When is Enough, Enough?
Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how
often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?"
Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven
times, but up to seventy times seven. Matthew 18:21-22
When Beth Moore and her husband, Keith, spent time in war-torn
Angola to draw attention to tens of thousands of malnourished people, they
were changed forever. "I learned something in one of the rural villages that
will mark my teaching and response to the Word of God," Beth says. "As we
stood there, trying to absorb the sights and smells of living death, our
new friend, Isak Pretorius, said, 'One of the most frustrating things is
that in villages where they received seed, they often eat the seed rather
than planting it and bringing forth the harvest.' I couldn't get the statement
out of my mind and suddenly had an answer to the question I most often ask
God: Why do some people see the results of the Word and others don't?"
Beth continues: "Why have many of us read books on forgiving people, known
the teachings were true and right, cried over them, marked them up with highlighters,
yet remain in our bitterness? Because we ate the seed instead of sowing it."1.
Peter comes to Jesus one day and asks about forgiveness.
Matthew places this immediately following Jesus' teaching about the necessity
for discipline and reconciliation in the body of Christ.
Perhaps having Jesus speak about the necessity to confront and the necessity
to forgive and restore, Peter wants a bit more detail.
He asks Jesus, "how often do I forgive my brother? Seven times?"
The rabbis of the time quoted Amos in which God says, "For three transgressions
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment of Israel".
So it was rabbinic teaching that you forgave three times, but the fourth
was going to cost you.
Peter, wanting perhaps to show real magnanimity, says, "how about seven
times?" Surely that would impress Jesus.
Jesus says, no, not even seven times is enough. Depending on which translation
you use he either says seventy seven times or seventy times seven.
Either way, the point is made. Forgiveness is not to be measured out in
teaspoons or even measuring cups.
Forgiveness is good, but in a way Peter is saying, "disciples should not
be fools". Or we would say, sure forgive, but don't be naive.
Jesus is saying that forgiveness is at the heart of his gospel and it must
be at the heart of the church ethic.
Or as John Calvin comments on this passage, "never give up on anyone."
Never give up... on anyone.
To answer the question, when is enough, enough? The answer would be -- not
for a really long time, if at all.
If you remember the early chapters of Genesis in the generations immediately
following Cain and Able, there is an ancestor of Cain called Lamech...one
very bad character. His motto is "if Cain is avenged seven times over, Lamech
is avenged seventy times seven."
Curious wording. Exactly paralleling Jesus wording.
Oh by the way, it is Lamech's example among others which eventually leads
God both to limit the life span of humanity and then eventually to send the
flood.
Jesus is reversing Lamech's wild revenge and has also come to reverse the
curse of death upon humanity.
Forgiveness is at the heart of this reversal.
I think we could easily stop at this point and just reflect on that fact
alone.
Forgiveness is at the heart of Jesus reversal of the curse of death.
Our willingness to forgive and be forgiven is at the heart of the reversal
of the curse of death.
There is a powerful force at work in forgiveness. You don't have to have
a special revelation from God to see the connection.
Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
Then Jesus tells him a story.
A man is summoned to a king who demands payment of a huge debt. Ten thousand
talents.
That is a LOT of money.
One denarius was a day's wages. One talent equaled six thousand denarii.
...twenty years wages.
Ten thousand talents would be a sum so huge an ordinary person could not
conceive of it, let alone ever pay it.
The king orders the man and his family to be sold into slavery until it
is all paid in full.
The man begs forgiveness.
The king relents and forgives the debt in its entirety.
The man leaves the king's presence and immediately sees fellow servant
who owes him a trifling amount... a couple of dollars.
The same scene follows. The one servant demands payment. His fellow servant
cannot pay and asks forgiveness.
The one who had been forgiven the large amount refuses and seizes his fellow
servant and has him thrown into prison.
The king hears about this and is outraged. "I forgave you a fortune and
you would not forgive a paltry sum!"
So he has the first man thrown into prison and turned over to the torturers
until he paid the amount in full...which of course we know he could not, so
there he is-- forever.
Jesus makes the point obvious. So it is with you who have been forgiven
much by my father, should also forgive one another. And if you don't or won't,
then don't expect my father to forgive you either.
This is a parable about great forgiveness, but also about great judgment.
We stand in the in-between times of being able to look back on having been
forgiven in Christ-- of being aware of a great gift we have received.
When we come to the communion table, it is a looking backwards toward what
God has done for us.
But we also stand in the in-between time of looking forward toward what
the Old Testament prophets called, The Day of the Lord.
The day of judgment, of reckoning of accounts.
In that Day, God will take account of what we have done with the great stewardship
He has given to us.
Much you have been forgiven. To whomever much is given, much will be required.
The point is clear.
It is beyond our ability to reckon how great a debt God has canceled.
The people and events in the parable are all larger than life and would
make a person gasp...."I can't believe he would do that!"
The idea of a king forgiving a fortune, just for being asked. In real life
we would gasp and say, "I can't believe he would do that!"
And yet God has.
Forgiven you and me at the price of His only begotten.
And the behavior of the servant who would fly into a rage over a couple
of dollars having just been forgiven a fortune.
We would gasp, "I can't believe he would do that!"
But that is the spirit of Lamech, the prototype of the man of death. Revenge
seventy times seven.
The man of life is forgiveness seventy times seven.
Now of course at the heart of Peter's question, "how many times do I forgive
my brother?" is the real question,
"when is my brother-- no longer my brother?"
When can I write a brother off?
Or a sister?
The answer is that as long as this is your brother, forgiveness is not negotiable.
And when will you quit being a brother or a sister?
Wasn't that Cain's question--the ancestor to Lamech? "Am I my brother's
keeper?"
What is the answer?
yes? no?
Maybe the only answer that was needed is, "But are you still your brother's,
brother?"
As long as you are then whatever is necessary is what you do.
Max Lucado writes about a big, muscle-bound man named Daniel
who was swindled by his own brother. He vowed that if he ever saw him again,
he would break his neck. A few months later, Daniel became a Christian. Even
so, he couldn't forgive his brother. One day, the inevitable encounter took
place on a busy avenue. This is how Daniel described what happened:
I saw him, but he didn't see me. I felt my fists clench and my face get
hot. My initial impulse was to grab him around the throat and choke the life
out of him. But as I looked into his face, my anger began to melt. For as
I saw him, I saw the image of my father. I saw my father's eyes. I saw my
father's look. I saw my father's expression. And as I saw my father in his
face, my enemy once again became my brother.
The brother found himself wrapped in those big arms—but in a hug. The two
stood in the middle of the river of people and wept. Daniel's words bear
repeating: "When I saw the image of my father in his face, my enemy became
my brother." 2.
When you see the face of the Father in the face of your enemy, he becomes
your brother and forgiveness should be automatic.
Last week I led us in prayer for our own sins and pronounced the word of
forgiveness from God on all confessed sin, that it is forgiven forever.
Now I will lead us in prayer for another type of forgiveness. For us to
forgive or be given the ability to forgive someone you have not forgiven.
Unforgiveness is death, remember. For you, it is death. Jesus words, not
mine.
Forgiveness is life.
There may be someone in your life you have not been able to forgive.
Do not carry this to the day of judgment before God. Let go of it now.
I am going to give you time to think about who needs forgiving and to make
your plea before God, either to let the debt go, or be willing to find a way
to do so.
Let's pray...
Father, you have forgiven us a great debt we can never pay. We can never
lift ourselves by our bootstraps to repay this debt.
And now we bring to mind the person against whom we have held this memory
of sin against us.
You have told us to forgive.
Lord we have given ourselves all kinds of reasons not to forgive this debt.
Now we know there are no reasons.
Help us to choose life, father and to forgive.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen
Preached
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian
Church
Victoria, British Columbia
Notes
1. Beth Moore, Stepping Up: A Journey Through
the Psalms of Ascent (LifeWay Press, 2007);
2. Max
Lucado, The Applause of Heaven (Word, 1990), pp. 114-116
Return to Main Sermon
Page
Email Harold McNabb
