Introduction
This
topic seems so easy to talk about but for those of us who have been injured by
someone close to us, it’s more than mere talk. Forgiveness is something we are
commanded to offer even as we endure the pain of the proverbial knife sticking
in our back. In the song above about forgiveness, Matthew West sings: “It’s the
hardest thing to give away and the last thing on our mind today. It always goes
to those who don’t deserve.” And that’s exactly what makes forgiveness so hard
and seem so unfair—Unless you’re on the receiving end of forgiveness and then
it’s a priceless gift. Dr. Everett Worthington, Jr. is a licensed clinical
psychologist in Virginia and the Director of the Counseling Psychology Program
at Virginia Commonwealth University. His counseling emphasis centers very
heavily on the healing value of forgiveness. In addition to his extensive
counseling credentials, Dr. Worthington is a Christian. During my pastoral
counseling classes at Seminary, I was required to read his book titled Forgiving and Reconciling: Bridges to
Wholeness and Hope. The book was incredibly informative and tremendously
healing as well. In it, Worthington goes through the steps that facilitate
forgiveness that are necessary for healing to begin and can lead, in some
cases, to reconciliation. I’ll go through more of the details of that at the
end. However, Worthington makes clear that the process of forgiveness has just
as much to do with healing the one injured as it does with reconciliation
between the parties. You see, there are times when reconciliation is not
possible and not always necessary yet forgiveness is always possible and always
necessary. Worthington is not some ivory-tower academic presenting some lofty
Christian ideal. Worthington has been at ground zero where forgiveness required
the courage of ten men. On New Year’s Eve of 1995 Worthington’s elderly mother
was murdered during a home burglary attempt. Worthington’s brother, Mike, found
the body. The burglar beat her to death with a crowbar and sexually assaulted
her with a wine bottle. Worthington describes the crime scene as having so much
blood everywhere that it soaked through the carpets. Worthington says he was
filled with so much rage that if he had thirty minutes in a room alone with the
perpetrator, he would use a bat to beat his brains in. However, the
perpetrators where never apprehended. Consequently, Worthington had to deal
with his rage some other way—forgiveness was the vehicle for healing.
Worthington knew Jesus’ command to forgive and eventually came to understand
that forgiveness is a gift, not primarily for the offender, but always for the
one who has been wounded. It is true that the overall biblical narrative, what
I sometimes refer to as the biblical metanarrative, is the personal
relationship between God and his creation generally and God and humanity more
specifically. However, there is a key component within that narrative that is
the foundation upon which that relationship rests. That key component is
forgiveness. Sin has created an obstacle in the relationship between God and
humanity that only forgiveness can overcome. In fact, forgiveness was so
important to God that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, went so far as to give his
life to die on a cross in order to procure that forgiveness and make
reconciliation with God possible. That is The
Power Of Forgiveness. The disciples came to Jesus and asked Him about the
extent to which they must go to forgive someone who has offended them. Jesus
gives them a lesson in forgiveness that reaches out to us through the millennia
as a command that we are obligated to obey as well.
Subject
Text
Matthew 18:21-35
21Then Peter came to Jesus and
asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against
me? Up to seven times?” 22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times,
but seventy-seven times. 23Therefore, the kingdom of
heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement,
a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to
pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children
and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26The servant fell on his
knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he
begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27The servant’s master took
pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28But when that servant went
out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to
choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29His fellow servant fell to
his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ 30But he refused. Instead, he
went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw
what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master
everything that had happened. 32Then the master called the
servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours
because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy
on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34In anger his master turned
him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35This is how my heavenly
Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
Context
This is part of a whole series of
lessons that Jesus is teaching the disciples that result from a question the
disciples ask Jesus at the beginning of the chapter—“Who will be the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven?” Seriously? Do you ever wonder if Jesus didn’t just
want to roll his eyes and walk away? Really! At the beginning of chapter
seventeen Peter, James and John were first-hand witnesses to Jesus’
transfiguration and an appearance by Moses and Elijah who met with Jesus in his
transfigured state. By the end of chapter seventeen Jesus predicts, for the
second time, that He was going to be betrayed and handed over to be killed and
yet what preoccupied them at this moment was who would be the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven. Good grief! Nevertheless, Jesus, with endless patience,
teaches them that it is the faith and humility of a child that is prized in
heaven. After warning the disciples to avoid temptation at all costs using
hyperbolic illustrations of limb amputation as being preferable to giving in to
temptation, Jesus warns them about the eternal value of children and warns them
about the dire consequences that awaits anyone who in any way interferes with a
child’s ability to come to faith in God. Finally, at the end of chapter
seventeen, Jesus instructs the disciples on how to confront a fellow Christian
who sins against them. This final instruction sets the stage for Jesus’
instruction in our Subject Text.
Text Analysis
Not surprisingly, Peter is the first
to speak up in v. 21 and asks how many times he should forgive a fellow
Christian. Peter asks if seven times is sufficient, perhaps thinking that he is
being magnanimous. Honestly, would the same person even have a chance of being
able to sin against you seven times before you gave up on him or her? Be
honest, how many time would you forgive the same person? Twice? Three times?
What if they committed the same sin
against you? How many times would it take before you stopped forgiving? I would
be lying if I said I could get to seven without hesitation. Why did Peter pick
the number seven? “Peter asked Jesus a question commonly discussed in rabbinic
debates. The common answer was that it was considered sufficient to forgive
three times. Peter may have chosen the number seven not only to indicate
generosity, but also because the number seven is commonly used in the Bible to
communicate completeness.”[1]
As was the case in Jesus’ culture at
that time, Peter was looking for a specific guideline. Peter wanted Jesus to
give them a box that they could put a check mark in. The disciples wanted to
know exactly how far they needed to go before they were no longer obligated to
forgive someone; no longer obligated to offer someone grace and mercy. They
wanted to know at what point they would be justified in holding a grudge. Be
honest, don’t we do the exact thing today? When you are offended, do you
immediately seek to forgive or do you immediately begin to debate with yourself
about whether or not that person “deserves” forgiveness? Of course repeated
offenses only exacerbate our internal debate. It would be so much easier if we
knew that we were only required to forgive “x” number of times and thereafter
were no longer required to do so. We could point back to that number as
justification for holding a grudge against someone and happily live the rest of
our lives filled with contempt for the person who has sinned against us the
prescribed “x” number of times. I know it sounds ridiculous when we read those
words, but many of us actually live this way without formal acknowledgement
that we are doing it. Here’s the problem, that unforgiveness becomes the poison
the eventually kills us—not necessarily physically (although there are
extensive studies that point to the fact that those with a forgiving spirit
live longer than those who are unforgiving) but spiritually. Unforgiveness is
like a drug that makes us feel good while killing us at the same time.
Unforgiveness cuts us off from the thing that gives life to our spirit—a
relationship with God. Jesus knows that as good as unforgiveness makes us feel,
it is killing us because it is an obstacle to being in relationship with Him.
Jesus knows that forgiveness is just as important, even more important, for the
one who has been offended as it is for the one who offends. Consequently, In v.
22 Jesus shocks them with His answer when he tells them that they should not
forgive seven times but seventy-seven times. Some manuscripts read seventy
times seven. In either case, the point Jesus is making is that there is no end
to the number of times they must forgive. “Christ’s reply lifts the subject out
of the legal sphere, where event Peter’s suggestion left it (seven times and
not more—a hard rule), into the evangelic, and means: times without number, infinite placability.”[2]
To make his point, Jesus begins to
tell them a parable in v. 23 to illustrate one of the foundational principles
of the kingdom of heaven. The parable begins with a king seeking to settle
accounts with his servants. As is often the case, we read this parable with the
foreknowledge that the king represents God and the servants represent all of
us. Furthermore, we come to Jesus’ illustration already knowing what the
parable means overall so some of its dramatic impact tends to be lost on us.
But the disciples did not have the benefit of this knowledge or foreknowledge
of what Jesus was about to say. So try and put yourself in the place of the
disciples and try to hear it as though it were for the first time. “The picture
of the creditor and debtor reveals men’s dependence on and responsibility to
God, who (as Matt. emphasizes again and again) will settle accounts with his
servants.”[3]
We learn in v. 24 that a certain
servant is called to account who owes a very large sum of money; 10,000
talents! Of course that doesn’t really mean much to us since we don’t trade in
talents as a monetary product. Let me see if I can help—10,000 talents is the
modern equivalent of approximately $3,500,000,000! Yes, you read that right—nearly
three and a half billion dollars. Are you beginning to understand the depth of
this servant’s predicament? I don’t know about you but my anxiety level goes up
significantly when I read this. Why? Because I owe more money personally than I
could possibly repay all at once. If all my creditors got together and insisted
that I repay them immediately, it would be impossible for me to do so.
Similarly, the servant in Jesus’ parable couldn’t pay what he owed the king. “Although
the talent’s worth varied in different periods, ten thousand talents
represented between sixty and one hundred million denarii, or between thirty
and one hundred million days’ wages for an average peasant—a lot of work…This
fact starkly reveals the laughably hyperbolic character of the illustration:
the poor man owes the king more money than existed in circulation in the whole
country at the time!”[4]
Unable to pay what is due, the king
orders the servant and his family to be taken into custody and sold in order to
repay the debt in v. 25. Obviously, given the sum of money the servant owed,
the king would still suffer a significant loss even after the sale of the
servant and his family. However, imagine the desperation of the servant. It was
his duty to provide and protect his family yet because of the debt he incurred,
for whatever reason, his family is being sold. It is one thing for our actions
to affect us, but what happens when our actions have a devastating impact on
those around us; on those we love? Isn’t this what happens so often when we
sin? From the time we are tempted until we carry out our sinful acts, we are
thinking only of ourselves; how our actions will affect us; how our actions
will benefit us; how our actions will bring us happiness; how our actions will
bring us fulfillment. However, once the sinful deed is done, we learn, often
quickly, that our actions are like a stone striking the surface of a glassy
pond. The ripples from the stone get larger and larger and affect more and more
of the surface of the pond as they move away from where the stone first
impacted the surface. This is the pervasive nature of the sins we commit as
well. No sin is committed in a vacuum. In other words, our sins will never only
affect us—others, often those who are closest to us, will suffer the impact of
our sins. The servant’s debt in our Subject Text was about to take its toll on
those he loved and was responsible to protect. “Since the man is unable to pay
such an astronomical figure, he and his family are to be sold to repay the
debt, implying that the king will sell them into slavery, a practice common in
the ancient world. Debtors were often forced to sell their children as slaves
or gave their children as slaves to a creditor. Debtor’s slavery was often
designed more as punishment than repayment, for as in this case, it is
impossible to repay the amount owed.”[5]
Unable to pay what is owed and
facing condemnation and slavery for himself and his family, the servant is out
of options. What would he do to save himself and his family? What would you do?
In v. 26, the servant does exactly what I think I would have done—he begged for
more time saying he would pay back everything he owed. Think about it, was that
even possible considering how much he owed? He couldn’t pay back what he owed
in a million lifetimes. But what more could he do? He was desperate and the
king knew it. The stage is set perfectly in v. 27 for the king to do something
that only he had the power to do—he cancels the servant’s debt and sets him
free. Put yourself in the place of the servant, you owe someone more money than
you could possibly repay, you and your family are about to be sold into slavery
as payment for your debt and
suddenly, the one to whom you owe everything cancels your debt and tells you
you’re free to go home. Why? Why would the king do something so amazing? The answer
is found in the word that the NIV translates as “pity.” “Pity” doesn’t even
begin to explain what the Greek word, splagchna
[noun: “bowel”] is trying to convey. “Literally, splagchnizomai means ‘to be moved in one’s bowels.’ The Greeks
regarded the bowels as the seat of violent passion such as anger and love; the
Jews regarded them as the center of the more tender affections, especially
kindness and pity. The ‘bowels’ were for them what we mean by ‘the heart.’ When
Jesus was confronted with human need, the Gospels say that he was moved in his
bowels, as we might say, ‘his heart went out to these people’ or ‘ they broke
his heart,’ that is, he had compassion on them…God’s mercy to us is made
necessary by our need and especially our sinfulness, and it has this objective:
‘That you might be children of your Father who is in heaven’ The parable of the
unmerciful servant expresses this objective negatively…Mercy should be
manifested in giving help to the needy and the helpless.”[6]
The story takes a fascinating twist
when the servant goes out and encounters a fellow servant who owes him money.
In this case, however, the fellow servant only owes a hundred denarii; the
modern equivalent of just a few dollars. After having an astronomical debt he
could not repay forgiven by the king, you would think the servant would be so
relieved that the last thing he would have at that particular moment is an
unforgiving heart. But that’s exactly what we see in v. 28 when he chokes his
fellow servant and demands to be repaid immediately. The scene is eerily
similar in v. 29 as the fellow servant falls to his knees and begs for more
time to repay the debt. However, unlike the king, the servant shows no mercy in
v. 30 and has his fellow servant thrown in prison until the debt is paid. The
only problem is that there appeared to be those who were witnesses to both
events and in v. 31 they reported back to the king. I can’t help but wonder if
the point Jesus is making is beginning to take shape in the minds of the
disciples. I wonder if silently they were beginning to compare their own
actions and attitudes to that of the king and that of the servant. I wonder if
some of them began to realize how woefully inadequate their actions and
attitudes were compared to the king. “When a brother offends us, it is logical
to think that we are entitled to just recompense. There is legitimate
restitution. But what we forget, when we fail to release a brother from an
offense by forgiving him, is that relationships in the family of God go beyond
strict justice. God himself started the pattern by forgiving us a debt we could
never hope to repay.”[7]
Well if the message wasn’t clear to
them by this point, Jesus makes it clear as he continues with his story in v.
32. The king is furious and has the servant brought before him where he
addresses him now as a “wicked servant.” He reminds the wicked servant that
when he begged the king for leniency, the king forgave is entire debt when he
didn’t have to. The king wants to know in v. 33 if the wicked servant shouldn’t
have taken his example of mercy and grace as a model for the way he should have
treated others. “We encounter here a central principle in the teaching of
Jesus, which is expressed in a variety of ways. God’s forgiveness of a person
must be reflected in that person’s forgiveness of others…Disciples, in short,
are to act toward others as God has acted toward them—in mercy, in forgiveness,
and in love.”[8]
The king simply won’t tolerate such
ruthless and unmerciful behavior from someone who has received so much kindness
and mercy from him. So in v. 34 the king has the wicked servant handed over to
the jailers to be tortured until he pays back what he owed the king originally.
We must take note of something that Jesus is saying in this part of our Subject
Text, actually there are two things to note: 1) It is now only the servant who
is imprisoned and not his whole family. The implication being that ultimately
we will only be judged pursuant to our own actions and not someone elses. 2)
Remember, the wicked servant owed so much that he wouldn’t be able to pay back
what he owed even if he had a million lifetimes. Therefore, there is an eternal
element to the king’s punishment. And if you doubt this second element, Jesus
makes it clear in v. 35 that the Father will treat each of them in exactly the
same way if they fail to affectionately forgive each other. “The following
three themes emerge from the main characters and episodes of the parable: God’s
boundless grace, the absurdity of spurning that grace, and the frightful fate
awaiting the unforgiving. The law of end-stress highlights the third of these,
but all are important…‘Jesus sees no incongruity in the actions of a heavenly
Father who forgives so bountifully and punishes so ruthlessly, and neither
should we. Indeed, it is precisely because he is a God of such compassion and
mercy that he cannot possibly accept as his those devoid of compassion and
mercy’…Frighteningly, many in Christian circles today seem in danger of this
judgment because they refuse to forgive fellow believers, speak kindly to them,
cooperate with them, or accept their apologies. Counselors often discover that
a client’s unwillingness to forgive someone lies deep at the heart of all kinds
of personal problems. Jesus declares that if people die without having resolved
such problems, they may exclude themselves from eternal life with him.”[9]
Application
I know some of your stories out
there and they would make the average person shudder. Some of you, maybe all of
you have your own stories of hurt and betrayal that the rest of us might have a
hard time relating to. You might be reading this and be thinking (maybe
screaming out loud), “You have no idea what I’ve been through!” “You have no
idea how badly I’ve been hurt!” “You have no idea what he/she did to me!” And
you might be right but I know a little about physical, mental and emotional
pain. You see, I grew up in a home with an abusive, alcoholic father. There are
some images from my childhood that have been burned into my mind. I remember
standing naked in front of a mirror as a small boy after my dad stripped my
clothes off and took a belt to me. I remember him grabbing me by the top of the
head and making me turn around and around so I could see the welts all over my
body. I remember the feel of my feet on the cold, tile floor standing in a
puddle of my own urine. And I remember him yelling, “Take a good look at
yourself! This is your fault! You made me do this!” I also remember sitting in
a bathtub after getting punched so hard in the face that it looked like I was
taking a bath in blood. And there are many others that I can’t erase from my
memory no matter how hard I try to forget. Until the day he died, he never once
apologized. Nevertheless, I have forgiven him for the booze and the beatings. Don’t
confuse forgive with forget. Unfortunately, God has not blessed me with the
ability to forget but He has given me the strength to forgive. Worthington gave
me some tools that have really helped me in the practice of forgiveness and I
want to share that with you as well. Worthington describes his forgiveness
methodology with the acronym REACH—How to REACH forgiveness.
“R—Recall the hurt. When we are hurt, we often try to protect
ourselves by denying our hurt. To heal, we must recall the hurt as objectively
as we can. Don’t rail against the person who hurt you, expend fruitless effort
in finger wagging, waste time wishing for an apology that will never be offered,
or dwell on your victimization. Instead, admit that a wrong was done to you.
E—Empthize.
Empathy is seeing things from another person’s point of view. To forgive, try
to feel the transgressor’s feelings. Even though it is difficult, try to
identify with the pressures that made the person hurt you. Empathy puts a human
face on suffering. How would he or she explain the harmful acts? Empathy is
only one of the emotions you can use to replace negative emotions. You also can
sympathize with, feel compassion for, experience agape love toward, or kindle
romantic love for the transgressor. Each of those can help you replace the
unforgiveness.
A—Offer
the altruistic gift of forgiveness. Have you ever harmed or offended a friend,
parent or partner who later forgave you? Think about your own guilt. Then
consider how you felt when you were forgiven. When you remember how you felt,
you might be willing to give a selfless gift of forgiveness to those who have
hurt you.
C—Commit
publicly to forgive. If you make your forgiveness public, you are less likely
to doubt it later. Tell a friend, partner or counselor that you have forgiven
the person who hurt you.
H—Hold
on to forgiveness. When you doubt whether you have forgiven, there are many
ways to stop forgiveness from slipping.”[10] Memories
of past offenses will undoubtedly surface after you have forgiven someone. Hopefully
the memory of those offenses will be less emotional and debilitating as you
become more practiced in forgiving. Forgiveness must eventually be genuine. It
is important to interrupt any thoughts of revenge and self pity. Slowly but
surely, forgiveness will be genuine and withstand the test of time.
It is important to remember that
forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing. Forgiveness is always
possible while reconciliation is not always possible. Forgiveness is a personal
internal decision while reconciliation is an external action of relational
cooperation. Forgiveness is something that occurs immediately while
reconciliation occurs gradually as trust is re-established. Sometimes
reconciliation is not possible because the person who has offended us has passed
away. Other times, reconciliation is not possible because the person who has
offended us might pose a physical threat. Nevertheless, forgiveness is possible
in any case.
Look, Jesus isn’t asking you to do
anything he hasn’t done himself—and it cost Him considerably more than it costs
any of us no matter how painful or hard it might seem. Consider this—the forgiveness
offered by Jesus gives us the opportunity to spend eternity with him. That is The Power Of Forgiveness. Before we
finish, let’s look at a modern day example of forgiveness and its power to
change the life of the offender and the one offended.
[1]
Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 84.
[2] W.
Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s
Greek Testament, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1983), p. 241.
[3]
Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), p. 667.
[4]
Craig S. Keener, Matthew—The IVP New
Testament Commentary Series, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.
291.
[5]
Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), p. 623.
[6]
Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 543.
[7] Stuart
K. Weber, Matthew—Holman New
Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000), p. 297.
[8]
Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28—Word
Biblical Commentary, (Dallas, TX: Word Books, 1995), p. 540.
[9]
Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew—The New
American Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992), pp. 284-285.
[10] Everett
L. Worthington, Jr., Forgiving and
Reconciling: Bridges to Wholeness and Hope, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2001), pp. 73-74.
No comments:
Post a Comment