Sermon by Revd Caroline Risdon
14th Sunday after Trinity, 13 September 2020
Matthew 18. 21-35
You can hear an audio recording of the sermon here
Loving God we give you thanks for the gift of your word, the grace of the sacrament and the fellowship of your people. Amen.
Today's Gospel reading brings us straight to the heart of the difficult topic of forgiveness. I say difficult because as C.S Lewis writes, “Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until there is something to forgive.” It can be as hard to offer forgiveness to someone as it is to receive forgiveness from someone.
So what is God trying to teach us through today's readings?
In the parable, the King forgives his slave an extraordinary amount. Ten thousand talents is about 3000 years of work at the ordinary daily wage. Having compassion on the servant's situation, the King forgives him; the debt is released. The forgiven man however meets someone who owes him 100 denarii, about three months of work at the ordinary daily wage. Does he, out of joy at being forgiven his own extremely large debt, forgive this man who owes him comparatively little? No. The forgiven servant has his debtor thrown into jail.
Forgiveness is an interesting word. In the Greek, it has something to do with putting away or even sending away. But in English, French and German, the word 'forgive' is about the person. It is an action we take towards someone or they take towards us. Forgiving is really about giving someone's life back to them; freeing them; releasing them. When we are in a state of not being forgiven, we are tied to or bound to the person who has wronged us. Forgiveness sets us free.
Later in this service, we are going to say the Lord's prayer together, which includes the request for God to forgive us as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We pray those words with ease and familiarity but do we live out our prayer? God’s forgiveness and human forgiveness are integrally related but not according to this formula; “forgive me as I've forgiven others.” Put more correctly we should say something like “as you have forgiven me, so may I forgive others.”
Forgiveness is really a state of being. If we can learn to grow in love and trust with one another, we can live in a state of forgiveness. We can set one another free from the burden of expectation and pressure and, in this freedom, we can be totally ourselves. What might that be like... for our intimate relationships? For our Church community?
The real lesson from our Gospel this week is that forgiveness doesn't begin with us; it begins with God. We do not choose to forgive. We only choose to share the forgiveness we have already received. It is the letting go of the thoughts, the hatred, the fear that fill us so that we might live and love again. The concept of breathe is helpful here- just as we cannot breath in oxygen unless we breath out carbon dioxide; so we cannot breath in forgiveness unless we breath out all that is noxious and holds us back.
Forgiveness does not mean we forget, condone, or approve of what was done. It does not mean we ignore or excuse cruelty or injustice. Last week's reading encourages us to take responsibility and loving action when someone wrongs us. The act of forgiveness is not a passive one of letting people get away with something. It is a proactive step- we let go of revenge. We loose the ties that bind us. We look to the future rather than the past.
The late Maya Angelou used this constant refrain in her interactions with people, “I forgive you; I forgive myself.” Can I encourage you this week to pray about someone you may need to forgive and to pray about something that you may need to seek forgiveness for? Can we each move a little way towards freeing ourselves and others from the hurt we may carry with us? Difficult though it may be, forgiveness is the way in which we move towards the fulness of life God promises.
AMEN.
Revd Caroline Risdon, 12/09/2020