First Reading Genesis 50:15-21
15When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” 16So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: 17‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
Psalm Psalm 103:1-12
1Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. 3He forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities; 4He redeems your life from the grave and crowns you with mercy and lovingkindness; 5He satisfies you with good things, and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s. 6The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed. 7He made his ways known to Moses and his works to the children of Israel. 8The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. 9He will not always accuse us, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness. 11For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. 12As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.
Second Reading Romans 14:1-12
1As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. 4Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. 5One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8For 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. 9For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. 10Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” 12So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Gospel Matthew 18:21-35
21Peter came up and said to {Jesus}, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
Measure for Measure
The term we use when we feel that a certain “punishment” fits the “crime” is “Poetic justice!” For example, the bad guy in a movie ends up falling into the trap he set for someone else. A thief ends up losing everything. A murderer who prepares a poison then ends up drinking it themselves. While these make for great plots in fiction, they seldom apply to real life. Or do they?
How about the overprotective mother who in her smothering loses the very daughter she seeks to shield? Or what about the wealthy individual who values accumulating money over building relationships, and who later is surrounded only by their possessions as they battle a terminal illness alone. Or the successful businessman who devotes all their time and energy to their career in order to make a good life for their family, only to lose them all in the process and ends up going on with their lives without them.
How many here remember the famous song by Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle?” In the lyrics, a man is too busy to spend time with his son. When his son grows up, he becomes too busy to spend time with his dad. “Poetic justice.” In the Jewish tradition, this kind of “poetic justice” is called “mid-ah negged-mid-ah,” which means, measure for measure. There are several English phrases we use to say the same thing: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” “You reap what you sow.” “Choice and consequences.” “Tit for tat.” These are all popular phrases that have their core rooted in scripture. But poetic justice most often goes deeper than the results of misguided or selfish decisions.
Stop and consider the results of our sinful human nature. I’ve known a good many people who chose to live lives of not only sinful behavior, but also criminal behavior, and in the process pay a very heavy price. Consider the habitual thief. This is a person that spends their lives taking what doesn’t belong to them. But have you ever stopped to notice that these same people live their lives in fear that someone will steal from them? Or the scam artist; they live in fear that someone is always trying to take advantage of them. Or the person that cheats on their spouse.
These are the ones that live their lives not only with the guilt of adultery, but also live in fear that they themselves are being cheated on. I could go on, but I believe you get the point. Anytime we live lives that are counter to God’s will, we live in fear that the very thing we’re guilty of doing, is the very thing we live in fear of happening to us. As my father was fond of saying, “the law of the harvest is absolute. You will reap what you sow.” Again, some would refer to this truth as poetic justice.
The scriptures are filled with stories that demonstrate “measure for measure.” Jacob substitutes himself for his brother Esau to cheat him out of his birthright. Later, Leah is substituted as a wife for her sister Rachel by Jacob’s uncle. Pharaoh decrees that all Israelite boys two years and under be drowned in the river Nile. Later the Pharaoh suffers the same fate when the angel of death is sent by God, during the final plague to kill all the first born, not only of the Egyptian people, but of their animals alike. Then the Pharaoh’s army drowns in the Red Sea chasing the Israelites into the desert.
Haman constructs a gallows to kill the Jew Mordechai (Ester 3-6). In the end he’s the one hanged on his own gallows due to Queen Esther’s ingenuity in revealing his plot. However, here’s the catch. Too often, we mistake the idea of “measure for measure,” for revenge. Measure for measure yields the natural consequences of our deeds, which often reflects back upon us, or are reflected back upon us by God; revenge is different.
Mid-ah negged-mid-ah is not revenge. We must not confuse the two: the natural consequence of our deeds and revenge are two very different things. Think of it this way. Let’s say someone has a bad habit of stealing your lawnmower gas. Measure for measure says that the person is caught by the police and are punished according to the law. The punishment they receive is the consequence of their actions. However, if someone plots to “create” a consequence by booby trapping the gas and the person is injured for stealing the gas, this is not measure for measure. That’s revenge. And that’s sinful in God’s sight.
In Deuteronomy (32:35) God tells the people through Moses, “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.” Paul restates God’s words in Romans (12:19) when he wrote, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Remember Jesus’ encounter with the woman accused of adultery?
Jesus challenges those accusing her, “he who is without sin can throw the first stone” (John 8:7). Jesus takes this teaching one step further in our gospel lesson for today. When Peter asks Jesus, “Lord how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive Him. As many as seven times?” Jesus responds with, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Now for those like me who are mathematically challenged, let me make the math easy. When you read this passage, don’t think seventy times seven, instead think of forgiving an infinite amount of times!
Jesus is trying to “correct” the disciples’ understanding of mid-ah negged-mid-ah. In fact, Jesus in St. Luke’s gospel turns this whole thing upside down; Jesus said, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Luke 6:37-38).
Here Jesus doesn’t negate the Jewish idea of mid-ah negged-mid-ah. But like many of His teachings, He re-interprets it. Actually, and more correctly, He accurately interprets for them the proper way to understand it. Jesus explains that only God can judge. Their job in the sense of measure for measure isn’t to dole out punishments, retributions, judgments, and revenge, but instead, our role is to dole out love, forgiveness, mercy, and grace. You know, treat others as you would have them treat you.
One of the pastors in our pericope group this past Tuesday brough up another one of Jesus’ teachings that I think was very appropriate to add here. In the final part of His sermon on the mount, Jesus instructs us to, “Stop judging, so that you won’t be judged, because the way that you judge others will be the way that you will be judged, and you will be evaluated by the standard with which you evaluate others.” Then He asked a very pointed question, “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when the beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” This of course brings me to the part of the Lord’s Prayer that few people like to pray.
In the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “andforgive us our sins, to the degree that we forgive others.” Truth be told, very few of us like to really think about that little word “as” in that petition. Oh sure we love to pray the first part, “forgive me”, it’s that second part that we don’t like. But consider this, maybe the reason we really don’t like to think about this little word as is, because every time we pray that prayer, we’re asking God to treat us the same way we treat others, to judge us based on our judgments of others, to bestow upon us the mercy that we’re willing to bestow upon others.
We’re asking God to impose upon us the just consequences for our thoughts and actions. Reread verse 35 of our Matthew reading for today, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” I hope you really consider this verse hard as we pray the Lord’s Prayer later in the service. Jesus’ parable today about forgiving sins and debts is a powerful one. If we expect and yearn to be forgiven, we too must be willing to forgive.
I’d like for us to consider Jesus’ parable today in a different way. I want us to read this story with us in it. Think about this story in this way: God is the King of a mighty realm. You can also think of this story in relation to the Creation story. God comes to a large valley where chaos and darkness reigns. By His own power He changes this dismal and desolate place into a paradise. In His goodness He places you and me to watch over and care for His kingdom. In our charge to care He also give us charge over His resources, in this case ten thousand talents, an immeasurable sum, a sum we could never repay.
This immeasurable amount of talents entrusted to us are to be used for the kingdom and at some point God will call us to Him to account for how we’ve used what has been entrusted to us. When we cannot fully account for how we use those gifts, we then see how God forgives those who have a repentant heart. Again, we have no problem with the story up to this point. It’s the second part of the story that disturbs us.
We don’t like the thought of being punished for misusing God’s gifts, but we do love the mercy God shows us when we ask for forgiveness. This is the “as” past of the story. The forgiven man leaves and runs into someone indebted to him. He runs into someone who has wronged him in a much smaller way, in a way that in comparison (10,000 times vs. 100 times) is easily forgivable. Instead of showing the other person the same kind of mercy, he treats the man cruelly and refuses to forgive. The warning given here by Jesus is very clear and very direct.
What did Jesus say happened to the first man? The King withdrew His forgiveness and turned him over to the jailers until he could pay the debt. When you look up the word jailers in the Greek, it actually means torturers. Again, I want verse 35 to ring in our ears, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” The price we could pay for refusing to forgive will be very great. Jesus referred to the place of punishment as a place of “wailing and gnashing of teeth,” “a place where the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched,” “a place of darkness” (Matt. 22:13, Mark 9:48, Matt. 25:30). The price of refusing to forgive is an eternity in hell.
Back in Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus teaches His disciple how to pray, Jesus concludes that prayer with this promise found in verse 14, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” Here in our gospel lesson Jesus expands this teaching one step further, Jesus tells us that we must “forgive from the heart.” Think about this for a moment.
Often, we say we forgive someone, but what actually happens is the relationship is not restored. Instead of forgiving from the heart, we instead hold on to the hurt and we secretly wish revenge on that person, we want an eye for an eye, for the wrong they have committed. But when we truly forgive from the heart, our desire is to let the hurt go and to restore the relationship that has been damaged. Yes, this restoration takes time. At times we’ll need to pray for God’s help in forgiving the other. But when we forgive from the heart, our desire is to work toward reconciliation, to give the offending person another chance, without reservation or without a desire for revenge. Forgiveness from the heart is never easy, but it is what’s expected of us.
When it comes our turn to kneel before God and confess our sins, do we really want God to bestow upon us the fair share for what we’ve done? Will any of us say to God, “God give me exactly what I deserve?” Or will we instead plead for God’s mercy and forgiveness and grace? My guess is that each one of us wants God’s mercy and forgiveness because as in Jesus’ story, we owe a debt that none of us will ever be able to repay, not in 150,000 years.
Jesus knew how hard it is for us to carry out God’s command of mercy and forgiveness, measure for measure. So Jesus set aside His place in heaven and came to made the ultimate sacrifice. He gave His own life, so that we could receive freely God’s forgiveness and mercy, despite our failings. Each and every time we truly pray the Lord’s Prayer, we’re silently asking God to aid us in our attempts to live the way we should, to help us “Forgive us our sins, to the degree that we forgive others.” My hope is that the 5th petition of the Lord’s Prayer will, from here on out, wake us up and chill our bones, and cause us to be everlastingly grateful for Jesus’ sacrificial gift of salvation grace. And with that thankful heart, go and extend that same love and forgiveness to others, that we can forgive AS we have been forgiven.
Amen.
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