September 11, 2011 – Forgiveness

Eric Lemonholm

Proper 19 A

September 11, 2011

First Reading Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm Psalm 103:[1-7] 8-13

Gospel Matthew 18:21-35 Forgiveness

 

Jesus tells a story of forgiveness.

God’s abundant forgiveness.

 

So this king is settling accounts with his slaves.

One slave owes him 10,000 talents.

That’s about 130 pounds of silver.^[i]

That’s the amount of money a day laborer in the ancient world would make in 54,750,000 days, or 150,000 years.

150,000 years.

 

That’s a long time.  That’s a lot of money.

Remember, this is a parable: Jesus is exaggerating to make a point.

This slave owes the king a lot.

And there’s no way the slave can pay him back.

 

So he kneels at his king’s feet and begs for mercy.

Amazingly, the king has compassion for his slave, and forgives the whole debt.

Now, who forgives a debt that large?

God does.

God is love, and love does not hold a grudge.

God’s forgiveness is extravagant!

God forgives our debts.

God does not have to, but God does.

God has compassion on us and forgives us.

 

So the slave’s massive debt is forgiven.

But then, this forgiven slave goes and finds another slave who owes him 100 denarii.

One denarius is a small silver coin: it’s the amount of money a day laborer made in one day of work.

So 100 denarii is not a small amount of money, but it’s a lot less than 10,000 talents.  Remember, 10,000 talents is equal to 54,750,000 denarii.

But does this forgiven slave remember that his huge debt was forgiven?

Does he forgive his neighbor’s small debt?

No.

In fact, he throws that other slave into a debtor’s prison until he pays his debt in full.

 

There is a contrast here between God’s forgiveness and human forgiveness.

God is so much more merciful and forgiving than we could ever be.

I often hear people express doubt that God can forgive them.

They feel that their sin weighs so heavily on their shoulders; how can God relieve that burden?

I’ve known people that have carried guilt and shame around with them for decades.

To them and to us, Jesus says, “There is no burden too heavy for God to carry; there is no sin too great for God to forgive.  Lay your burdens down at the feet of the Lord, and the Lord will take them from you.”

Jesus also has a message for us about forgiving our neighbors.

It’s another version of the Golden Rule: Do to others what you would have them do to you.

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Forgive others as you want to be forgiven – as God has forgiven you.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

It’s a given that, as followers of Jesus, we are to love our enemies, and forgive those who have wronged us.

 

In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says, “’You shall  love  the Lord  your  God with all  your  heart, and with all  your  soul, and with all  your  mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.   And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Forgiving others is a concrete way of loving them.

 

Amy Goodman recently wrote about Victim 0001 on September 11 – Father Mychal Judge.  Here is part of what she wrote:^[ii]

 

The body bag marked “Victim 0001” on Sept. 11, 2001, contained the corpse of Father Mychal Judge, a Catholic chaplain with the Fire Department of New York.

When he heard about the disaster at the World Trade Center, he donned his Catholic collar and firefighter garb and raced downtown. He saw people jump to their deaths to avoid the inferno over 1,000 feet above.

At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed, and the force and debris from that mass of steel, concrete, glass and humanity as it hit the ground is likely what killed Father Mychal.

His was the first recorded death from the attacks that morning. His life’s work should be central to the 10th-anniversary commemorations of the Sept. 11 attacks: peace, tolerance and reconciliation.

One of the first vigils held this year was in honor of Father Mychal. About 300 people gathered last Sunday in front of the St. Francis Church where Judge lived and worked, just down the block from the Ladder 24/Engine 1 Firehouse. The march followed Father Mychal’s final path to ground zero.

The man behind the annual remembrance is Steven McDonald, the former New York police detective who was shot in 1986. He was questioning 15-year-old Shavod Jones in Central Park. Jones shot McDonald, leaving him paralyzed for life.

Amy continues, I caught up with McDonald as he led the procession, rolling down Seventh Avenue in his wheelchair. He talked about what Father Mychal meant to him:

“He, more than anything … reaffirmed my faith in God, and that it was important to me to forgive the boy who shot me. And I’m alive today because of that.”

Father Mychal had managed to get Jones on the phone with McDonald and his wife. He apologized from prison. Taking the lessons of reconciliation, McDonald joined Judge in a trip to Northern Ireland, where they worked together to try to help end the violence there.

Father Mychal was well-known to the poor and afflicted of New York City and New Jersey. He helped the homeless, and people with HIV/AIDS. As a member of the Franciscan order, he would often wear the traditional brown robe and sandals. But there was a half-known secret about him: He was gay. In his private diaries, the revered Catholic priest wrote, “I thought of my gay self and how the people I meet never get to know me fully.”

A decade later, Brendan Fay reflects on the life of his friend Mychal:“On 9/11, the one thing we can take from Mychal Judge is, in the midst of this hell and war and evil and violence, here is this man who directs us to another possible path as human beings: We can choose the path of compassion and nonviolence and reconciliation. Mychal Judge had a heart as big as New York. There was room for everybody. And I think that’s the lesson.”

 

On this 10^th anniversary of 9/11, it is worth asking how we are to love our neighbors today, whether they are Muslim or Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Atheist or whatever.

 

We have been forgiven much: Jesus calls us to be a forgiving people.

We are much loved: Jesus calls us to love one another and love our neighbors regardless of their religion or race or sexual orientation or economic level or educational level.

Can our hearts reflect, in our own small ways, God’s big heart of love?

 

We close with a prayer of Father Mychal Judge:

“Lord, take me where You want me to go,
let me meet who You want me to meet,
tell me what You want me to say,
and keep me out of Your way.”