes, flows from the practices of reflection, confession, and contrition by the person who caused the harm. In cases of egregious error, ample time is needed for injured persons to grieve, or else true healing will never happen. Furthermore, some wounds are so deep and some souls and relationships are so damaged, that true healing may never be possible this side of heaven. (That’s right. There are some types of suffering that only heaven can help.)
Step 5: Absolution. The final move in the forgiveness cycle (which usually needs repeating) is absolution. Absolution means “to be set free.” Perhaps we can think of a time when something that we have done wrong or something we have left undone became a great burden on our hearts. (If only I had done x. I wish I would not have said X.)
When we know that we have really messed up, and then receive forgiveness, or when we have been able to forgive ourselves or another, then we are set free—free from the past, free from the burdens of guilt, anxiety, and shame so that we can begin anew.
In today’s gospel lesson, things went off the rails when the royal official wasn’t able to forgive an indentured servant the debt that was owed, because the official hadn’t truly accepted the forgiveness that the king had first offered to him. As a result, the official remained mired in his guilt/anxiety/shame, and continued to live out of a score-keeping mentality that hampered his ability to forgive the other guy.
Forgiveness is rarely an easy process, but it is a process that makes healing possible at home, church, work, or play, or in the public square.
III
The challenge and opportunity expressed in today’s gospel reading was famously summarized in a book written by Paul Tillich, a Lutheran pastor, philosopher, and theologian, and one of the great 20th Century German-American theologians. His name was Paul Tillich. He was a philosopher and theologian
Tillich immigrated to the United States in 1933 after he and several other German scholars were deemed “enemies of the Reich” and were fired from their position at major university. Tillich taught and lectured all over German, but in the US he quickly settled in New York City where he was offered and accepted a full professorship and also taught at Union Theological School and, across the street, at Columbia University.
Tillich was a prolific writer. His magnum opus, Systematic Theology, is thicker than a Bible. It’s so dense in terms of pages and so obtuse in writing style that even the best students stumble and struggle to understand. That’s why I recommend that regular people use Systematic Theology as a door stop, and read Tillich’s one volume treatise The Courage to Be. It was published by Yale University in 1952 at a cost of $1.49.
You can purchase it new or used from $4 to $40, today, depending on which bookseller you prefer, or you can download it for free from Audible, if you have (or you download) that app.
Regardless of your financial position or personal preferences, I have great news for all of us today. N.b., the grace that Tillich describes is free. If we dare to receive it, we can live as forgiven people, as God intended, and Christ proclaimed. Amen.