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Jubilee Episcopal Church is an incense-swinging, sanctus-bell-ringing, stomp-your-feet- singing ancient way of following Jesus with more than enough room for you to bring your compassion, curiosities, and complete self. We're rooted in NW Austin, Texas, but connect with folks globally in sharing a joyful and inclusive Christian faith. The title comes from a prayer found in Compline, a service in the Book of Common Prayer, where we intercede for Jesus Christ to care and tend for the hurting, the sick, and the weary, but also, to shield the joyous. This prayer is our heartbeat at Jubilee. You'll hear sermons, devotions, and other occasional audio treats here -- including the occasional baby squawk or squeak from our decidedly family-friendly community!
We worship Sundays at 9:30am in person at 12129 FM 620 Ste 310 Austin, TX and online!
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In the kingdom of heaven, mercy reigns. Jesus responds to Peter's initial question in this passage simply enough up front. You should forgive your brother or sister, not seven, but 77 times. Peter is aware of our humanity. We all mess up. We all need mercy, and we all have the ability to extend mercy. Jesus answers Peter's question simply, and he could have left the conversation there, but he didn't. As Jesus often does, he tells a story to guide us into a deeper place of understanding and action. But Jesus trips us up sometimes. His stories can be confusing. They can be uncomfortable. And when we feel that way, we shouldn't feel too bad about it because we see from scripture that that often happened to his disciples when they were hearing Jesus' stories in real time. I will be the first to admit that I am often perplexed by the narratives and parables that Jesus tells in the Gospels. This one is no exception. I would say part of what makes this story difficult, especially for present day readers and listeners, is the presence of money and slavery as two main characters in this plot. So as we move through and into mercy, there are a couple of notes on those topics that I just want to name for us. Right up front, I start wincing a little bit when I hear that Jesus would compare the kingdom of heaven to a king who, as the text reads, wishes to settle accounts with his slaves. This opening statement feels disheartening to me, to say the least. As we heard even in our Old Testament reading this morning and in the Psalms, the topic of slavery isn't new in the Bible. It runs from beginning to end, but it doesn't make it any easier for us to read or hear about. And while slavery in the New Testament context was just as sickening as chattel slavery in the US or modern forms of slavery that we face today, it did look a little bit different. In the New Testament context of first century Roman Empire, slavery was ubiquitous. It was everywhere. In the Roman Empire where Jesus and his disciples lived and worked and ministered, in the context where this question is being asked and answered, slavery was a major part of the culture. It was everywhere. Literally, no one's life was free from the impact of slavery in first century Rome. When I can't wrap my mind around that, I think of what New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has said about New Testament slavery, and that is trying to imagine the New Testament without slavery is like, for us, trying to imagine our lives without electricity. It's not that it's invading every part of our lives. It's that it's inherent in every part of our lives. This is how the institution of slavery was at the time of Jesus. It wasn't just societally prevalent, though. It was personally impactful. Living enslaved meant living with very seriously limited autonomy. Both culturally and legally. Many of the laws written in first century Roman Empire were written in such a way that they actually just assumed that in any given transaction, at least one party was enslaved. And that status of enslavement mattered legally. If we think about this, that means a huge percentage of the population in ancient Rome was enslaved. It's very likely that if you met someone, that person either was an enslaver, was currently enslaved, had previously been enslaved, and in some cases was an enslaver and enslaved at the same time. So when Jesus is asked this question about forgiveness, he responds using characters in this example that literally anyone there listening could understand. It would not have taken a stretch of the imagination for his audience to picture themselves as any of the characters in this story, whether it was the enslaved or the king. This was their society. Slavery was everywhere. They all navigated life within a culture built on enslavement, and they would have been accustomed to interacting with people who shared their status and with those who didn't. For them, this was life. Slavery was a universal reality in first century Rome, and Jesus obviously knew that because he lived it too. And so he talks about it because Jesus doesn't shy away from difficult topics, which brings us to the next one, money. Now, I contend this story isn't actually about money. I think it's about mercy. But Jesus, I think, uses money to respond to this question about sin and forgiveness because money is something that we can all relate to. Money can evoke emotions in us like few other topics can. And I imagine that the same was true for his first century audience. Money holds power, both societally and interpersonally. Money or our lack of it can bring us some of our highest highs and our lowest lows. It's easy to feel an amount of elation or anxiety when money is merely even mentioned. How many would you rather questions have you answered that have to do with money? We've probably all at some point daydreamed about having more of it or worried about having less. Jesus story isn't about money. It's about mercy. But money helps prove the point. So we're introduced to the first guy in the story. He has no money and he has a ton of debt. And I imagine his response when he hears that the king is going to settle his accounts with those slaves that he has who owe him money. I imagine he might start pacing because he knows that he owes a ton of money and he knows that the king knows because the king has records. He knows he has a ton of money. He knows he has very little autonomy. And so I imagine that even any sort of plot that he might come up in his head of what he might say or what he might do if the king calls on him may do no good anyway. And then he gets called up. And he starts begging. He pleads for patience with the king and the king has pity. The king is merciful in this case. The king shows compassion and instead of punishing him, the king forgives his debt. And when the king extends mercy and the words reach his ears, I almost exhale with him. I think what it must have been like for him in that moment when he thinks about going home to tell his spouse and his kids that this burden that they have lived with for so long is gone. Suddenly, mercy appeared and he could breathe again. I imagine he might have started to think about his future. He hadn't been able to do that before. Mercy like this from the king would have had such an impact on this man's life and the lives of his family members that it would have changed everything for years to come. But we see very shortly that unfortunately and apparently that seems not to be the case with this man, at least not in every aspect of his life, because not too long after receiving this huge helping of mercy, he fails to extend the same. This man runs into or according to some translations, it sounds more like he tracked down someone who owes him some money and he demands that he pay it. Now, we remember the first guy is in a way better financial situation than he was just moments before and still he goes after this guy who owes him in comparison, a little bit of money. The phrasing coming from both men here is almost identical. Each of them beg for mercy, have patience with me and I will pay you what I owe. But these words that this first man just uttered have lost all meaning for him when he hears them coming out of his debtor's mouth. He refuses to extend even a fraction of the mercy that was extended to him. And here's where I want us to really pay attention. This first man who received mercy, not punishment from the king, calls for punishment for the man who owes him. He calls for punishment, but he doesn't enact it personally. He relies on the system. The system is set up in this case such that punishment is the default. But for the first man, the king bucks the system and requires mercy instead. But the guy who benefited from the king's interference chooses to let the system act on his behalf anyway. When the first guy realizes he's not going to get the money from the second guy, he has him thrown into prison until he can pay. This is the same thing that was supposed to happen to him according to the system, but the king who had the power to choose chooses mercy instead. Now both men who owe money in this story have limited autonomy. But I would argue that the first guy does have power in this circumstance. I would argue that he actually has the same amount of power as the king in this case because he has the power to choose mercy rather than punishment for his debtor. And even though he has the power to bring about mercy, he chooses the trajectory of the cruel system over the compassionate interruption. It's interesting because this first guy uses his limited autonomy to choose against mercy and then again uses his limited privilege to enact the punishment. In other words, he relies on the system to do his dirty work. He doesn't beat the guy up. He tries it first. He doesn't threaten him. He doesn't insist on his money. He doesn't try to manipulate him. He doesn't just steal it back. He doesn't do anything personally to the second guy. He has him imprisoned. He utilizes the system in place where slavery is ubiquitous and debt is a crime and has him incarcerated. So this man who was just pardoned imprisons another. He uses the system for malice instead of mercy. But that's not the end of the story for the first guy because he's about to encounter something that proves to be as powerful as the system. And that is advocacy. I love how Jesus takes particular note of a group of people in this passage who see what happened and chose to take action. They witnessed the first guy insisting on punishment for the second guy and take this matter to the king. They use their privilege to insist that the person in power works for the good of the vulnerable person next to them. This community has enough people in it who recognize injustice and choose to do something about it. They were enslaved, too. They had limited autonomy, but they didn't let that stop them from stepping in. Peter's initial question here is fine, but as is usually the case, Jesus answers it more fully than Peter asks it. Because the full story isn't only about forgiveness or mercy, but it's about repentance here, taking the form of advocacy as well. It's about forgiveness of debts and trespasses like Jesus taught us to pray, but it's also about bearing fruit and keeping with repentance like John the Baptist taught us. This kind of fruit bearing repentance isn't only necessary when we personally sin, but it's required to deal with systemic sins as well. Just like the ones here in Jesus' story. Dominique Du Bois-Gilliard writes it this way. Our lack of repentance conforms us to the patterns of this world, keeping us content amid sinful inequities and complicit with systemic sin and injustice. We have become well adjusted to things to which our faith calls us to be diametrically opposed. In other words, when we don't repent, when we don't advocate, when we don't turn away from injustice and toward mercy, we're just as guilty as the individual or system where the sin is found. The kingdom of heaven is a place and a system where mercy reigns. And when we fail to repent, when we fail to turn away from justice and toward mercy, we live opposed to this reality. This community of people demonstrate repentance when they bear witness to the plight of their brother and then they do something about it. They weren't the ones who sinned here, but they saw a sinful action take advantage of a cruel system and insisted on mercy. They used their privilege. They could have argued that they didn't have power to do much and they might have been right. But that didn't stop them from using what privilege they did have to advocate for the one who was picked out to receive punishment when mercy was right there, ready to be chosen. The first man could have chosen mercy in his interaction with the second man. He could have repented from injustice, but instead he chose to embrace it, forgetting quickly what mercy had done for him just moments before. Jesus insists the kingdom of heaven is about mercy. In the kingdom of heaven, mercy reigns. It turns out that Peter's question about forgiveness begged a response much richer than the simple math problem he proposed at the beginning. Is it seven times? Seventy-seven? In the kingdom of heaven, mercy reigns, but it's not just up to the king to ensure that mercy abounds. We all have responsibility in the reign of mercy as well. Amen.