Bible Text: Matthew 18:21-35 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: The Beatitudes | Our key verse this morning is, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”  You may be familiar with the Greek phrase, “Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison”—Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.  The word mercy in the Greek is “eleison”, which means unbinding.  If we think of the word liaison, that’s a connection, right?  Liasons bind us together; e-leison is the opposite.  Mercy unbinds.  Any time we do something to help another person get unbound, get set free, experience a loosening and lightening, we are bestowing mercy.  Even a cup of cold water given in Christ’s name is an act of mercy.

Jesus promises that being merciful brings about a blessing in our lives—a sacred gift.  We will become unbound as well!  By being merciful and unbinding others, we receive mercy and get set free and set right.  If there is any one reason I fell in love with Jesus, it’s mercy.  God is always at work, unbinding us, releasing us, helping us to break free from the things that tie us up.

Last week we talked about Jesus calling us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, and how Jesus promises that we will be filled if we desire and crave both personal piety and social holiness.  We are called to hunger and thirst for justice.  But Jesus did not want our hunger and thirst for righteousness to turn into self-righteousness!  Jesus did not want us to become sanctimonious or judgmental.  Instead righteousness should lead to mercy because, as our hunger and thirst for righteousness grows, we become more aware of the ways we have fallen short.  We become more aware of our need for grace.  God wants to ferment that awareness into a mindset we call mercy.  Unbinding.  Loosening.  Setting free.

The concepts of justice and mercy are closely connected and equally important, although sometimes it feels like they at odds with each other, like sixes and sevens.  Just a few verses before our gospel lesson began this morning, Jesus gave a mini sermon on how to get along with fellow believers.  Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and talk to him about it, just the two of you.  If he won’t listen, go and talk to him again, but this time take along one or two other trusted individuals.  Really try to work it out, Jesus seems to be saying.  But if after all of that, they persist in sinning against you, you’ve got to tell the whole church, and if that person refuses to listen to the whole church, then you’ve got every right to throw him out of the congregation.

I wanted to point that passage out for a couple of reasons.  One is it sets the backdrop for Peter’s question, just how many times do we have to forgive?  But the other reason is that we need to be clear exactly what forgiveness is.  After all, if Jesus is asking us to forgive and to forgive fully, we need to know, just what does that entail?  From verses 15-17 then we can see that forgiveness is not the same as tolerance.  It does not mean we allow someone else to mistreat us time and time again.  A couple of weeks ago I told you a joke about the new organization forming called the DOORMATS, the Dependent Organization of Really Meek and Timid Souls.  Christians are not called to be doormats, and we have direct instructions from Jesus to confront any brother or sister in Christ who sins against us.  We have direct instructions to hold people accountable and insist on a change in behavior.  I am not saying this is anyone’s favorite thing to do.  But sometimes the wolves we need protection from are right here in our flock, in our own families, in our own congregations, and Jesus makes provision for that.

Forgiveness does not mean tolerance.  It does not mean allowing yourself to be mistreated.  I want to make that very clear.  If you are in a relationship where someone is mistreating you, and they justify their bad behavior and call on you to forgive them–but they take no responsibility for what they are doing wrong, that is not love.  Letting people off the hook so they can hurt us again is not mercy.  That is not Jesus’ desire for us.  We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If someone is hurting you, you are obligated out of love for yourself to protect yourself.

Christians are allowed—no, we are expected–to set limits about the behavior we will tolerate.  We are not called to be doormats.  We are not called to be punching bags.  Jesus insists that we set limits.  But Jesus also insists that we forgive from the heart.  Hmmm…setting limits and putting your foot down in church but doing that in a merciful way???  That sounds like something Christians have probably always struggled with!  So Peter asks a very logical follow-up question:  just how many times do I have to forgive?  Seven times?

Seven times seems like a pretty generous offer, doesn’t it?  I mean, if someone stole $20 out of your wallet, you might overlook if the first time and say, well they must really need it, or they wouldn’t steal from me.  But would you let them do it six more times?  Probably not!  I never have $140 in my wallet anyway, so no one could steal $20 from me seven times.  But you know what I mean.  If we are violated once, we might overlook it.  The second time, we’re probably going to respond.  The third time?  Hopefully by then we will figure out a safer place to keep our wallet.  But what will we do with our bitterness, our anger, and our desire to get even?  Not just seven times, Jesus says, but seventy-seven times, we are to let that anger, resentment, and bitterness go.  In other words, if you are keeping score, if you are counting how many times you have forgiven, you are missing the point of forgiveness in the first place.

Jesus tells this ridiculous story to illustrate his point.  Once upon a time there was a servant who owed the king ten thousand talents.  Now, ten thousand talents was an exorbitant amount of money.  One talent was equal to fifteen years’ wages for a manual laborer.  Fifteen years wages times ten thousand talents equals 150,000 years worth of gross pay!  No single person could ever pay a debt of 150,000 years’ salary!  But Jesus doesn’t mean this number literally.  The talent was their largest unit of money, and ten thousand was the largest figure anyone in Jesus’ day counted up to.  In other words, he is using the largest number that could be possibly given, like we might talk about whatever is beyond billions in our money.

The servant owed ten thousand talents, a sum so big, there are only two choices:  take away the servant’s life, or forgive the debt.  Getting the money repaid is not an option.  There is no way he could ever come up with 150,000 years’ worth of wages.  We might wonder, how did it come to pass that the servant owed so much?  What was the master thinking, allowing that debt to get out of control like that.  We don’t know.  But instead of taking the servant’s life and condemning him for being so irresponsible, the king took pity on the servant, and simply forgave the debt.  He wiped the slate clean.  No more worrying and trying to scrimp and save and work it off as best the servant king.  Nope, no extra effort required at all.  The king cancelled the debt, and the servant was free and clear.

Can you imagine how that would feel, to have an exorbitant debt like that just wiped clean?  The entire debt, way more than he could ever repay, was forgiven.  Adios!  Outta here!  Gone, gone, gone.  If it were me, I’d probably throw a party!  Steaks tonight for everyone!  Which of course, would get me right back on the spending more than I can afford pattern.  But don’t you think the experience of having such a huge weight lifted from you would inspire some kind of flagrant display of appreciation and generosity and gratitude?

But in Jesus’ story, that’s not what happens.  Instead of becoming more gracious and generous, the forgiven servant turns mean!  He starts to choke his fellow servant and demand to be paid 100 denari.  Remember, the first servant, he got forgiven more than a lifetime’s worth of wages.  You think he couldn’t care less about 100 denari, which was about 100 days’ wages for an average worker.  Let’s see:  150,000 years of wages, versus 100 days’.  No one wants to go without their pay for 100 days.  But compared to what he has just been forgiven, in the grand scheme of things, this is simply, as they say in accounting, not a significant amount. Let it go!  But he doesn’t.  The first servant had the second man thrown in jail until he could repay the debt, which was basically like a life sentence.  If he’s in jail, how is he supposed to earn the money to pay back the debt?

From our vantage point, we can easily say, “Stupid Servant #1!”  You got 150,000 years worth of wages forgiven, and now you can’t even forgive 100 days?  How could you be so mean, so stingy, so willing to punish someone for a small problem when you were just forgiven a debt far larger?

Mercy starts when we name the truth about ourselves.   As human beings we are capable of such beauty and heroism and noble acts!  We are given amazing gifts, and the power to develop them if we choose, and when we operate out of the best of ourselves, God is glorified in that!  But we are also capable of some pretty dark stuff.  We might not do many mean things, but even thinking mean thoughts about someone else is darkness and a problem in God’s eyes.  We might not ever actually steal or commit adultery, but even wishing for what someone else has is a problem in God’s eyes.  We might not ever commit murder, but Jesus said that even if we call someone a fool, we have committed murder in our hearts.  Spend even a few minutes on social media, and you will see, we are a nation of murderers in God’s eyes.  The true weight of our sin is so heavy, without God’s grace we would not even be able to stand.  We are not pure in heart.  We are not wholly motivated by love and goodness and peace and shalom.  We are not good enough on our own.  We have a debt we simply cannot repay.

But God does not want anyone stuck in a life sentence.  God wants us to be released.  God wants us to be whole!  So God does the only thing that makes sense:  God forgives us.  God offers us a place in his kingdom as if we didn’t owe him anything at all.  God loosens any claims God might have against us and sets us free.  And, in light of that, God is calling us to release any claims we might have against our brothers and sisters, and set them free.

And when we do that, when we extend mercy, we receive mercy in return.  Forgiveness sets us free to become who we are meant to be, and sets others free to become who they are meant to be.  It’s like loosening a tourniquet.  The blood flow might not be restored immediately.  Forgiveness from the heart rarely happens all at once.  But as we work to get that part of our souls unbound, as we let the blood of Christ flow through us, we become more free, more alive, more joyful.  We get a blessing, a sacred gift from God.

Forgiveness is an act that can be chosen.  It is not dependent on us “feeling” like it.  Mercy is based on truth.  It takes into account the truth of God’s nature, which is exorbitant love and generosity toward us.  But it also takes into account the truth of human nature, which is a mixed bag at best.  Mercy requires us to forgive from the heart.  But mercy does not deny the wrongs done; it is brave enough to name them.  Mercy does not tolerate bad behavior; it is brave enough to stand up to it.  Mercy does not insist on some kind of fake reconciliation; it is brave enough to set boundaries and keep distance if need be.  Mercy is the power to make all things new, in God’s time, through God’s almighty hand.

I look around out our world today and can’t think of a more appropriate prayer than the ancient Kyrie:  Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.  Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Unbind us, Lord, and set us free.  Amen.