22nd Sunday after Trinity + Matthew 18:23-35 + October 16, 2016
Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15
Collect for Trinity XXII
Sermon on the Holy Gospel
Introit - Pg. 81
Readings
Deuteronomy 7:9-11
Philippians 1:3-11
Matthew 18:23-35
Collect for Trinity XXII
O
God, our Refuge and Strength, Who art the Author of all godliness, be
ready, we beseech Thee, to hear the devout prayers of Thy Church, and
grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain
effectually; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and
reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
Amen.
Sermon on the Holy Gospel
Grace
and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1) A
King desires to settle debts with His servants. He calls them in one by one.
The first to come before Him is a man so hopelessly in debt that he will never
realistically be able to pay off what he owes. A talent was a weight of coin,
which could run somewhere between fifteen-hundred and two thousand dollars. That
would make his total debt somewhere between fifteen and twenty million dollars!
This servant of the king owes a crushing debt. Even by today’s standards, in a
society which seeks to drive people into debt, this is an unfathomable amount
of money he owes. Against this enormous and massive debt, the only collateral he
had is himself, his wife, and his children. This man’s debt is so overwhelming
that he realistically only has one option: a life of slavery to repay his debt.
“As he was not able to pay, his master
commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that
payment be made.”
2) In
this we see a terrible picture of the debt we owe God the heavenly Father. Ours
is the debt of sin. And it is a great debt, one that we could never hope to
repay. Like the man in the parable, we
have no collateral to offer to the Lord because we daily sin, often without
even realizing it, and often we fall to temptation out of weakness. Some people
will, of course, try to weasel out of the whole transaction and claim that
their debt isn’t the much, or that they have no debt before God at all. But
before the Lord sin is sin and as St. James teaches, “Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty
of all” (James 2:10). The Scriptures teach us that “all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Human experience teaches us
this as well, so much that even those who are unreligious can excuse their
actions with a pity, “no one’s perfect.” Like a growing credit card balance
accruing interest, the debt of sin can be ignored, but this great spiritual
debt will eventually come due.
3) This
debtor in the parable, when faced with a life of slavery for himself and his
loved ones, “fell down before him,
saying ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’” He knows
he can’t actually do that. He is pleading for any sort of mercy that the King
is willing to give. If the King agrees in principle for some sort of payment
plan, the man’s life, along with the life of his wife and children, has been
spared. He seeks mercy from the king and finds it. The king he petitions is the
same one who said, “Ask, and it will be
given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you”
(Matthew 7:7). He seeks patience and that is exactly what he finds, though to a
much greater degree than he had hoped! He begged for the King’s patience so
that he could find a way to repay the debt. The King shows His graciousness by
foregoing patience altogether and instead fully cancels what the man owes. The
man pled to be a debtor for the rest of his life, working off the debt. The
King would have none of that. He removes the terrible burden from this man’s
ledger and mind. The master “was moved
with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.” If this man’s
debt shows us the great depth of our sin and our own inability to make
restitution for it, the King’s clemency shows us an even greater picture of the
grace of God, who through His gospel richly and daily forgives all the sins of
those who ask for it in faith. Jesus makes the debt in the parable so
unfathomable and so unrepayable not only to plumb the depths of our sin against
God’s commandments, but also to show us how gracious God the heavenly Father
is. No debt is too large for him to forgive. No sin, or collection of sins, is
so great that it is unpardonable.
4) This
by itself would make for a rich parable. We could, and should, spend our
lifetimes contemplating both the depth of our sin and “the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). In fact, that is what the man in the parable did
NOT do. Leaving the king’s presence, the incredible debt lifted from his soul,
his life his own once again, he forgets all that has just happened. He forgets
that he was, just a moment ago, a debtor headed for destruction. He forgets the
incredible graciousness and forgiveness of his king. And putting both of those
things out of his mind he finds himself in an interesting position. Moments ago
he had been a debtor. Suddenly he finds himself in the place of the king. He
sees a man who owes him one hundred denarii, which is a pittance compared to
what he previously owed the king. The former debtor grabs his fellow servant by
the throat and demands payment. He found himself in the same position as the
king just a few moments before, except there was no compassion, no charity, no
warmth of spirit and generosity. The former debtor was possessed by selfishness
and self-righteousness. He feels enabled to not only confront this fellow
servant whom he stumbled upon, but rough him up as well. He tosses his fellow
servant into the debtor’s prison “till
he should pay the debt.” The former debtor was so calloused and cold to the
king’s graciousness that he did not even hear the echo of his own plea for
mercy in this man’s plea.
5) This
shows us the callous way that many treat the forgiveness of their sins. They
lament their sins. They wish to be rid of the guilt they have accumulated from
their bad decisions and relapses due to weakness. They receive with joy the
gospel that forgives all their sins. But then they go back to their daily life
and live as if they never had such a great debt that had been absolved. When their
neighbor, their spouse, their children, their co-worker, their employee, or
someone else slights them in the smallest fashion, they take great offense and refuse
to forgive their neighbor. Even when their neighbor is penitent and asks for
forgiveness, so many, who themselves has been absolved, are too cold and
calloused to mimic the mercy their Lord has showed them. This man, the former
debtor, is called back before his king. “’You
wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you
not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’”
Here Christ shows us that to not forgive our neighbor is wickedness. He calls
that servant wicked because he has accepted the king’s mercy and then not had
mercy on his fellow servant. The amount is irrelevant, even though it was
considerably smaller. The principle remains that if you have received mercy,
you ought also to show mercy to those who sin against you. The man is handed
over to the torturers and will repay every last cent of his ten thousand talent
debt because He did not value the forgiveness the king gave him.
6) Christ
ends the parable with this warning, “So
my heavenly Father also will do to you if you if each of you, from his heart,
does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” It is a stern warning not to receive
the grace of God in vain. When we confess our sins and receive the absolution
from God through the pastor, we ought not become proud and forget the great
debt that has been cancelled. That doesn’t mean we are to hold onto our
confessed sin, or beat ourselves up over it, we are simply to remember that we
and our neighbor are in the same boat: we are all sinners before God and we all
sin against each other daily. Christ teaches us this in the Our Father as well
when He teaches us to pray, “Forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” He goes on to
say in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But
if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses.” Christ wants us to prize His absolution over all things
in this life and keep it before us every day, which is evident from this
warning that He gives at several points in the gospel accounts. It’s also
important to understand that when He threatens to retain our sins if we do not
forgive others, He is not teaching us that we earn God’s forgiveness by
our action of forgiving others. Rather, our forgiving our neighbor is a visible
sign that we have truly received the forgiveness Christ offers through His Word
and Sacraments. If we find ourselves holding a grudge against a neighbor, that
is a sign to us that we ought to retreat from that battle and first consider
our own sins along with the great graciousness of God.
7) The
point is that the gospel should leave its mark on you. That mark is joy that
your sins, though many and mighty, have been completely forgiven. The mark that
gospel leaves on you is the peace that God has absolved you of your trespasses and
remembers them no more. This gives you the freedom to stop dwelling on them.
The mark the gospel leaves on you is humility because we heard in today’s Psalm
that if the Lord should mark iniquities, no one could stand before him, but
that with him there is forgiveness therefore we fear Him. The mark the gospel
leaves on you is that you forgive your brother when he sins against you.
Whether his sins against you are petty or awful, slight or vile, how often or
few, Christ wants each of us to forgive our neighbor, even if he sins against
us seventy times seven times. Christ your Lord wants you to forgive your
neighbor as He has forgiven you because you to treasure His forgiveness, because
you prize the absolving word which removes all your sins, and because you cherish
the good gifts He gives to us even though we ourselves daily sin much and
surely deserve nothing but punishment. When we forgive our neighbor’s sins
against us, this is surely a sign that have received God’s forgiveness of our
sins, and that we are growing in our appreciation and gratefulness for the
graciousness of God which gives us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
May
the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and
minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.