Readings

Romans 14.1–12 – Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarrelling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgement on servants 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. 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. Those who observe the day, observe it in honour of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God. We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. 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. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.For it is written, ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Matthew 18.21–35 – Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. ‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 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.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. 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. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

Sermon

I wonder what the word forgiveness means to you, and I wonder whether you are someone who finds it easier or harder to forgive; whether there are things that you think are unforgiveable; and whether you are someone who thinks that you may be in need of forgiveness yourself.

It’s obviously something that has been on Peter’s mind, as he comes to Jesus with what sounds, at first, like a very generous suggestion: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

Seven times. That is quite a lot. If somebody hurts us once, forgiveness can be difficult enough. If they do the same thing again, it becomes harder. By the seventh time, most of us might feel that we had been more than patient.

But Jesus replies: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Jesus isn’t replacing one limit with another. He isn’t suggesting that Peter should keep a notebook and make a little mark every time somebody wrongs him, until eventually he reaches number seventy-eight and is allowed to say, “Right, that’s it.” He is telling Peter to stop counting. And then Jesus tells a story.

A slave owes his king an enormous sum of money. Ten thousand talents. The amount is deliberately ridiculous. It is a debt beyond any realistic possibility of repayment. The slave begs for patience: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” But the king does something far greater than the slave asks. He doesn’t simply give him more time. He cancels the debt completely.

Imagine the relief of walking away from that room. The impossible burden has disappeared. The future has been given back to him. And then, almost immediately, this same man meets somebody who owes him a much smaller amount. He grabs him by the throat and demands: “Pay what you owe.”

The second slave pleads with almost exactly the same words that the first slave had used before the king: “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But there is no mercy. And that is the scandal at the heart of Jesus’ story. The man has received extraordinary mercy, but somehow that mercy has made no difference to the way he treats somebody else. He has been forgiven, but he has not learned how to forgive.

And perhaps that is where this Gospel becomes uncomfortable for us. Because every time we gather for Holy Communion, we gather as people who live by the mercy of God. We don’t come to this table because we have earned our place here. We don’t come because we have managed to get everything right. We come with empty hands. We confess our sins. We hear again the promise of forgiveness. We receive bread and wine as signs of a love which we could never earn and could never repay. And then we are sent back into the world.

The question is: does the mercy we receive here make any difference to the mercy we show there?

That connects closely with what Paul says in our reading from Romans. The church in Rome was divided over questions of religious practice. Some Christians ate certain foods; others believed that they should not. Some regarded particular days as especially holy; others did not. And Paul doesn’t solve the argument by declaring one side to be the winner. Instead, he says: “Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarrelling over opinions.” And then: “Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister?”

It is such an important question for the Church. Because Christians will disagree. We always have. We disagree about worship and theology, politics and ethics, buildings and money, hymns and liturgy, what should change and what should remain exactly as it is.

Some of those disagreements matter greatly. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that differences are unimportant. Nor does forgiveness mean tolerating abuse, ignoring injustice, or allowing somebody continually to cause harm without consequence. Sometimes love requires boundaries. Sometimes reconciliation requires repentance, truth and change.

But Paul reminds us that even when we disagree, the person standing opposite us remains our brother or sister in Christ. They belong to God before they belong to our particular camp. “For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God,” Paul says. In other words: judgement ultimately belongs to God.

And that can be wonderfully liberating. Because it means that I don’t have to carry the burden of being everybody else’s judge. I can leave that to God. My task is to remember how God has dealt with me. With patience. With generosity. With forgiveness. With mercy. And Jesus’ parable asks what happens when we allow that mercy to shape us.

Christian forgiveness is not simply gritting our teeth and trying very hard to feel differently about somebody who has hurt us. It begins somewhere else. It begins with remembering what we ourselves have received.

The servant’s great failure is that he forgets almost immediately what has just happened to him. He walks away from extraordinary mercy and behaves as though he has never encountered mercy at all.

Jesus calls us to live differently. To become people whose lives bear the marks of the forgiveness we have received. That doesn’t necessarily happen in a single moment. Some wounds take a long time to heal. Sometimes forgiveness is less a feeling than a decision which has to be made again tomorrow, and perhaps again the day after that. But forgiveness means refusing to allow another person’s wrongdoing to have the final word.

It means refusing to let resentment become the thing which defines our relationship with them, or which quietly shapes our own hearts. And there is something profoundly hopeful about that. Because Jesus tells Peter to stop counting. Stop keeping score. Stop imagining that the kingdom of God works like a ledger in which every debt is carefully recorded and eventually collected. God’s kingdom begins with grace.

In a few moments, we will come again to the Lord’s table. We will come as different people, with different opinions, different histories, different joys and different wounds. But we will receive the same bread. We will share the same cup. We will depend upon the same mercy. And perhaps that is one of the great gifts of Holy Communion.

It reminds us that none of us stands before God as the person who has got everything right. We stand together as people who have been forgiven. And then Christ sends us out to become what we have received: people of grace; people who are slow to judge; people who refuse to keep score; people in whose lives the mercy of God becomes visible.

“Lord, how often should I forgive?” Peter wants a number.

Jesus gives him a way of life. Amen.