"Why Forgive Those Who Sin Against You?"

Sermon: Proper 6year A

The Rev. Matt Kennedy

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Jesus told a story (Matt 18:21-35) about a wealthy king who loaned a man a large sum of cash, millions of dollars in today’s money. Many years passed by and the loan came due. So the king found the man and brought him to his palace to collect. But it turned out that even though the king had given this man millions of dollars, in the interim the man had spent, wildly and selfishly, all the money he’d been loaned and had nothing to show for it. In fact, he was totally bankrupt. He couldn’t pay back a penny. Now, the way the laws worked back then, the king could have put his into prison for the rest of his life making him work as a slave to pay off the debt. The man knew this to be true so he threw himself down at the king’s feet and said, “I don’t have anything. I can’t pay you back right now. I’m broke. But if you just give me some extra time, a few more months, I’m sure I can pay you back…just a little more time.” But the king knew that this wasn’t true and that no matter how much time he had, the man could never earn enough money to repay the loan. But the king looked at the man and his heart was moved. He took him by the shoulders, picked him up off the ground, and said, “Friend, your debt is forgiven.” “What do you mean forgiven?” the man asked. “I mean”, replied the king, “it’s wiped clean, paid for completely. You don’t owe me a dime. Go in peace.” The man bowed deeply before the king and then leapt up and ran out into the street rejoicing that he no longer had this debt hanging over his head.

Now, keep that story in mind as we go on. I know we don’t have bibles at this morning's picnic, but we’ve printed the readings in the bulletins this morning so take your bulletins and open them to the second reading (Romans 5:6-11).

Let me read the first part of that passage, “You see just at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Have you ever loved someone so much that you’d be willing to give your life for them; your family, friends, an innocent child maybe?

Okay, now set those people aside and think of someone who doesn’t like you, someone who you know is out to do you harm you (and I don‘t just mean physical harm), someone who is out to destroy your reputation or breakup a relationship that’s important to you, or even hurt your family. Someone who owes you an apology or a great debt of some kind. Would you be so willing to die for them? That’s not as easy. But here Paul says that God’s love is so infinitely higher than human love that he gave his life for the whole world at a time when the whole world was his enemy out to do him harm.

I don’t think that people consciously think of themselves as enemies of God, but the bible teaches that humanity in general is in open warfare against him. It has been for a long time, ever since Adam and Eve. Since then all of their offspring, you and I included have joined the battle. The weapons we use against God in this conflict are our bodies, our hearts and minds, our tongues, our wealth, health and everything we see and everything we have because we have used all of these things in one way or another at one time or another against God, to harm him and his creation.

In fact from the first time in your life used your mind in the wrong way; to think badly about someone or to think hurtful, lustful, destructive thoughts, you joined the war against God. From the first time you used your tongue to curse or to speak destructive words about someone else, to lie about someone or something, you joined the war against God. From the first time you used your body maybe to hurt or strike someone with malice or to do things with your body sexually that God designed and intended for marriage alone, you joined the war against God. From those first acts of rebellion on, we’ve all continuously made war against God in thought, word, and deed through our sins against him. We didn’t start the war, but every day when we use our minds, souls, bodies and possessions to sin against God and our neighbor we continue that war and rack up an enormous debt of sin against God.

So humanity in general and you and I in particular are really a lot like that man in the story Jesus told. We owe God and enormous debt that we can’t even begin to repay. Even if we lived obedient lives of faithfulness from now until the day we died, we would not be able to pay back the debt we have racked up in our past. We are broke and bankrupt.

That’s the situation God faced when he considered what to do with the people he created. By rights, God could have condemned us all. And yet what does Paul say? “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

From God’s eternal throne he down on you and I and every human being who has ever and will ever be born in the same way that the king looked on the man who could not pay his debt. And God had mercy and pity. But more than that he had love. We love our friends and our family members and we would all die for them if it came down to it. But God loved us, his enemies, and gave his life to pay our debt so that we might have the opportunity to be his friends.

We didn’t have to clean ourselves up first in order to deserve to be reconciled to him. We didn’t have the resources to deserve it and we still don’t. There were no pre-conditions that we had to meet in order for God to die for us because even if there were we couldn’t have met them. “While we were still sinners,” still debtors, “Christ died for us.’

That’s the purpose of the cross. There God in Jesus cancels our debt forever so that whoever comes before the throne of Christ Jesus and says “Lord, I’m broke. I have nothing. I repent. I surrender. Please forgive me. Come into my life and save me.” will be saved, will be forgiven and justified in God’s sight and not face the final judgment. No matter how enormous your debt, no matter how sinful you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, Jesus died on the cross for you in order to make it possible for you to be reconciled to him, to be not only his servant but his child and his friend; no longer a prisoner to sin or a debtor to God; his beloved child forever.

We’re not only forgiven sinners but in Christ we are also the adopted children of God. That’s what the baptism today signified. Greg gave his life to Jesus Christ and Lorrie too and they are now members of God’s eternal family and ours. Their debt is forgiven, their sins paid for. They are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ and they have been welcomed into his house as a son and a daughter.

And many people sitting here today have also been reconciled in just this way in recent months. You and I and all believers have been forgiven an enormous debt, an eternal debt and I know we’re all thankful. That’s why it’s so difficult to believe what happens in the second half of the story Jesus told, the one I started with this morning.

That evening as the man who had been forgiven his debt by the king was on his way to a restaurant to celebrate his good fortune with some friends, he happened to walk past a man who owed him five dollars. He’d been angry at this man for some time because he’d loaned the money months ago and still hadn’t been paid back. So the man who’d just had his 2 million dollars debt wiped away grabbed the man who owed him 5 bucks by the neck and demanded payment and when he found out the man was broke, he called the police and they threw the man into prison until he could pay off the five dollars.

Can you imagine that? After being forgiven this outrageously large debt, the man doesn’t even have enough mercy in his heart to forgive a piddling 5 dollar charge? Even worse can you imagine that some believers, Christian brothers and sisters, who’ve been forgiven an eternal infinite debt and not just been forgiven, but have had their entire debt paid for by the life and death of Jesus Christ and been adopted into the royal family of God can’t find it in their hearts to forgive?

God died for us even before we asked forgiveness or showed any sort of remorse for what we’d done. What right, what reason do we have for ever withholding love or forgiveness or patience or kindness or mercy to anyone here on earth whether they ask for it or not?

We don’t have any. That’s why Jesus said that believers must be reconciled to one another before they come to the temple because having given his Son to forgive his enemies, God has very little patience with unforgiveness.

There is someone in all of our lives who owes us a debt, maybe an enemy, maybe a “friend,” maybe a family member, maybe even a fellow Christian here this morning. Think of that person. They have sinned against you. And in your heart you’ve been holding this debt against them and wanting to make them pay. God is challenging you and he’s challenging me to forgive them. It’s very simple. Tell God your feelings about this person, tell him what this person has done to you and then say, “Lord you loved me enough to die for me when I did not deserve it. This morning I commit to forgive this person and I‘m asking you to help me.” That’s it. You didn’t deserve forgiveness and this person may not either, but that‘s what God in Christ did for us his enemies and that‘s what he calls us to do for ours. Don’t let another day pass you by. Forgive today just as you have been forgiven.

Amen