As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins from us. (Psalm 103:12)
I’m not sure if a priest is supposed to have favorite sacraments, just like a parent isn’t supposed to have favorite children, but I have to admit I have a favorite. There are seven sacraments recognized by the Anglican Church and the Episcopal Church. Baptism and Eucharist – the two sacraments Jesus Christ gave us during his lifetime – and then five more: confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, unction (which is the anointing of the sick or the dying), and reconciliation of a penitent (otherwise known as confession).
I have to admit that among all the sacraments, I am partial to the Eucharist. I didn’t grow up in a church that celebrated Eucharist every Sunday. I grew up, as some of you may know, in a small United Church of Christ, and we had communion three or four times a year, with little cubes of bread and little plastic cups of grape juice in trays. Some of you may have come from that tradition as well. And those were special Sundays when we remembered Jesus’s last supper with his friends. For us, that was something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary, but I didn’t experience the full profoundness and power of the Eucharist until I came to the Episcopal Church, but then I found that it was extraordinary even being every week.
Every Sunday, we experience our worship service in two parts – the Liturgy of the Word (which we’re in the middle of now) that leads us into the Liturgy of the Table. There’s a reason why in most Episcopal churches the altar table, not the pulpit, is at the center front of the church. The Liturgy of the Word is partly meant to prepare us for the Liturgy of the Table.
So during the Liturgy of the Word, we read Old and New Testament lessons, a Psalm (or the choir sings), someone preaches a sermon. And after the sermon, there are several things we do as a congregation that prepare us for the Liturgy of the Table. We speak the words of the Creed; we say the Prayers of the People; we confess our sins and receive absolution; we are reminded that we are forgiven always; and we exchange the Peace with one another (known sometimes as a second coffee hour). There are reasons why we do these things in this particular order – why we confess our sins, why we speak to each other words of peace. We are to reconcile ourselves with Christ and with our fellow human beings before we come together to the Table to receive the body and blood of Jesus – Christ’s body, given for us, and Christ’s blood, shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness. There’s that word again. We’ve been hearing it all through today’s readings – that incredibly moving story of Joseph reuniting with his brothers and forgiving them, the words of the Psalm reminding that God always has mercy, our Epistle reading, and in the Gospel where Peter asks Jesus about forgiveness. “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
And Jesus says to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Meaning, never-ending. There’s no counting how many times we forgive. It is not a quantifiable thing.
And then Jesus turns that into a lesson about one of the Matthew’s favorite themes – the Kingdom of Heaven. All through the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives us beautiful, powerful images of the Kingdom of Heaven – the Kingdom of Heaven is a mustard seed, a treasure lost in a field, a pearl of great price, yeast that helps bread rise.
But in today’s reading, the metaphor for the Kingdom of Heaven is a little more complicated, a little less cut and dried. Today, Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king whose servants owe him money.
More specifically, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king whose slave owes him 10,000 talents of money – more money than a servant could ever hope to repay in a lifetime. In today’s terms we might say not even just millions, but billions of dollars. It’s an outrageous amount of money – perhaps as outrageous as the idea of forgiving someone 77 times.
And that’s at least part of the point that Jesus is trying to make with this outrageous story.
First this servant comes to the king, and the king tells him, you owe me all of this money, I am going to sell you and your family and everything you own so that you can give it back to me – an outrageous threat. The slave begs for mercy, saying, have patience, I’ll pay you back (also probably outrageous because 10,000 talents is not an amount he would ever be likely to pay back). But the king grants mercy and cancels all of his debt. But the outrageousness of the story doesn’t stop there. The slave, forgiven, free of debt, goes out from the king, runs into another man who owes him a much smaller amount of money. The slave says, “Please pay me,” but the man says no, so he throttles him and throws him in prison. The king finds out, he’s angry (with good reason), and he reinstates that servant’s debt and throws him in prison. And at the end of the story, Jesus says something again outrageous, that this is what God will do to us, if we do not forgive others.
What are we to make of that? Especially that last bit?
One of the readings of that which I hold to is that it is a continuation of that outrageous story of God’s forgiveness. But what Jesus is telling us is that forgiveness is vital. It is not an easy thing. When we are insulted or hurt or betrayed, how often do we carry around our anger? How long do we hold onto resentment and bitterness? How many of us have friendships we have let go of, family members we’ve stopped talking to, memories that still feel raw and grief-filled?
Each of us as individuals struggles to forgive, to let go of past wrongs, to move on. Forgiveness may not mean forgetting – and perhaps should not mean forgetting. Some hurts can never be made right, just like the servant’s 10,000 talents could never be repaid. But forgiveness can mean healing. And Jesus is saying that forgiveness is not just about the healing of one or two people, forgiveness is also about the healing of community, the transformation of community. Forgiving one another is part of what makes the Kingdom of Heaven.
Fred Rogers,[1] the Presbyterian pastor who many of us know best from his beloved television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (I know I grew up spending hours in the Neighborhood of Make Believe and watching the trolley go past), spent some time visiting one of his seminary professors, Dr. Orr, who was elderly and living in a nursing home and nearing the end of his life. One Sunday Mr. Rogers came to visit Dr. Orr and mentioned a hymn they had sung in church that morning – “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”[2] And Mr. Rogers quoted a line from the hymn to his professor, “The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him / One little word shall fell him.” One little word shall fell him. And Mr. Rogers asked Dr. Orr, “What is that one little word?” – that one word that would overcome evil and sin?
If you were asked that question, what would you say? What word comes to mind? Love, perhaps. Peace. Resurrection. Goodness.
Dr. Orr thought for a moment. And then he replied, “Forgiveness.” He told Mr. Rogers the one thing that evil cannot stand is forgiveness. And Mr. Rogers never forgot that lesson. Forgiveness brings light to shadow. Forgiveness overcomes evil.
Part of the power of forgiveness, Mr. Rogers and Dr. Orr pointed out, is that forgiveness goes both ways. It heals both ways. Forgiveness can bring healing to the person who has sinned, we hope, and it also brings healing to the person who has been sinned against. Forgiveness is transformative. It brings peace where there is anger, reconciliation where there is conflict, comfort where there is grief. It allows us to move on, to not let ourselves be trapped in the pain of holding on to past hurt. It transforms us as individuals, and it transforms our relationships with those around us.
Theologian Richard Rohr also connects the idea of forgiveness to the idea of transformation. He writes, “Jesus preaches to ‘turn around,’ or in the Greek, metanoia, which literally means to ‘change your mind.’ …It always involves an attitude of trust, letting go, and surrender.”
Forgiveness and repentance always involve an attitude of trust, letting go, and surrender.
Trust, letting go, and surrender. Forgiveness requires these things.
Forgiveness is not an easy thing.
The king’s servant, in Jesus’ parable, didn’t understand the gift he had received in the king’s forgiveness. That because he was forgiven, he is then to forgive in turn, that because he is forgiven, because he is given this radical mercy, this beautiful grace, that he is not obligated to the king so much as he is obligated to everyone around him, to his community.[3]
Forgiveness, among families, among societies, transforms community. It creates space for peace. And forgiveness happens when we do the hardest thing, which is to recognize each other as beloved, to make the choice to not define ourselves or each other by our worst moments, but by the love God has for each of us, despite our worst moments. Forgiveness allows us to move forward and do better, as individuals and as community. Forgiveness allows us to keep building toward the Kingdom of Heaven, because we are all part – we are all part – of its creation. God is not doing that work alone.
What does this have to do with the sacrament of Eucharist, to go back to the beginning?
Every Sunday we put into practice forgiveness. Every Sunday, we confess, as we will in a few minutes, that we sin against one another and against God. And every Sunday we are reminded again that we are forgiven, seven times seven times seven times seventy-seven, over and over, always. And every Sunday, after that forgiveness, we stand and pass the peace. We reach out to each other in friendship and in grace, reconnecting with each other and extending to those around us the love we have been given unconditionally by God. So then when we come to the Table for that time together, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, at the communion rail, in the body and blood of Christ, and in all of those when we gather together, built out of that goodness and that forgiveness, out of the love that has been given to us. And then our work, after we take the body and blood of Christ, is to carry it back out into the world, that grace, that love, that forgiveness, and keep building the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, September 17, 2023
Reading: Matthew 18:21-25
[1] Hollingsworth, Amy, The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World’s Most Beloved Neighbor.
[2] https://hymnary.org/text/a_mighty_fortress_is_our_god_a_bulwark
[3] John Carroll: “His experience of radical generosity obligates him not toward the master but in relation to others,” at Working Preacher.
