Year A - Proper 19, September 17, 2023
God Forgave Us First
O God, …mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ …and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.
We live in a time of shared trauma. Fear seems to be a default response to every situation and disdain, if not outright hatred, saturates social interactions. Our technology moves faster than our wisdom or compassion.
In today’s gospel, Jesus urges his disciples to forgive and seek relationship an unreasonable number of times. He teaches to always grant space for mercy. It is a hard teaching, especially today when holding a grudge is a virtue. The parable which follows clarifies: our response to sin is not about the relationship between, but between one’s self and God. We do not forgive a penitent because of their worthiness, we forgive because God forgave us first.
This is a time calling us to pour out grace even when it is not returned. We have a magnificent God who pours out mercy to us. When seek gratitude for this, it makes our days better. If we recognize God’s delight in us, we can accept God’s gifts of love and wonder at Creation.
They are offered freely from God’s heart and can pass through us into the world. Admitting God’s will truly is as simple as loving one other, especially the vulnerable, and living in wonder at Creation, this world would washed in peace.
In the parable, Jesus describes our call to forgive those who wrong us, recalling the indulgent nature of God ~ and Matthew includes a terrifying wrap up. There’s a rich ruler who has a slave crushed by financial debt to the king (ten thousand talents is roughly $10M). The slave begs for mercy and the king expunges the debt entirely to everyone’s amazement. The same slave encounters a peer who owes him about $100 bucks and the forgiven slave offers no mercy.
Everyone listening to this action of the forgiven slave would be appalled and say, “What a dull-headed jerk!” It’s my reaction. The King is our God who is prodigal in eradicating the punishment we deserve by our shortcomings, yet we’re often like the dull-headed jerk.
We are in covenant with God by our baptismal vows. Each time we place something or someone in front of our loyalty to God, we fail our covenant. Every time we take an action that is damaging toward ourselves or others, we fail our covenant. Each moment we abuse the fields and oceans and lakes of Creation that sustain us, we fail our covenant. In the past week I have easily piled up ten thousand talents worth of sin. There is no chance I can be perfect enough or do enough to work that off.
We have a generous God, who trusts us to rise to our best natures. Even through our daily betrayal we are invited to repent and try again. Jesus’s Good News to us is just that: repent, for the reign of God is already present. The incarnation of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth shows us how being human is best when we live for others, love all, and use humility before God as our guiding principle.
Here, we open our hearts in worship, lay our sin bare, and confess. We offer our repentance and are absolved. Our Church teaches the desire to be forgiven allows God’s forgiveness: Jesus will never abandon us.
If God can forgive our daily betrayal, we must work toward forgiveness of others. Think about the dull-headed jerk and consider where we forget the graciousness of God. If we hold resentment, bitterness, or even a grudge, God calls us to release it. Forgiveness brings far more peace than we can imagine. The forgiven slave in the parable could afford to be merciful to his peer because of the king’s mercy. We are called to walk in the Way of Jesus and be an image of God reflecting our peace to a world of trauma, fear, and hatred.
O God, in all things, direct and rule our hearts. Amen.
Dean Vanessa Clark+