15th Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 19A (Ex. 14.19-31; Ps. 114; Rm. 14.1-12; Mt. 18.21-35)6/27/2018 Nelson Mandela, a South African revolutionary, politician, former president of South Africa, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner once said, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.” This is indeed a powerful statement which comes from a person who was imprisoned for 27 years. This not only shows how important it is to let go of hatred, resentment, and bitterness but also reminds us how essential forgiveness is to that process of letting go and being set free. Without forgiveness, one is imprisoned in that bitter and resentful past.
Forgiveness, as we all know, is one of the essential Christian teachings. God forgives all humanity in Jesus Christ. God in a way sets God’s very own self free by forgiving all. It’s like God cannot NOT forgive us. God cannot help but forgive! Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury once said, “To forgive is to share in the helpless of God, who cannot turn from God’s own nature: not to forgive would be for God a wound in the divine life itself. Not power, but the powerlessness of the God whose nature is love is what is shown in the act of forgiving.” (Rowan Williams, Being Disciples, p. 42) In turn, we as forgiven are set free by God’s loving and liberating act of forgiveness of all. We are not forgiven through some comforting words that God whispers in our ears. We Christians believe that It has been already done once for all only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the heart of forgiveness lies this working of death and resurrection. Without dying to oneself, no forgiveness happens. Therefore no resurrection takes place. Death is the only ticket to resurrection. We can never skip it. Today’s gospel lesson shows us how this act of forgiveness calls us to join Christ’s death and resurrection. Forgiveness invites us to face our own death and the death of Jesus. It then takes us to participate in his resurrection, in which we find our new being in communion with God and one another. In today’s gospel, Jesus introduces to us a very interesting parable. This parable has three players, the king, the slave, and the slave’s friend. The roles they play are twofold as forgiveness in its nature is also twofold: the one who is asked to forgive and the other who asks for forgiveness. The king in the parable apparently discovers that this particular slave owed him ten thousand talents. Ten thousand talents might be about the worth of $7 billion in our time. We might wonder how this slave was able to owe this much money and how the king allowed it to happen. Once the king learns this slave can't pay him back, he orders him to be sold together with his wife, children, and whatever he owns. And this is not it. The slave still has to pay what he owes to the king. (This trait of the king teaches us that it is not Jesus’s intention to describe the king as God. Let’s not make a mistake of building an image of God based on the parable.) The king’s verdict of selling this bankrupted slave and all his family isn't too different from that of our world except we are enslaved by a different structure such as banks. Actually, it's worse than our chapter 11 since the slave still has to pay him whatever is left after losing all he has. And who knows when he can actually pay it all off? This verdict is almost like a death sentence. The slave’s life, as well as his family's, is almost over. There’s no way out unless they're dead. The slave falls on his knees before the king as if he is giving up his life to him, saying “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” This saying of the slave is not so convincing if you critically think about it. The slave can never ever pay everything back! It’s an empty promise. And it's also a very bad lie! The king isn't that stupid enough to buy in this false promise. But then, a strange thing happens. Compassion happens! Our translation says, “out of pity for him” in verse 27, but its literal meaning is more like “having been moved with compassion.” The only thing the slave does to live is to fall on his knees, to die before the king. Not the words that he says. As the slave dies before the king, the king’s old self, that seeks for revenge without mercy, dies too. The king becomes a new person after his old self dies. He releases the slave from all the debts. He forgives the slave. He sets the slave free. We have no idea how this happened. What we do know is that the king wasn't crazy. Instead, compassion happened as the king’s old self died. The king became a new person. This is not the end of the story. There’s another twist. We would imagine the slave once his old self died would become a new person like the king. Well, that didn't happen. Compassion does not happen to this slave. He is given a chance to demonstrate that his old self died and he became a new self as he deals with his fellow slave who owed a hundred denarii. (That’s about one-third of a year’s salary or four months’ wages.) His old self is still there. He may have died, but not any more. He refuses to do so. He remains as his old self who has no grace or compassion. Once the king finds out about this, this wicked slave as he wishes gains back his old self who has to pay all he owed to the king. Back to where he was, imprisoned in his old self. This matter of our old selves dying and rising again shown in the parable of forgiveness is nothing new to us. Through Baptism, our old selves die, and we are risen with Christ. This sacrament of Baptism not only symbolizes what kind of life we are called to live but also continuously and efficaciously works in us through the Holy Spirit. So we don’t go back to our old selves, but follow the lead of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We might go back to our old selves time to time, yet Jesus also tells us, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” We can turn back to him again and again. With this confidence, we can confess what St. Paul in today’s second lesson urges us, “...whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” There’s a lot to forgive and to be forgiven in our lives, especially nowadays. Let us as Christ’s followers never walk away from this act of forgiveness. Forgiveness calls out our old selves to die so that we can rise with Christ. Forgiveness is an invitation to live out our baptismal covenant. Forgiveness takes us to the death of Christ on the cross and leads us to his resurrection. It is the most difficult thing to do, both to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. In either way, we are called to put an end to our old selves in order to rise again with Christ. And we are indeed able to do this because compassion already happened to us through Jesus Christ. Deep down in our hearts, God’s compassion is planted. At the Eucharist, this seed of God’s compassion is sown in our body through the Body and Blood of Christ. We might not be able to see it so quickly, but it is there, waiting to be found. And it may not be so pretty, but can be more like “distasteful empathy.” Some theologian describes it as a feeling that we wouldn’t want to have for those who hurt us, but a feeling of recognition or kindness. (Healing Agony, Stephen Cherry) The world is unsettling our grounds. And we as Christians are called to be the sign of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation. May God’s compassion revealed in Christ happen to us whenever we lack compassion, whenever we are afraid to let go of our old selves. May God’s compassion dwell in us even if it comes out as “distasteful empathy,” so that we become the sign of God’s compassion for the world of hostility, hatred, and unforgiveness. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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