Speaker 1: Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2: If we have not met, I'm Bobby, and I serve the Commons community as one of the pastors on the team. And I just wanna take a moment to fill my heart and to ask you to fill your heart with gratitude for the volunteers that make church happen every single week. Today, you were greeted. Songs were sung that you could sing along to. Your kids are engaged.
Somebody made you a cup of coffee. You can actually hear me because of our production team. So many teams make Sunday happen. So I feel grateful. Maybe say thank you to someone who's just volunteering their time around our community.
It does mean the world to us. It's the third Sunday of Lent. Who's loving that? Hello? So the stole that we wear in our teaching and our sacraments during this Lenten season is the color purple to remind you of some of the themes of Lent.
And a part of liturgy that is so lovely is all of this symbol and metaphor that we pay attention to and we can actually learn from. This includes liturgical colors that match the liturgical season. So like I said, Lent's color is purple. Now I'm not sure if you get hyped about the color purple. Anyone love purple?
That's good. Well, let me tell you my little niece Emery loves purple. Here is a Snapchat that she sent me this week, and yes, there's a lot of purple in it. Please excuse the middle finger emoji. I think she just thinks I'm her number one auntie, But it's there.
You see it now, don't you? But get a load of this kid. A few nights ago, my sister was putting Emery to bed, and the two of them, they have these little chats in bed as part of their nighttime routine. And this week, Emery says to my sister, all the other colors just keep getting in the way of purple. And my sister wasn't quite sure what Emery meant, so they keep talking.
And Emery, who is only about three and a half says, you know, the other colors like blue and green and white, they get into my mind and in the way of my thinking about purple, my favorite color. I mean, come on. Who is this kid? She's ours. We love her.
But back to the purple, this purple. Purple in liturgy land stands for pain and suffering and grief and penitence. And these are themes that we're not necessarily drawn to, are we? Other themes get in the way like fun or distraction or pride. So Lent has this way of calling us back to the purple in our own spiritual drama, the harder parts.
And at first, that sounds like a total downer. But I want you to hear and to see something beautiful and comforting in the color purple during Lent. Purple means that every part of your story and the stories of others is welcome here. The pain that we carry, the horrible things that we go through as humans, the things that really just stress us out. Lent is a time to honestly look at all of that, to push the other colors aside for forty days and to trust in this great transformation that faith offers, that all of life is for our healing and our wholeness.
All of it. In the season of Lent, we're in a series called parables of grace. And I don't know about you, but it is everything that my heart needs these days. The stories Jesus tells with everyday materials of the ancient world still speak to us. They illustrate and invite us into the absurdity of God's love for creation and the wild ways that we get to participate in making all things new.
So today, we're talking about the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew chapter 18. It's a story with power and humor and surprise. But before we dive in, let's pause and pray together. Please join me. Loving God, In this lent season, we take a moment to reflect on pain and suffering.
Maybe we carry the pain of another. Maybe we carry some suffering in relationships. Maybe we are caught in some places that are hard or destructive or toxic. Jesus give us the grace to sense how you are at work in our healing and for our wholeness even here in pain and in suffering. We also take a moment to reflect on grief and penitence.
Maybe we have places in our lives where we are afraid to feel the extent of what we have lost. Maybe we are soothing ourselves with comforts that are actually not helping us at all. Maybe we need to stop and just simply say sorry. Sorry we don't trust enough. Sorry we're sometimes so proud.
Sorry we're so afraid. Holy Spirit, give us the grace to feel how you are moving us towards our healing and our wholeness even here in the purple parts of life. The parts that make us sad, where there are traces of our own wrongdoing or the wrongdoing of others. But still, we can know your nearness for which we give you thanks. Amen.
So I don't know what your partnership or your family system or your friendship circle is like, but in my three years of being married to Jonathan Bateman, I've been so glad that for the most part, we don't keep score. And don't get me wrong though, I basically have to always tell myself to just stop that nonsense because score keeping is a constant temptation in all kinds of relationships. I'm talking about that imaginary spreadsheet where you keep track of how much somebody actually owes you because of all the good that you've done for them. Last week, Jonathan and I had a little running joke that was kind of all about score keeping. I said to him, hey, if you really wanna show me that you love me, maybe you could, oh, I don't know, wash my car and show me that you really care about me.
And you guys, it worked. Jonathan surprised me by doing a grown up chore that I hate, and then he also filled my car up with gas. Bless him. He's the best. But Jonathan also, in good jest, made it very clear that he went above and beyond.
So when I thanked him with his text message, so nice to see out my car windows. Thanks, love. He said, you're welcome, Plus a full tank. And I said, oh, I didn't even notice, which was a total punk text. And he just sent me a shame jiff like, you should be ashamed of yourself.
And it was funny and a good reminder not to actually live like this. We miss the best stuff when we're busy keeping score but it's tempting right to slip into spreadsheets and scorecards like he hurt me like this, so I'm gonna withhold that. Or she never really understood me, so why should I even bother? Or I can count all the times. He said something insensitive about this thing that really matters to me, so why should I actually be nice to him at all?
Well, Matthew 18 says that there's has the story of all this accounting that takes place just before the parable that we dig into today. So that we've had this absurd story of a shepherd leaving the flock of 99 to go and to look for the one lost sheep. And next, Jesus delivers these instructions about what to do when there's conflict in communities. So it goes like this. Step one, point out the problem privately.
That doesn't work? Okay. Take it to step two. Bring a friend or two along and try again. This time, you have witnesses.
Still having trouble? Okay. Try step three. Take it to your church. Your combatant's still digging in his or her heels?
Treat them like you would a pagan or a tax collector. Now we tend to read this passage in a really flat manner. What I mean is if we were one of Jesus's disciples back back then we'd pull out this pencil from behind our ear they had pencils right I don't know do they have pencils yeah okay thank you they had pencils and we definitely be taking some notes be like okay step one I got it I got it yeah yeah yeah step two I can do that yeah no problem step three wait a minute tell everyone treat them like a pagan or a tax collector okay Jesus I get it I see what you just did there You're stringing us along to make your point. Because let's remember Jesus prefers the company of tax collectors and sinners. So once you get the irony here that Jesus does not set up a community or a kingdom where there are limits to grace, once you finally see that, you're ready for the next story.
But Peter, oh Peter, still tries his hand at keeping score. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you not seven times but 77 times. Now the prophet Amos also did some accounting when it came to forgiveness.
Throughout the prophet's short book, there's this refrain. For three sins even for four, I will not relent. And some experts say that Israel later interpreted Amos to mean that God forgives three times but actually punishes on the fourth. So when Peter says up to seven times it's like he's being super lavish about forgiveness like check me out Jesus. Forget three.
Let's go with a whopping seven. But staying on this bible reference track, Jesus is actually doing something far far superior. The number Jesus uses to swat down Peter's attempt at impressive forgiveness is 77. And that catapults us all the way back to Genesis chapter four verse 24 where Lamech in the line of Cain vows to avenge himself not seven times but 77 times. So 77 is a number that became known for its unlimited vengeance taking.
And Jesus just takes that number and flips it right on its head. That kind of vengeance and that kind of violence, it stops right here. We're done with that. Jesus says in my world, we actually forgive without limit. And there's something really important for us here.
Jesus doesn't kinda crawl back through history and cover up over the mistakes of the past. You can't delete the hate. You can't ignore the violence. You can't just like backspace over the revenge. Jesus just builds a different world right there.
Jesus says in fact this is the world that's already here. One where you can forgive without limit. You can start a new story. You can begin all over again. So maybe your history holds such profound heartbreak.
Or you have real trouble sleeping at night because you cannot shake the trauma that you endured. It has got a grip on you. Or you are so bummed that you hurt someone who has only ever loved you, not perfectly but truly. The words of Jesus teach us that forgiveness never runs out. Forgiveness is with you to try again to move forward and to heal to get through the tough stuff so that you can finally be free.
And Jesus says let's build a new world right on top of the ruins of the old one. Lamech I got you bro. Amos step into this forgiveness. You you you you belong here too. Okay.
It's story time. Jesus says, therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement a man who owed him 10,000 bags of gold was brought to him since he was not able to pay the master order that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. So here's the deal. This king is a keeper of records and debts.
In addition, nothing keeps him accountable for how he treats his subjects. The king says, you can't pay up? Fine then. I'll just lock you up. And this isn't just credit card debt with 19.9% interest.
The servant is a royal slave in charge of finances and the reason for a slave in a position like this is that even if he rises up through the ranks he is still just a slave. So he can be tortured if he doesn't perform. So the royal slave has accumulated an astronomical amount of debt not because he spent it on Hermes or Chanel handbags. Oh, no. But simply because it is his job to collect funds from the cities and the communities in the king's jurisdiction.
And a note about this debt, it's so excessive that it would have been hilarious to the people listening to Jesus tell the tale. We're talking national debt levels. We're talking millions and millions of dollars here. We're talking there is no hope that this guy can ever pay up. So the hilarity continues when Jesus says since he could not repay they're like yeah no kidding There's no way that this guy is going to get out of this situation in one piece.
So it's even funnier when the slave does the following. At this the servant fell on his knees before him be patient with me he begged and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. It's like what on earth is this guy actually doing begging for patience? There is no way he can repay the debt.
A lifetime isn't even long enough for a repayment. So who's he actually trying to fool? But then in this surprising twist the master takes pity and cancels the debt and the slave is just free to go. Now it's possible that a master would forgive a debt like this especially if the master has something to gain like it preserves his power in some sort of way. But the point of the story isn't actually that the master forgives the debt.
The story is still trucking along because there's another point to be made. So the royal slave heads out but he does not comprehend that he's actually been forgiven. And even though he stepped into this whole new reality he insists on actually the old one. So he tracks down a fellow servant, one who owes him 100 silver coins. And right there, we've got actually a different kind of slave.
The servant owing the silver is lower in the hierarchy. He owes about half a year's earnings for an agricultural day laborer. And what does this servant do to his fellow slave? The one who had been forgiven millions, does he forgive in return? No.
Actually the farthest thing from forgiveness he grabs him, he throttles him, he chokes him and he says pay up what you owe me. How absurd right? How offensive. But the thing is they are a part of a wretched system. The royal slave isn't actually just some greedy freak.
He's probably just pretty human. The king may have forgiven him that whole pile of debt just now but what if that master just what if that master changes his mind and comes calling for repayment so he better be ready right? He's gonna make sure he's ready just in case. So the low ranking servant falls down at the feet of the first servant and through his panic and his fear he cries out, please be patient with me. I will repay you.
I will. And Louis Chautraf says that the sympathy of the narrative is directed to the lower servant situation. So if you feel kind of a slight chill across your chest or like a squint of dread about what's coming next you're right on the money here emotionally. This is not going to go well for the lower servant. He is refused forgiveness instead he is thrown into prison and the Greek in the story actually adds a violent severity.
The slave will be tortured and in excruciating pain and the fear it just ripples out from there. The other slaves take note of the harsh treatment. They grieve the royal servants insistent that this minor debt get repaid. And you can imagine that they're scared actually just for themselves. Oh man like what if he comes for us next?
So they go and they tell the master everything that happened. And this next part is not pretty. Then the master called the servant in. You wicked servant he said I canceled all the debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?
In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. Now when theologian Louise Chotroff talks about Matthew 18, she makes a really brilliant link between this parable and the Jewish calendar. And in making the case that this parable is all about forgiveness among people and its absolute importance, Shotrov quotes the Mishnah, the oral Torah which states, for transgressions that are between man and God, the day of atonement affects atonement. But for transgressions that are between a man and his fellow the day of atonement affects atonement only if he has appeased his fellow. In other words you can't leave forgiveness to God alone.
You have to live live forgiveness together. So this parable it does not have characters who map onto the character of God. You heard that right? God in this parable is above and beyond. God is through and alongside, but God is not the king here.
We are. We are the fickle ones who forget that our lives abound with love. We are the ones who forgive in one moment and then take it all back the next. We are the ones who ignore the constant source of grace in our lives and who work really pretty hard to withhold that from each other. We are the king and we are the slave here.
Now before we get to the final verse I need to say this. In our faith communities, we elevate the act of forgiveness above the work of forgiveness. And what I mean is that we often place a burden on the person who was wronged and expect that she or he forgive now and forgive in a hurry. But maybe there's more work to be done. Soraya Chimile who writes about the creative power of anger especially for women but this includes us all says that if your instinct is to withhold and to hold off on forgiveness for a while maybe there's a good reason for that.
Because sometimes we prioritize forgiveness over beneficial solutions. The point is to heal not to cover over. So just as lent is this path that we walk, forgiveness can be a path too. So trust yourself. Trust the process.
I have no doubt that forgiveness will find you when you're good and ready and when you're doing the work. After all, forgiveness is kind of like a superpower. Forgiveness stops the cycle of violence in its tracks. It opens up the windows to let fresh air into the stale room where you store your hurt. Forgiveness bases your interactions on the immovability of God's love for you, for the person you hurt, and even for the person who hurt you.
Better than a king who forgives one moment and then takes it all back the next, this is God who was unlike any parent you can even imagine. The last verse reads, this is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. Now I know I know this sounds so harsh. But remember Jesus loves a really big statement to pack actually a gentle punch. And thankfully, Robert Farrar Capon rescues us with this interpretation.
Capon writes, interestingly, this parable of grace ends as a parable of judgment as well. And it makes clear the only basis on which anyone will finally be condemned if we refuse to die in particular. If we insist on binding others debts upon them in the name of our own right to life, we will, by not letting grace have its way through us, cut ourselves off from ever knowing the joy of grace in us. So how we treat each other has everything to do with how we experience the divine at work in us. But let's think about it another way.
So I've been reading this book about writing for over a year now, not because I'm a really slow reader, but because I am just reading it in small bursts. I take it in, and then I dwell on it. And I hope it will influence my own writing. The book is Light in the Dark, Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. And the book is edited by Joe Fassler who asked writers to choose a favorite passage from literature and as Fassler says lines that have just hit them the hardest over the course of a lifetime's reading and then simply write about it.
These writers they encounter something on the pages of others and they take it in and they let it become a part of their own writing and their own works. Now informed and shaped and inspired by the words of others. So here's an example. Viet Tang Nguyen was drawn to Antonio Labo Antunes' book, Land at the End of the World. It's okay if you don't know these writers or these books.
It's fine. Now Nguyen encountered the book just through a little excerpt, but then he knew he needed to read the whole thing. So Nguyen bought a copy, and he kept it on his desk the entire time he wrote a novel. And for two years, every morning, he'd read a few pages of the book until his own urge to write became so uncontrollable that he'd finally have to put the book down and just start writing himself. And Nguyen writes, the way that Labo Antunes was able to extract incredible pictures was something I wanted to emulate.
And that's what's going on here with Kpon's interpretation of the parable. Grace has to have its way through us before we can ever emulate it around us. It's like you have to we have to read it every day for two years before it become a part of our lives. Of course, I don't mean that literally, but you know what I'm saying? For me lately, reading grace, it looks like this.
I've started making a list of grace, just a little note on my phone. And I also cleverly called it my charis list because I like how that sounds. And charis is actually grace in Greek. And grace is kindness. Grace is divine favor.
Grace is the grin of God smiling out at you from all kinds of actually pretty funny places. So this week I made a list of all of the places I noticed grace. And with my list making I realized that grace is everywhere in my life. Grace is this return of the spring after the cold snap of winter. Grace is the love in my life that's better than anything I ever imagined for myself.
Grace is art and grace is literature and sports matches if you're into that kind of thing. Just there. Just existing making you so glad to be alive. I'm taking note of grace so I can take grace in to live grace out Because if I don't if we don't we are nothing but slaves keeping score. We're fickle kings forgiving one moment and taking it all back the next.
I want more for us than that. I want more because this last verse says that our experience with God has everything to do with our experience with each other. This is how your heavenly father or mother will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your heart. Maybe you'll join me this Lent in keeping a careless list a grace list for yourself. Just pausing to notice the grace that's already in your life.
And the purple in it, the Lenten practice is our repentance. That maybe we've been missing out on grace for far too long and missing out on grace makes it pretty hard to forgive in the first place. So okay. Maybe you can't forgive 77 times. It's absurd right?
I know but the point is what if you could? What if you could forgive like that? Let's pray together. Loving God, it's pretty baffling to think that what matters so much to you is how we treat each other. We confess that we probably don't take that seriously enough.
I know I don't. And still your invitation to us is to walk this path of forgiveness that's not meant to be exhausting, it's not overburdening in fact it's life giving. So Jesus as we follow you this lent towards your cross where you take death into your hands into your heart. May we trust your transformation, Trust your lavish forgiveness that with you all kinds of renewal is possible. So spirit of the living God present with us now.
Enter the places of unforgiveness and score keeping and fear and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.