September 14, 2014

The main teaching of the Christian Church is the forgiveness of sin. The symbol of the Church is the cross, where sins are forgiven. And so the center and main focus of the Gospel is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the dynamic where God forgives us and we forgive those who sin against us.

But, forgiveness is hard, sometimes nearly impossible for people. So, people try to find ways to get out of their responsibility. For example, Peter wanted to make a numerical limit, 7 times a day. If you are having a bad day and someone is really bothering you constantly, when can you stop being nice and just haul off and whop them one? Sometimes the limit of 70 times 7 or 490 times can even be reached in a single day, but what Jesus means is not the numerical limit, but the unlimited forgiveness that loses count. Jesus teaches that forgiveness must be infinite in number, and infinite in amount, as today's parable shows. Ten thousand talents was like $3 billion. (1 talent = 6000 denarii, @ 1 denarius =$50 (a day's wage), 1 talent = $300,000.)

Forgiveness is hard, so perhaps another way of getting around forgiving is by changing the focus of our religion, from forgiveness to love. All the commandments can be summed up in two expressions: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." (Mt. 22:37ff). So if we just love God, our neighbors, even our enemies, then it should be okay. But there are two problems here. First, that the command to love is a command of the Law, it is not Gospel. If it is Law, then we don't use Jesus, and so the Law of Love is not necessarily Christian, it is still only Old Testament. The second problem of saying that all we have to do is love, is when we realize the depth of God’s love. God's love is not that he was nice and kind and gentle to us, but that he died for us to forgive our sin. John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." Jesus was sent into the world to forgive our sins so that there would no longer be any condemnation. And so Jesus shows us that the result of God's love is that our sins are forgiven. We cannot get away from forgiveness being the center of Christianity.

But forgiveness is hard. It is especially hard to forgive enemies, all those people who hate us and really don't deserve forgiveness; both enemies of the nation and our own personal enemies. Enemies are those people who we wish would just disappear from the face of the earth so that we wouldn't have to do anything with them anymore. It is not only that we find it hard to forgive, it is that we don't want to forgive some people, because we want to cut those people out of our lives. Forgiveness is not just being nice nor it is not just giving someone another chance. Forgiveness is bringing someone back into your life, where they might hurt you again. Forgiveness is dangerous. If you don't forgive, you can keep them safely away, we feel. We feel we don't have to do anything with them. But forgiveness is tearing down walls, it is building bridges, it is shaking hands, it is walking and working hand-in-hand. And that can be dangerous. It can be humiliating. It seems easier to just write someone out of our lives.

Forgiveness was humiliating and dangerous for Jesus. When he came preaching the Gospel of love and forgiveness, he started to tear down walls, to build bridges, and he walked and worked hand-in-hand with people who needed to hear the Good News of God's forgiveness. But His enemies knew nothing about forgiveness. They could not understand it. They arrested him, condemned him, and crucified him. They thought they could get rid of him. Then they would be able to keep on not forgiving people. They could keep separating themselves away from sinners and other people they didn't like. Crucifixion is the opposite of forgiveness, since it destroys the possibility of future forgiveness.

But the Gospel is that God wants to forgive us so much that he sent his only begotten Son. Crucifixion could not stop God's forgiveness, rather, God used the very death of Jesus to become the way of life and forgiveness and salvation. The cross was the way of love and of building a new relationship with sinners. The sin of world was immeasurable, uncountable, no numerical or monetary value could be set for the world debt of sin. But it was paid by the infinite value of Jesus' body and blood given and shed for us upon the cross. And as Jesus rose from the grave, so we are freed from the debtor's prison of sin and death.

This is the reason we forgive: because we have been forgiven much. This is the reason we can forgive: because Christ was able to forgive us. We can even forgive our enemies, those who don't deserve to be forgiven, because we don't deserve to be forgiven by Christ, either. Whether someone says they are sorry or not; whether someone wants to be forgiven or not; whether someone shakes or hand or not: the love of Jesus is in our hearts and makes us want to forgive them. We want to forgive them because we do not want to lose them. We do not want to cut them off. We learn that feeling from the love and forgiveness of Jesus. Forgiveness is the first step toward true peace and reconciliation.

And so, as Christians who are alive in the Gospel, we live out the Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." We love and forgive, as Christ has loved and forgiven us.

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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