This was not an easy sermon to write. As a matter of fact, it was down-right hard. I stayed up even later than usual last night working on this and not because I couldn’t figure out what to say. I guess it was more of a struggle with what I had to say.
For a few weeks now I’ve been thinking about this Sunday. It is, of course, the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. It’s something that I wanted to acknowledge, and we did earlier, but I wasn’t sure how exactly to do that and if I even should at all during the sermon. I decided we would do something early in the service, but that I wouldn’t work it into the sermon.
Then earlier this week I read the scripture for this week. It’s already a difficult passage to hear and even more difficult to live. I think today makes it even more difficult, or maybe it makes today more difficult.
We read the verses before this last week. In that passage Jesus gave the disciples direction on how to handle someone who sinned against them. He told them that they should go to them and talk it out. We talked last week about living with love and humility. After that bit of teaching, Peter has a question. “Jesus, if someone sins against me, how many times should I forgive them?”
I think it’s interesting that Peter doesn’t ask, “Should I forgive them?” No, he wants to know how many times he should forgive. He suggests seven as a possibility. And that raises a question. Does Peter mean that literally? Is he asking Jesus if we should forgive 7 times?
It’s kind of an odd question. Or at least odd to suggest a seemingly random number. Or maybe it’s not such a random number. Seven is a number with meaning. Seven represents perfection. So in essence, Peter is asking, “How should we forgive? Perfectly?”
Jesus’ response isn’t exactly clear. Some translations say 77 times others say 7x70 times. Regardless of the number, Jesus response, like Peter’s question isn’t meant to limit our forgiveness. If Peter asks, “Should our forgiveness be perfect?” Jesus responds, “Your forgiveness should be more than perfect.”
Then Jesus does, as Jesus does. He tells a story. He uses the opportunity to offer a lesson in forgiveness. A servant appears before the king. He owes him some money. A lot of money. One place I read said that a talent is about 15 years’ wages. Another said that a talent was equivalent to 75 pounds of gold. Last I heard gold was selling for over $1850 an ounce, so that means a talent is worth about $2.2 million. This servant owed 10,000 talents. That’s about $22 billion. So, I’m wondering, how does a servant rack up $23 billion in debt? Well, I guess that’s not important. The point is, this man has accrued an insurmountable debt. The king forgives the debt.
Now the servant goes out feeling pretty good about himself, and, of course, completely grateful, right? Or maybe not.
He comes upon a fellow servant who owes him 100 denarii. It was equal to about a day’s pay. Just for comparison’s sake, I’ll try to put this into today’s money also. A denarii weighed about a tenth of an ounce. Silver is worth around $42 an ounce right now. So the servant was owed about $600.
So this servant is forgiven a debt of $22 billion, but will not forgive a debt of $600.
Well, as we read, it ends badly for the servant.
And Jesus tells us the same is true if we do not forgive others. And that is the point of this story. The point of our reading today. We are called to forgive. And think about it, we pray just that every Sunday. We prayed it this morning. “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In other words, we’re asking God to forgive us the same way we forgive others.
So, if we don’t forgive, can we expect to be forgiven?
And this is what’s hard. It is not easy to forgive others. It’s not easy to let go of a wrong.
May 13, 1981 a man sat in St. Peter’s Square and waited. Soon Pope John Paul II rode into the square to greet those gathered there. As the Pope approached the man shot. He was tackled and arrested as Pope John Paul II was driven to the hospital. The Pope lost ¾ of his blood and underwent emergency surgery to remove bullets from his intestines. But before that, he forgave the man. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital he made a conscious decision to forgive his shooter. A few months later he forgave him publicly. And after a couple of years he went to visit the man in prison and forgave him in person. Pope John Paul II wrote this about forgiveness: “The act of forgiveness is the first and fundamental condition so that we aren't divided and placed one against another like enemies. It's important that not even an episode like that of May 13 succeeds in opening an abyss between two men, creating a silence that would result in breaking all forms of communication.”
He saw the importance of forgiveness. He knew that to hold onto any grudge against that man would cut him off from him and you can’t share God’s love with someone if you break all forms of communication. But also I think he knew that as a recipient of God’s grace & mercy, as a forgiven person, he was called to forgive.
But he was the Pope, right. I mean it’s got to be easier for him to forgive someone, because he’s the Pope. What about normal people like us? It’s not easy to forgive others.
And what about today? What does it mean to talk about forgiveness on the 10th anniversary of 9/11? Is that even something we can forgive, or should forgive?
The short answer is, yes. It is.
I’ve spent a lot of this past week watching show after show recounting the events of 9/11. You may have done the same thing. I’m sure I’ll watch more tonight. As I watch, I don’t want to forgive anyone. I want to remember and I want to be mad.
But forgiving does not mean forgetting. If we forgive something like this does it lessen the meaning? To forgive the men who planned and carried out those attacks, does that mean we’re saying it wasn’t so bad after all?
Well, no. It doesn’t mean that at all. Rev. Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn said it this way, “Forgiveness is not denying our hurt. When we minimize what happened to us, gloss over it, tell ourselves that it was not really that bad, we cannot really forgive. Forgiveness is a possibility only when we acknowledge the negative impact of another person’s actions or attitudes in our lives.” In other words, if it didn’t hurt, or if we try to imagine it didn’t hurt, then there’s no need to offer forgiveness. Forgiving does not mean forgetting.
Did you know there are actually health benefits to forgiving people? There have been several studies that show the benefits. According to an article from the Mayo Clinic forgiveness leads to lower blood pressure, less stress, fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, and lower risk of substance abuse. I wonder if Jesus had this in mind when he answered Peter? Jesus knows the effects of holding a grudge against someone. Stress, unresolved anger, ulcers, high blood pressure, bitterness.
Rabbi Hugh Kushner tells a story of a woman in his congregation. She told him about her ex-husband. Because he left her, she and her kids were left with little money or resources. She was bitter because she had to tell her kids that they couldn’t afford to go to the movies while her ex was living it up with his new girlfriend. “You want me to forgive him?” He responded, “I don’t want you to forgive him because what he did was acceptable. I want you to forgive him because he doesn’t deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter angry woman. I want to see him out of your life emotionally like he is physically. You’re not hurting him by holding on, you’re hurting yourself.”
And that’s exactly what we do when we don’t forgive others. We give them power over us. Power to control our emotions. Power to control our fears. Just one more reason to forgive. It’s not to benefit them, it’s not to release them from their actions. It’s to free us. To release ourselves.
Being forgiven demands we forgive. To be forgiven and not forgive others demonstrates a lack of gratitude. Arrogance. God’s mercy & forgiveness is immensely more than our own. The parable had a ratio of 22 billion to 600. That might be too small. Ours can never match. Regardless of the sins against us.
And it is not something that we can do alone. Forgiveness is hard. Pope John Paul II said this about forgiving his shooter: “the possibility of pronouncing [forgiveness] before — in the ambulance that brought me from the Vatican to the Gemelli hospital where the first and decisive surgery was performed — I consider the fruit of a particular grace given to me by Jesus.” He knew there was no way he could forgive that man on his own. It’s no different for us.
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