Teach Me

Rev. Debbie Cato
Psalm 119:9-16 and Matthew 18:15-22

Fairfield Community Church

March 17, 2024

Teaching God, We want to learn your ways. We want to learn the ways of forgiveness. We want to learn the ways of grace. We want to learn your ways of love. That is part of why we return to your word week after week, because we are hungry to be more like you. So as we prepare to listen to your Word today, calm the noise in our minds. Center our spirits to focus on you so that we might learn and hear what we have missed in this story before. God, we want to learn your ways. Meet us here. Speak your truth. Help us listen. Amen.

 

Teach Me

 

 Forgive us our debts,

          As we forgive our debtors.

Forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Forgive us for the stuff we have done wrong,

          Just as we forgive those who do wrong against us. 

All ways of praying the same thing.  Lines from The Lord’s Prayer that we pray every week.

 

If you think about it there are three primary prayers we pray:

We thank God.

          We ask God for help. And…

                     We ask God to forgive us.

 

These three kinds of prayers come fairly naturally to us.   They come

when we are grateful, when we are in trouble, and when we are sorry.

 

When Jesus taught his disciples to prayer, he gave them extra instructions about the forgiveness part.  Jesus said:  “If you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

 

Did you hear that?  IF you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do NOT forgive others their sins, your Father will NOT forgive your sins.

 

I don’t know about you, but that causes me to gulp!   I’m quick to ask God to forgive me but, forgiving others doesn’t come so easily nor nearly as quickly.  And yet, at least once a week – during Sunday worship, we all pray together:

          Forgive us our sins

                     In the same way as we forgive our sinners…     (pause)

 

No wonder Peter asks for clarification.  He says, Ok Jesus.  I’ve learned something from you.  I know I must forgive someone who sins against me.  You are generous.  You always give abundantly. So, based on that, I’m guessing that you think I should forgive someone more than once.  So, is seven times enough? 

 

I bet Peter thought he was being really generous – forgiving someone seven times –  that’s a lot of forgiving someone who keeps sinning against you.  Don’t you think?  That’s a lot of grace! That’s abundance. 

 

But Jesus tells him that seven times is not generous enough.  Jesus says, “No, Peter!  Forgiving someone seven times is not enough.  You must forgive them

seventy-seven times!”  Some translations even say seventy times seven! It’s about

abundant forgiveness. Abundant grace

 

Now, Jesus does not mean that we need to keep track of people’s sins on a piece of paper and after you’ve made 77 check marks next to someone’s name for the same sin, you can stop forgiving them!  You’ve finally forgiven that sin enough!  Jesus is telling Peter that forgiveness has no limits, because God’s forgiveness toward us has no limits.  God never stops forgiving us.  And because God never stops forgiving us, we should not stop forgiving those who do us wrong.  Our forgiveness must not have limits either. 

 

And to illustrate his point;

To help Peter understand…

And, to help us understand….

 

Jesus goes on to tell a story about a king who wants to settle accounts with his servants.  One particular servant is brought to the king who cheated him out of several million dollars.  When the king demands that the man pay him back immediately, the man says he does not have the money.  So, to punish the man for his huge debt, the king orders him to debtor’s prison, along with his wife and his children.  They must stay there until he is able to pay back all the money he owes in full. 

 

Now think about it.  If this man, and his wife, and his children are all in prison, how could they ever earn the millions of dollars he owes to pay the king back?  He will never be released because how can he pay back this huge debt while he’s sitting in prison?  His family will suffer right along with him.   It’s a life sentence for them all.

 

Well, the servant knows this because he falls on his face before the king and begs

and pleads with the king.  “Please,” he says, “please.  Be patient with me and I

promise I will pay back every penny that I owe you.  I’m sorry that I stole from

you.  Please, give me a chance.”

 

When the king sees how sorry the man is, he has mercy on him, and his heart goes out to this man and to his family.  The king not only releases him and his family from prison, but he forgives him his debt – even though he owes him millions of dollars!  This is abundant forgiveness. Abundant grace. 

 

Imagine how grateful this man must be!  He and his wife and his children were saved from a life of imprisonment and a debt of millions of dollars.  I can feel the relief he must have felt; the burden that was removed from his shoulders.  His crime was wiped away along with his debt.  A fresh start! He and his family were

given a new life. 

 

Walking out of prison that day, this free man runs into a friend of his that owes him a couple hundred dollars.  Seeing him, the man grabs him by the neck, chokes him, and demands that he pay back the money he owes immediately.  “You pay back everything you owe me!” he yells at his friend.

 

The friend falls down on his face and begs and pleads with the man.  “Please, he says, “please.  Be patient with me. I promise I will pay back every penny that I owe you.  I’m sorry that I haven’t paid you back the money.”

 

Our Father in heaven

                      Forgive us our sins

As we forgive those who sin against us

The man who just moments ago was released from prison and forgiven millions of dollars of debt, hears the same pleas for mercy and forgiveness from a friend who owes him a few hundred dollars.  But he refuses to show him any mercy…

          Refuses to extend him forgiveness….

                     It’s not even that he won’t cancel the debt he owes.

He isn’t willing to be patient. 

He won’t give him time to pay the money back.

Instead, he has him hauled off and thrown into prison until he pays it back.

 

“For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

 

People in the community saw how merciful the king was to the man who had 

tolen millions of dollars.  They saw how compassionate the king was when he

heard him beg for time to repay the debt.  They watched as the king released the

man and his family from prison.  And they heard in amazement as the king

forgave the millions of dollars that was owed to him. 

 

These same people watched as this man showed no mercy to his own friend.  They were deeply saddened to see this man who had been forgiven so much, cruelly throw his friend in prison over a small debt. 

 

And the king, who just hours before had extended undeserved mercy to this man,

felt the same way because he was furious.  “You vicious servant!” he says.  “I

forgave you your whole debt when you pleaded with me.  Don’t you think you

should have a heart for your fellow-servant like I had a heart for you?” And the

king handed the man over to the guards.

 

“For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

 

Now, I hear this story and I think what an idiot!   I would never do that!  If I owed somebody a million dollars and they up and forgave the debt –

          If they said never mind

                     You don’t need to pay me back –

There is NO WAY I would do what that guy did and demand someone else

          pay me back a few hundred dollars!

I would be SO grateful.

          It would feel wonderful to return the favor.

                     To tell someone else,

                               Never mind.  You don’t have to pay me back.

 

Of course….. I don’t owe anyone a million dollars.   I don’t have that kind of debt.  So, this story is not about me.  (pause)   Or is it?   

 

What is the debt we owe to God?

 

Let’s feel the weight of our indebtedness for just a moment.  To begin to feel the size of the debt on our lives, let’s read the Ten Commandments:

                       

You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not let anything or anyone come between you and me, God commands.

 

You shall not make for yourselves an idol.  You shall not try to

imagine me in your own terms.

                       

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

          Honor your father and your mother

You shall not murder

          You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony – you shall not lie.

You shall not covet.  (This is where we get in trouble)

                     You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

 

Now ….. not to sound self-righteous or anything but I still feel pretty good about this.  Sure, I’ll admit I have some other gods.  And yes, some idols too.  I try to keep the Sabbath holy but, it’s hard because the rest of the world doesn’t and well ….. OK, OK, so I covet my neighbor’s car, and I’m jealous that KayDee is going to New Zealand but, I haven’t done any of the “big” sins.  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I sin plenty!  And I ask God for forgiveness on a regular basis!  But…  I haven’t killed anybody, I don’t steal….. you know what I mean! 

 

Of course, in Matthew 5 Jesus expands on the Ten Commandments a little bit.  He says,  “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; …  ²² But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.

 

And, it is true, he did say:  "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'  ²⁸ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

And ….  O.K., he even said…. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

 

The point is this:  Not a single one of us is without sin.  The anger that I carry in my heart toward someone is no less a sin to God than the murder someone else commits.  This is hard teaching.  Hard to swallow.  But it’s truth. And sometimes the truth is hard.

 

Every failure to live up to these kingdom obligations puts us “in debt.”  Every time we fail to live like Christ,  puts us “in debt.”  What a huge debt we owe!  A debt we can never pay.  Never. 

 

Yet, nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ grabbed hold of all our debts – past, present, and future -  and was crucified on the cross with them.  And by his blood, he cancelled all of them!  The one who teaches us to pray so boldly, “Father, forgive us our debts,” is the one who takes our debts upon himself, goes to the cross and dies to erase the ledger – though we do nothing to deserve it.  Abundant grace.

 

And what are we asked to do in return?  To forgive those who wrong us in the same way that God forgives us, remembering that their debt to us pales in comparison to the debt we owe to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

Our Father who art in heaven

          Forgive us our sin

                     As we forgive those who sin against us.    Amen.   

 

Teach Me
Rev. Sara Speed, Sanctified Art

 

Teach me about the ways of the wind,

about the ways of the world,

about the ways of the heart.

Teach me about the soft crook of my lover’s arm,

and the way two souls can hold each other close.

Teach me about forgiveness, about the language of I’m sorry

and the softness of sincerity.

Teach me about abundance, about seventy-times-seven

and all the days of my life.

Teach me about joy, about its contagious weaving

and its soul-healing.

Teach me about mercy, about open hands and deep breaths.

Teach me about the dawn of time and the stars in the sky.

Teach me what matters most.

Teach me what is mine to do.

Teach this achingly curious heart

until I run out of questions

or I run out of days.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

and I will have a life well-lived.