1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our heavenly Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for today as we continue our sermon series, Parables for Pentecost, is the Gospel from Matthew 18:21-35, and I’ll quote from it as we go, beginning with verse 21: “Then Peter came up and said to him [Jesus], ‘Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ ” The message is entitled, “Grace & the Double Standard,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.” We just said it. In view of the rabbis teaching to forgive three times, Peter ramps it up to an impressive seven. Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times [seventy times seven]” (Matt. 18:22). The point is, forgiveness is more like hard work than it should be for Peter, and for us. How come?
3. Obviously, because we and Peter are too much like the guy in the parable. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants [slaves]. When he began to settle, one was brought to him” (Matt. 18:23–24a). We’d never go to God on our own to settle up accounts. Most people don’t want to hear about God or talk about God, because all they can think of is, “He wants to settle up, and it’s been a while. When I see the actual number, I’m going to faint.”
4. Like the guy in the parable: ten thousand talents in debt! A talent was about the Seventy-five pounds. So two talents was a pretty full wheelbarrow of coins. He owed five thousand wheelbarrows of silver coins! Which, of course, he couldn’t repay. It wasn’t a hard amount to pay. It was impossible. That’s the whole point. “His master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made” (Matt. 18:25).
5. Now the slave makes an intelligent move. He quickly got into a kneeling position. “So the servant [slave] fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything’ ” (Matt. 18:26). The lord of that slave—his heart broke. “Pity” or “felt compassion” isn’t the best translation. The word there means “his guts fell out.” Or to use a familiar equivalent, “his heart broke.”
6. This is what God is like. Heartbroken. We ask for more time to pay, that he’ll be fair. But, instead he is heartbroken over us and makes the whole thing go away. And we are made whole by his huge heart. And we, sinners that we are, parade like royalty into paradise on what appears to be a red carpet! We are sinners treading the scarlet road to paradise on shreds of God’s broken heart.
7. And he let him go!—the text says He “released him and forgave him the debt” (Matt. 18:27). He sent away the debt. That’s what “forgive” means in the Greek word aphiemi. Not ignore the sin. Not trivialize the sin. Not excuse the sin. But send the sin away. The way you send your garbage away. It’s still garbage, but now it stinks somewhere else. So the whole horrible thing is sent away somewhere, and you’re off the hook. The fact is, it hardly seems fair. And the slave, with joy, skipped out into the street sobbing gratefully saying, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins!” Didn’t he? No.
8. “When that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii” (Matt. 18:28)—$17.93! When someone is forgiven more, they love more, right? Not this guy! And bullying him, he began to choke him, saying, “Pay everything you owe!” This guy was just forgiven 600,000 times as much as he was strangling his colleague for. What’s wrong with him?
9. “So his fellow servant [slave] fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you’” (Matt. 18:29). Now his own same exact cry for mercy is played back to him, to jog his memory, what with the five minutes that just went by. Surely now his heart will break. “He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt” (Matt. 18:30). Why did he stop singing his new creed? “I believe in the forgiveness of sins!”
10. Did he forget so soon? Do we forget, too, once the last hymn ends and we hit the road? We are fallen sinners like Peter. Do we imagine that the Master sends our debt away because the Master is a fool? But when we send someone else’s debt away, that means there is no justice. Suddenly, it’s not fair. And if our resentment tamps down the joy of forgiveness with a sense of fairness, our souls will turn their backs on the joyful Savior and rejoin the walking dead.
11. “When his fellow servants [slaves] saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master [lord] all that had taken place” (Matt. 18:31). And every time it happens in this life, those who know the real human King are deeply grieved, because they understand the cross. They know God is no fool. And they know there has always been justice, even though a wicked unforgiving servant didn’t have to experience it.
12. Where did that ignorant man think all that debt was sent? He never thought about where. There was another hymn he never sang: Ye who think of sin but lightly Nor suppose the evil great Here may view its nature rightly, Here its guilt may estimate. (LSB 451:3) The highest thought a Christian can have is to meditate on the cross: justice-mercy-unfairness! They were grieved over the action of their fellow servant, who believed that just because he wasn’t brought to justice, there was no justice. Who believed that to be merciful was to be a fool. He wouldn’t adore the unfairness of God. It’s the sin of unbelief, unbelief in the forgiveness of sins.
13. “Then his master [lord] summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant [slave]! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me’ ” (Matt. 18:32). It’s as if the Master said, I knew I would have to eat 10.76 million to be merciful. Did you think no one would have to pay for that just because it wasn’t you? “And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant [slave], as I had mercy on you?” (Matt. 18:33). I brought you into the promised land of grace, mercy, and peace, where hearts break and sins are sent away. Was it not necessary that your heart be broken? Was it not necessary that you send your fellow servant’s sins away? Was it not necessary since now you could afford it? Since it wasn’t you that had to pay for their sins?
14. The end of the story isn’t pretty. The king said, “You obviously don’t believe in the forgiveness of sins. You believe in justice? Justice you shall have...” And then comes the divine wrath, the full debt returns, and he’s handed over to the torturers, that is, hell. “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matt. 18:35). Forgive them and mean it. “How? I want to mean it, but I’m really scared because even when I think how much God has forgiven me, I still hurt, and I can’t act like this person didn’t sin against me. I just can’t believe God expects me to ignore what the person did.” He doesn’t.
15. God does not make light of your pain. He is much more offended by sins against you than you are. There’s a difference between trying to ignore what someone did to you and forgiving that sin. Forgive means “give it forward,” in Greek, to “send away.” Send where? If you don’t know where your own sin was sent, you don’t know what grace is. When the Lord says, “forgive,” he is not asking you to make light of some sin against you. He is telling you to take the whole horrendous crime against you and send it to the cross, where the real King takes the hit for all the debt. Lay it on Jesus. Because this is grace: we believe that “one has died for all, therefore all have died” (2 Cor 5:14).
16. In frustration with theology, you may ask, “How do I send sins to the cross?” Real theology is the most practical of all things. There’s an “exercise” my pastor taught me to believe one died for all, therefore all died: Go out on the street outside your house and look at the telephone pole, way up at the crossbars. Picture that person who sinned against you nailed up on that cross, because that’s what the Father saw when Jesus was crucified! That person who hurt you: paying. Can you see him or her struggling against the nails, pushing up to get air?
17. That’s gross and uncalled for, Pastor. Is it? I thought you wanted justice? Whatever the person might have done to you, this is too extreme. God says, “Nothing is too extreme for the one who hurt my beloved!” You want justice? Here it is! Let this do your heart good! Send the sin to the cross—from your heart. To send it away means to forgive—from your heart. It wasn’t an exercise for God. It was the reality, so that just as he sees all sinners paying while Jesus dies, so when he looks at any of us who have been baptized into Jesus’ death, he sees the life of beautiful obedience that Jesus lived, and he credits it all to each of us and counts us innocent.
18. It all starts with God’s broken heart, and the sending away of our sin, and then our broken hearts, and the sending away of their sins. “Send away our trespasses as we send away the sins of those who trespass against us.” And it all ends again with God’s broken heart, where all the sin is sent. No more sending away, but Jesus is handed over to the torturers until the last penny is paid, and all the weight of the sin sent there is on that heart of Jesus, until his heart breaks, bursts! “One of the soldiers pierced his [Jesus’] side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (Jn 19:34).
19. It’s not fair! It’s the Sacraments! Send your brother’s sins to the cross of Christ as you live in the waters of Holy Baptism, which come from that broken heart, and as you drink of Holy Communion, which comes from that broken heart! Welcome to the land of grace, mercy, and peace, where hearts break and sins are sent away. We believe in the forgiveness of sins. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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