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16th Sunday after Pentecost (cycle a)
Proper 19 (24)

Texts & Discussion:

Exodus 14:19-31
Psalm 114
or
Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

Other Resources:

Commentary:

Matthew Henry,    Wesley

Word Study:
Robertson

This Week's Themes:

Victory in God
Unity/Spiritual Community

Forgive us as we Forgive


 


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 Texts in Context | Commentary:  First LessonEpistleGospel
Prayer&Litanies
|  Hymns & Songs | Children's Sermons | Sermons based on Texts  

 


 Sermons:

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Forgiveness by the Numbers
a sermon based on Matthew 18:21-35
by Richard Gehring

            Over the past number of years, the prison population in the United States has skyrocketed.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of people being held in prison or local jails increased from just over half a million individuals in 1980 to more than 2.2 million in  2006–more than quadrupling over that 26-year period.  When you add the number who were under parole or probation, the number jumps to more than 7.2 million.  That's one out of every 31 adults in this country that were under some sort of correctional supervision in 2006.  With this burgeoning population, it is little wonder that expenditures on corrections have ballooned from about $10 billion in 1982 to more than $60 billion in 2005.

            Probably the most obvious example of our nation’s desire to get rid of criminals is the growing number of prisoners on death row.  There are now more than 3200 inmates living on death row in this country—and have been at least that many every year since 1996.  And while the number of actual executions has decreased steadily over the past few years, the U.S. in 2007 was still one of the top five nations in the world in carrying out the death sentence—five nations that are responsible for nearly 90 percent of all instances of capital punishment worldwide.

            Now, I don’t expect you to remember all these numbers.  But you clearly get a  picture of a nation that is not in a very forgiving mood.  If someone does something illegal, we expect them to be punished for it.  We want them locked up where they can’t do any harm to the general population; and we want them kept there for a long time.  We want the really serious offenders put to death so they can never repeat their crimes.  And, even though we complain loudly about how high taxes are, we are willing to spend big bucks to make sure that these things happen.

            In our New Testament text for today, however, Jesus has a few other numbers that he throws around in regard to dealing with those who may have done us wrong.  This passage, which follows immediately on the heels of Jesus’ words regarding church discipline and conflict resolution, opens with Peter asking Jesus, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 

            Actually,  Peter is being quite generous here.  The rabbis of the time had determined that forgiveness should be extended to a person for three transgressions.  But the fourth time someone committed the same sin against you, you were free to take revenge on them.  Peter is offering to more do than double what the law would require him to do.

            But Jesus still finds Peter's answer very inadequate.  He responds that seven is not nearly a high enough number.  Jesus tells his disciples to forgive not just seven times, but either 77 or 70 times seven times, depending on the translation.  The exact number, of course, is irrelevant.  For Jesus isn't concerned here with establishing a new, rigid standard.  He isn't worried about actually counting the number of times a person sins against him at all.  His whole point is that forgiveness is not about keeping track of somebody's wrongs.  It's about going beyond the law, way beyond the law, and responding in love and mercy rather than according to a set of rules.

            Then, to illustrate his point, Jesus tells the story of the unforgiving servant.  Here, a servant has somehow fallen into a debt of an absolutely unimaginable size:  10,000 talents.  Now, a talent was the largest unit of money in use at the time. The average worker back then would have had to work more than 15 years in order to earn the equivalent of a single talent.  Thus, 10,000 talents in Jesus' time would equate to literally billions of dollars by today's standards.  [contiune]