Sermon Sunday September 14 2008
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter asks Jesus how many times should he forgive his brother when he sins against him. Peter suggests what he probably thought was a pretty gracious figure; seven times. And when you think about it, why wouldn’t he have thought that was a gracious figure? As human beings, we’re big on giving second chances. In fact, there is a saying that goes "Everyone deserves a second chance."
A second chance, yes; but we tend to think that if we are anymore gracious than that then we run the risk of allowing someone to walk all over us. In fact, I believe there is also a saying that says "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."
But the answer that our Lord Jesus gives to Peter is one that would fly in the face of such a self-focused world view. Indeed Peter’s suggestion of forgiving someone seven times would no doubt have seemed very gracious to him, and I am sure it would seem overly gracious to some today. But Jesus answers Peter in a way that shows that Peter clearly just isn’t getting it, even if his suggestion does show more grace than Peter’s contemporaries would have been willing to show. Peter’s problem was not that he had the wrong amount, but that he thought such a thing as how much our Lord calls us to forgive a repentant sinner, could be calculated.
One could probably speculate that Joseph from the Old Testament lesson might have asked a similar question. Joseph might have wondered, with everything that his brothers had put him through, in all the ways that they sinned against him, does he have to forgive them all at once for the wrongs that they did, or can he forgive them some of it but still hold a grudge for some of the things that were harder to forgive? And really, considering that his brothers tried kill him but then sold him into slavery, but told their father Jacob that Joseph had died, who could blame Joseph for possibly holding onto some grudges?
And as the Old Testament lesson opens, it appears that Joseph’s brothers feared that Joseph would choose to hold onto some grudges. They seem to suspect that Joseph might have been just holding out and waiting for his father to die before he tried to settle the score with his brothers. Joseph’s grudge had a long time to simmer in his heart.
Joseph’s brothers probably wouldn’t have been surprised, and they probably would have felt it would have been perfectly just, for Joseph to act like the slave in the parable that Jesus recounts for the disciples; the slave who after having been completely forgiven of the debt that he owed the king, was not able to do likewise for someone who owed him a fraction of the amount that he had owed the king.
That is how we work. We all just naturally think in the same way as that slave. We are not naturally inclined toward love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We are naturally inclined to get what is ours. We are naturally inclined toward getting what we think we have coming to us. If anything it is thought of as a sign of weakness to show grace, mercy, and forgiveness in our culture.
I think that is why television shows like Law and Order and CSI are so popular; because they operate on a fairly simple premise. Somebody is hurt or even killed by someone else. Experts in various fields of investigation, depending on the show, gather evidence, they find out who is responsible for the crime, and the person pays for the crime. It is a simple formula, and we like it, because there is not a lot of room for mercy and grace in those shows. For 60 minutes while we watch these shows we are allowed to judge, and belittle, and scorn, and exalt ourselves above the dastardly perpetrator of whatever fictional crime they happen to be investigating that week.
And I believe that is a reflection of our human relationships. Too often our human relationships are boiled down simply to a matter of settling accounts. We spend too much time focusing on how we believe that we have been wronged and how we can make it right. And the more we do this, the more we become curved in toward ourselves. And it is not just limited to when we believe we have been wronged. It also affects how we behave when we are the one who has wronged someone else.
When grace, mercy, and forgiveness are taken off the table in our human relationships then all that is left is trying to figure out how to even the score. And when you are the person who has sinned against someone, and we have all been in that group and probably put ourselves there every day in one way or another, then the only recourse is to fear the inevitable backlash for your actions or to simply live in denial of the destructive nature of our sin.
But again, when how we relate to each other is merely a matter of settling scores then we just remain curved in toward ourselves. But we are not called to be curved in toward ourselves, for when are then we run the risk of forgetting where we stand before God. What this means is that failing to forgive as we have been forgiven by our Lord does not merely affect our human relationships it affects our relationship with our Lord. And in the parable we can see the result of failing to forgive when the unforgiving slave was handed over to be tortured until his entire debt was paid. And Jesus tells us in His Word that His Heavenly Father will do the same to us if we fail to forgive our brother or sister from our heart.
And so we go back to Joseph and we can see that Joseph was a man who knew where he stood with God. Joseph was a man who understood that for all God’s people, not only is grace and forgiveness a part of how our Lord relates to us but rather our relationship with our Lord is defined by grace and forgiveness. That is why Joseph was able to forgive his brothers for everything that they had done to him. And when Joseph explained to his brothers that what they had intended to harm Joseph, God had intended for good, he showed that, like Paul writing in the lesson from Romans today, Joseph understood that whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s.
And as abundant and everflowing as the love of God must have seemed to Joseph, it was merely a reflection of what was still to come. Joseph had no doubt seen and experienced God’s amazing grace, but it was a glimpse of how our Lord would reveal that amazing love, grace, mercy, and compassion for all God’s people to see.
Once you realize the extravagance of God’s forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus, then you have no room in your heart for grudges. Just as it was Joseph’s desire to forgive his brothers, forgiveness of your neighbor becomes something you desire when you truly know the joy of forgiveness that comes in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
His brothers begged him for forgiveness, but there was no need, because Joseph’s response shows that any grudge that he held toward his brothers had long since been let go. And so it should be for you. In the waters of baptism you were claimed by your Lord Christ Jesus and marked with His cross which declares to the world that whether you live or whether you die, you are the Lord’s.
This does not mean of course that we are to forget our sins. We are never to forget that we are sinners and that it is for our sins that Christ Jesus laid down His life. And it is exactly to that promise and refuge of Christ that we run when the law condemns us of our sin. And so no matter what the devil throws at us; our Lord comes to us everyday in His Word, accusing us with the law, exposing us for the sinners that we are, driving us to our knees in confession and repentance, but then lifting us up in grace, mercy, and forgiveness with the sweet Gospel of the abundant and extravagant love shown us in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
And just as with Joseph, that is how forgiveness springs from the heart to the lips to merciful action toward your neighbor. Jesus’ response to Peter’s question of how many times we are to forgive our brother was "seventy-seven times." Of course he didn’t literally mean 77, he meant our call to forgive is limitless. It is limitless because the forgiveness we receive is limitless in that we are in a constant state of confession and forgiveness. We are constantly receiving the forgiveness of our Lord in Word and sacrament, and in that the forgiveness that our Lord demands of us is brought forth in our words and actions toward each other and our neighbor.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter asks Jesus how many times should he forgive his brother when he sins against him. Peter suggests what he probably thought was a pretty gracious figure; seven times. And when you think about it, why wouldn’t he have thought that was a gracious figure? As human beings, we’re big on giving second chances. In fact, there is a saying that goes "Everyone deserves a second chance."
A second chance, yes; but we tend to think that if we are anymore gracious than that then we run the risk of allowing someone to walk all over us. In fact, I believe there is also a saying that says "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."
But the answer that our Lord Jesus gives to Peter is one that would fly in the face of such a self-focused world view. Indeed Peter’s suggestion of forgiving someone seven times would no doubt have seemed very gracious to him, and I am sure it would seem overly gracious to some today. But Jesus answers Peter in a way that shows that Peter clearly just isn’t getting it, even if his suggestion does show more grace than Peter’s contemporaries would have been willing to show. Peter’s problem was not that he had the wrong amount, but that he thought such a thing as how much our Lord calls us to forgive a repentant sinner, could be calculated.
One could probably speculate that Joseph from the Old Testament lesson might have asked a similar question. Joseph might have wondered, with everything that his brothers had put him through, in all the ways that they sinned against him, does he have to forgive them all at once for the wrongs that they did, or can he forgive them some of it but still hold a grudge for some of the things that were harder to forgive? And really, considering that his brothers tried kill him but then sold him into slavery, but told their father Jacob that Joseph had died, who could blame Joseph for possibly holding onto some grudges?
And as the Old Testament lesson opens, it appears that Joseph’s brothers feared that Joseph would choose to hold onto some grudges. They seem to suspect that Joseph might have been just holding out and waiting for his father to die before he tried to settle the score with his brothers. Joseph’s grudge had a long time to simmer in his heart.
Joseph’s brothers probably wouldn’t have been surprised, and they probably would have felt it would have been perfectly just, for Joseph to act like the slave in the parable that Jesus recounts for the disciples; the slave who after having been completely forgiven of the debt that he owed the king, was not able to do likewise for someone who owed him a fraction of the amount that he had owed the king.
That is how we work. We all just naturally think in the same way as that slave. We are not naturally inclined toward love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We are naturally inclined to get what is ours. We are naturally inclined toward getting what we think we have coming to us. If anything it is thought of as a sign of weakness to show grace, mercy, and forgiveness in our culture.
I think that is why television shows like Law and Order and CSI are so popular; because they operate on a fairly simple premise. Somebody is hurt or even killed by someone else. Experts in various fields of investigation, depending on the show, gather evidence, they find out who is responsible for the crime, and the person pays for the crime. It is a simple formula, and we like it, because there is not a lot of room for mercy and grace in those shows. For 60 minutes while we watch these shows we are allowed to judge, and belittle, and scorn, and exalt ourselves above the dastardly perpetrator of whatever fictional crime they happen to be investigating that week.
And I believe that is a reflection of our human relationships. Too often our human relationships are boiled down simply to a matter of settling accounts. We spend too much time focusing on how we believe that we have been wronged and how we can make it right. And the more we do this, the more we become curved in toward ourselves. And it is not just limited to when we believe we have been wronged. It also affects how we behave when we are the one who has wronged someone else.
When grace, mercy, and forgiveness are taken off the table in our human relationships then all that is left is trying to figure out how to even the score. And when you are the person who has sinned against someone, and we have all been in that group and probably put ourselves there every day in one way or another, then the only recourse is to fear the inevitable backlash for your actions or to simply live in denial of the destructive nature of our sin.
But again, when how we relate to each other is merely a matter of settling scores then we just remain curved in toward ourselves. But we are not called to be curved in toward ourselves, for when are then we run the risk of forgetting where we stand before God. What this means is that failing to forgive as we have been forgiven by our Lord does not merely affect our human relationships it affects our relationship with our Lord. And in the parable we can see the result of failing to forgive when the unforgiving slave was handed over to be tortured until his entire debt was paid. And Jesus tells us in His Word that His Heavenly Father will do the same to us if we fail to forgive our brother or sister from our heart.
And so we go back to Joseph and we can see that Joseph was a man who knew where he stood with God. Joseph was a man who understood that for all God’s people, not only is grace and forgiveness a part of how our Lord relates to us but rather our relationship with our Lord is defined by grace and forgiveness. That is why Joseph was able to forgive his brothers for everything that they had done to him. And when Joseph explained to his brothers that what they had intended to harm Joseph, God had intended for good, he showed that, like Paul writing in the lesson from Romans today, Joseph understood that whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s.
And as abundant and everflowing as the love of God must have seemed to Joseph, it was merely a reflection of what was still to come. Joseph had no doubt seen and experienced God’s amazing grace, but it was a glimpse of how our Lord would reveal that amazing love, grace, mercy, and compassion for all God’s people to see.
Once you realize the extravagance of God’s forgiveness through the death and resurrection of Jesus, then you have no room in your heart for grudges. Just as it was Joseph’s desire to forgive his brothers, forgiveness of your neighbor becomes something you desire when you truly know the joy of forgiveness that comes in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
His brothers begged him for forgiveness, but there was no need, because Joseph’s response shows that any grudge that he held toward his brothers had long since been let go. And so it should be for you. In the waters of baptism you were claimed by your Lord Christ Jesus and marked with His cross which declares to the world that whether you live or whether you die, you are the Lord’s.
This does not mean of course that we are to forget our sins. We are never to forget that we are sinners and that it is for our sins that Christ Jesus laid down His life. And it is exactly to that promise and refuge of Christ that we run when the law condemns us of our sin. And so no matter what the devil throws at us; our Lord comes to us everyday in His Word, accusing us with the law, exposing us for the sinners that we are, driving us to our knees in confession and repentance, but then lifting us up in grace, mercy, and forgiveness with the sweet Gospel of the abundant and extravagant love shown us in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
And just as with Joseph, that is how forgiveness springs from the heart to the lips to merciful action toward your neighbor. Jesus’ response to Peter’s question of how many times we are to forgive our brother was "seventy-seven times." Of course he didn’t literally mean 77, he meant our call to forgive is limitless. It is limitless because the forgiveness we receive is limitless in that we are in a constant state of confession and forgiveness. We are constantly receiving the forgiveness of our Lord in Word and sacrament, and in that the forgiveness that our Lord demands of us is brought forth in our words and actions toward each other and our neighbor.
Amen
posted by Steve at 10:15 PM
1 Comments:
This one was just too long. You ended up spending alot of time explaining the texts and lost the opportunity to really hit them hard with the text. It was very hard to follow.
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