Let us begin with a word of prayer:

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on each of us.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on each of us.
Take us
Use us
Fill us
Mold us
Spirit of the Living God
Fall afresh on each of us.
In the spirit of Jesus our brother, friend and Lord.  Amen.

This is our text for the morning.
Peter, often the spokesperson for the other eleven, comes to Jesus and asks: “Lord, if another member of the church, or in some translations, if my brother or sister, sins against me, how often shall I forgive?  As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, :”Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy seven times, or in the footnote in the NRSV Bible, seventy times seven.”

Which is to say, an unlimited number of times.

Jesus then tells the parable of the unforgiving servant: A man owed his kind a very large debt – ten thousand talents.  One talent was worth more than fifteen years’ wags.

The king forgave this fellow this enormous debt. Whereupon the one forgiven this huge debt comes upon a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii.  The denarius was the usual day’s wage for a laborer. He refuses to forgive this much smaller debt and has him thrown into prison.

When the king hears this, he summons the man and says to him:  “I forgave you all the debt because you pleaded with me:  Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?  And in his anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.  Jesus says, “So my heavenly father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

It is interesting that those last words of our Lord are omitted from the recommended lectionary reading of the morning.  Apparently, you are not to be disturbed contemplating the consequences of an unforgiving heart and left wondering what happened to gentle Jesus, meek and mild. But it does capture, does it not, the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  There is always the implication of dreadful consequences if we refuse to forgive as we have been forgiven.

Small wonder then that we find the clergy person in Stephen Carter’s best-selling novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park, praying at grave side:  “O Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, we pray thee to set thy passion, cross and death, between thy judgment and our souls.”

The parable of the unforgiving servant is the lectionary reading for today.  I suspect you know that the lectionary is a selection of readings for each Sunday of the church year. I usually, but not always, follow the lectionary.  There are several advantages: The congregation is exposed to a wide range of scripture during the course of the year and not entirely dependent on the choice of the preacher. Also, your Christian sisters and brothers are hearing the same scriptures, so you can discuss them on Monday morning.

Often, as is the case today, the preacher does not so much chose the scripture as is chosen by it.

Why else would one bring a word on forgiveness to people he has never met? But as I wrestled with the text, it became clear that there is a word here which will speak to our hearts and to our life together as we begin [this] wonderful journey.

“Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church, or my sister or brother, sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?’  Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but I tell you seventy seven times.’”

Forgiveness is a painful word for some here this morning, for it touches the broken places in our lives:  a parent, a sibling, a friend, a neighbor, a partner, a spouse, someone at work, from whom we are alienated and estranged. Painful as that is, nothing is more painful than wanting to be reconciled, to forgive and heal the hurt, and being continually rejected.  The phone calls not returned, the letters unanswered, the birthday gifts sent back marked “return to sender.”

The words of Jesus challenge us and call us this morning to the difficult and demanding work of forgiveness.  Is it an impossible challenge? To forgive as we have been forgiven, to be gracious as God has been gracious to you. Garret Keizer in his article “The Other Side of Rage” in a recent issue of the Christian Century (July 31-August 13, 2002) observes:  “forgiveness doesn’t come naturally. . .how can we even begin to forgive in a world like this one?  How to forgive September 11?  He goes on to say, “It is apparent that oftentimes anger is a necessary and needed response to the injustice of the world as well as to personal injury.  When in my work as a pastor wounded people come to me with the confession that they cannot forgive, I do not tell them to try harder or to move forward. .I ask them to pray for the grace to forgive.

But before asking God for the grace to forgive, a person might think to give thanks for the grace to be angry. . .forgiveness is the scar, and it comes later.  Anger comes first, and like all created things it is good.”  (p.23ff)

Saint Paul put it so well: “Be angry, but do not let the sun go down on your anger.  Do not go to sleep angry.”  And you are not to be like the fellow who after fighting with his spouse said, “I haven’t slept in a month.”

Abraham Lincoln stands as one who discovered the grace to forgive and who overcame anger. My summer reading has included two excellent books about President Lincoln, April 1865, the Month That Saved America, by Jay Winik, and Lincoln’s greatest speech, The Second Inaugural, by Ronald White Jr. In both these books Lincoln’s willingness to forgive stands in sharp contrast to that of most of his contemporaries. Instead of revenge, Lincoln called for compassion. Standing on the steps of the Capitol, March 4, 1865, he said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, for his widow and his orphan.”

Lincoln challenged all Americans to move beyond revenge and to live up to a greater, larger and better vision.  “A just and lasting peace .”

“Lord, if another member of the church or if my sister or brother sin against me, how often shall I forgive, as many as seven times?”  Jesus says, “Forgive as God has forgiven you.  Be gracious as God has been gracious to you.” These words may well have been spoken in the sunshine of a Galilean morning; they were lived out in the darkness and agony of the cross, by the one who said in the hour of his death, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

This is a word spoken for our personal benefit.  It is not healthy to go through life nursing your grudges and hugging your hurts. For our own spiritual, physical and mental health we will want to open ourselves up to God’s amazing grace and move to a place where we can forgive as we have been forgiven. . .

For it’s easy to be gentle when death silence stills our clamor.  It is easy to discern the best through memory’s ministry glamour.

How wise it were for me and thee,
Ere Love is past forgiving
To take this tender lesson home
Be gentle with the living.

This is a word spoken also for the health of the church.  It does not take much imagination to picture the situation there in the first century – a small band of Jewish Christians surrounded by an alien world.

Perhaps Peter originally asked, “Lord, if my sister or brother sin against me” and a later hand changed it to, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, How often shall I forgive?”

Hardheartedness, unwillingness to forgive, carrying a grudge was as disastrous to the faith community then as it is today. In fact, it has been suggested that the demise of mainstream Protestantism is due to the lack of forgiveness.  “More than anything else, the unwillingness to perform the difficult task of forgiveness and reconciliation in the love and spirit of Christ is what robs the church of that quality of life that first attracted outsiders.”  (William Hawkins, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century, August 14-27, 2002, p.21)

It is also a word spoken for our weary world, where ancient grudges, old hatreds, combined with religious fundamentalism and fanaticism are the trigger for war and violence.

My new friends, we live by grace and grace alone. The parable of the unforgiving servant is a mirror in which we catch a glimpse of our self.  We are the servant owing a tremendous debt.  The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is:  You are accepted, just as I am, without one plea.

Be gracious as God has been gracious to you. Forgive as God has forgiven you.
Be glad.
Be grateful.
Try always to be worthy.
and to God be the glory.

In the spirit of Jesus our Lord.  Let us pray:

Holy one, fill our lives with light and hope, keep watch over each of us as we leave here this morning.  Give us the courage to live what we believe. Empower us to be gracious as you are gracious to us, so that others looking at our lives and this community of faith may come to say:  See how they love one another. In the spirit of our risen and reigning Lord.  Amen.