[Propertalk] Matthew 18:21-35 - Sermon Resource - Deciding to Forgive Proper 19 | Ordinary Time 24 - TIW - Sermons from SermonSuite

[Joe Parrish]

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Deciding to Forgive

Proper 19 | Ordinary Time 24



Dean
<http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=788031305&key=anwagbXjmZ52bxdo>
Feldmeyer
Ronald
<http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=788031305&key=anwagbXjmZ52bxdo>
H. Love
George
<http://www.sermonsuite.com/content.php?i=788031305&key=anwagbXjmZ52bxdo>
Reed

 


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This coming Sunday offers a big challenge, as it will be impossible to avoid
the fact that it will be the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Knowing
that this event will be on the minds of everyone in the pews, should we take
the bull by the horns and directly address it from the pulpit? Or should we
deal with it primarily through prayers, litanies, and other worship
material? Or perhaps we should leave the commemoration to civic gatherings
and media specials, aware that it's still such a sensitive topic that any
missteps could easily create serious issues within the congregation? As team
member Dean Feldmeyer notes in this installment of The Immediate Word, the
wounds remain fresh -- even after a decade has passed and Osama bin Laden
has been eliminated. (Indeed, the controversy over building a proposed
Islamic community center in the vicinity of "Ground Zero" revealed the depth
of resentment that still lingers.) Choosing how to approach the day will be
a delicate task that calls for respecting and honoring the raw feelings many
people still have about 9/11 while having the courage and dedication to
share the biblical witness. But as Dean points out, the lectionary's
assigned texts for this Sunday give us some tools for fruitfully responding
to this seminal event. In particular, the gospel parable with its emphasis
on forgiveness beyond our capacity to imagine ("Not seven times, but, I tell
you, seventy-seven times") offers us a clear roadmap on how to process our
grief and anger and begin to leave behind the valley of despair. The path of
forgiveness is not an easy choice, Dean acknowledges, but it is the one that
we as Christians are called to follow.

Team member Ron Love offers some additional thoughts on the waterfalls being
built as an essential part of the 9/11 memorial on the World Trade Center
site and how we in the church have much to learn from their purpose to
remove the noise and distraction of a busy metropolis in order to focus
meditation. Ron notes that Paul's purpose in this week's epistle passage was
much the same: to draw the congregation away from their focus on the noise
and distraction of petty squabbling over unimportant side issues and instead
to bring them together in unity of purpose. However, as Ron points out, the
only way the Romans -- and we too -- can achieve that objective is by
attempting to avoid the judgmentalism that inevitably arises from
overconfidence in the righteousness of our own opinions. Rather, we ought to
focus on harmonious fellowship and let God pass judgment... for, as Paul
aptly puts it, "each of us will be accountable to God."

In addition to our usual worship resources, this installment also includes a
litany of remembrance suitable for use in community events (and that you may
wish to adapt for worship purposes) as well as a children's message and
several illustrations related to 9/11, forgiveness, and judgmentalism.


Deciding to Forgive
by Dean Feldmeyer
Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21; Matthew 18:21-35

In less than four years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the
United States had bombed, defeated, crushed, humiliated, occupied, and begun
the process of rebuilding Japan in our own image. V-J Day was a celebration.
The troops came home; it was finished.

Ten years after the September 11, 2001, attack on America by Islamist
extremists from various parts of the Arab world, we are still at war, our
hearts are still wounded, and the monuments we said we would build are still
unfinished.

On the tenth anniversary of that terrible day, "unfinished" may be the
operative word for America. We are not finished reliving that nightmare. We
are not finished grieving for our lost brothers and sisters, our lost
innocence, our lost sense of security. We are not finished being angry.

And yet, we are Christians. We call Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray daily
that God will "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us." We hear the call of Jesus to forgive those who have injured us
and pray for those who have done us wrong.

How do we get from the valley of grief and anger to the mountaintop of love
and forgiveness to which Jesus calls us?


THE WORLD

On Sunday, September 11, church bells will toll. Silence will be kept.
Prayers will be prayed and hymns will be sung. The line between church and
state will be rendered invisible if only for a brief period while we
remember the grief and the pain of that horrible day.

In the little county-seat community where I live, there will be three large
public gatherings at different times of the day. Church bells will be rung
and emergency sirens sounded across the county at 1:00 p.m. No doubt,
worship services in many of the churches will mention if not focus on the
symbolic importance of the day and our promise to "never forget."

Like Pearl Harbor and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, many of us will
remember where we were and what we were doing when we first heard the news.
People who were there will tell their stories and the impact of that day
will be felt one more time. Photographs and film from that day will find
their way onto our televisions and the pages of our newspapers. The names of
the dead will be read aloud. Their numbers will be counted again. We will
pause to revisit that sadness that has not yet "flown away on the wings of
time" (Jean de la Fontaine).

Tragically, some among us will use the day as an opportunity to whip up
feelings of jingoism and religious prejudice. Patriotism will be confused
with violence, and justice with revenge.

As Christians, many of us find ourselves mired in ambivalence. Our grieving
is still unfinished, our anger is not fully abated. Yet there is something
at work within us that wants to leave the anger behind and wants to heal the
wounds that were inflicted upon us these ten years ago.

In our hearts, we know that healing begins with a most difficult and often
painful decision: the decision to forgive.


THE WORD

Exodus 15
Scholars and historians tell us that it would have taken a long time for the
Children of Israel to cross through the divided Red Sea... days, maybe even
weeks.

Then they looked back and saw the sea collapse upon the army of Pharaoh.
They were safe, for the moment, but before them lay the wilderness, a vast
desert expanse full of mystery and danger with only their faith in God to
lead and protect them.

It must have been scary.

So they paused for a few moments by the seashore and they sang a song
praising God and giving thanks for their deliverance. But they did not make
camp. They did not decide to live there by the Red Sea. They did not decide
to forgo the journey to which they were called and the promise it entailed.

They sang their song -- then they picked up their stuff and they moved out
in faith, following Moses, who himself followed the pillar and the cloud.

Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus and Paul have a lot to say on the topic of forgiveness. If it is not
their favorite topic, it is certainly on their "Top Ten List." And it is not
a prescription for national foreign policy. Jesus does not speak to nations
but to the hearts of those who dare to call themselves the people of God. He
speaks to us as Christians.

* We are called to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, to
turn the other cheek and to go the extra mile (Matthew 5:39ff).
* If we want to be forgiven, we must first forgive (Matthew 6:14-15).
* Our forgiveness is to be limitless (Luke 7:4).
* Our forgiveness has the power to change lives (John 20:23).
* We love and forgive because we were first loved and forgiven (Colossians
3:13).
* Even as he is dying on the cross, Jesus prays for God to forgive his
tormentors.

In this Sunday's lection, we are told in the parable of the wicked steward
that we are ourselves forgiven by God by the measure we use to forgive
others.

The ability to forgive is, according to scripture, not a gift of the Spirit,
available to some and not to others. It is, like other forms of love, an act
of the will. It is a decision.

It is, to be sure, not a simple or easy decision, but it is a decision
nonetheless. It is something we do because as Christians we must, whether we
feel like it or not, because we were ourselves forgiven.


CRAFTING THE SERMON

If we preach forgiveness on this of all days, we dare not preach it from our
own authority but only from that of Jesus Christ as he comes to us in
scripture.

If we are ever to move from the valley of grief, anger, and despair to the
mountaintop of peace through faith, love, and forgiveness, it will not be by
our own vision or under our own power. That path can be successfully
traversed only by following that same pillar and cloud that Moses and Miriam
followed and by walking in the footsteps of the One from Galilee, those same
footsteps ultimately led to Calvary.

It is never permissible to proof-text from scripture -- to use passages out
of context to prove a personally made point. It is always permitted,
however, to illustrate a scriptural point with different passages from
scripture.

A survey of New Testament passages that deal with forgiveness may be a good
place to begin here. It will show that we are not speaking from our own
authority but from that of scripture, and it will lead us naturally to this
day's text -- that of the wicked steward who wants to be forgiven but who is
himself unwilling to forgive.

Note that nowhere in the parable are we told that he is not able to forgive
-- he simply chooses not to. There is too much to be lost if he forgives
those who owe him as he has been forgiven.

So it is with us. If we make the decision to forgive, we will have to give
up our anger. We'll have to give up our hatred, our resentment, our grief,
and our sadness. We'll have to give up that privileged place that victims
hold in our culture. We'll have to leave the seashore and turn toward the
wilderness. We'll have to allow ourselves to be led in faith to that
promised land of which we have heard but which we have not seen.

This day calls for that most delicate of balancing acts, which is truly
responsible preaching. On the one hand, we must be sensitive enough to
acknowledge and honor the feelings of our flock. At the same time, we must
be sensitive and accountable to the text that calls them to begin reaching
beyond those feelings and stepping out in faith.

My prayer is that you, as a preacher, will have the strength and insight
necessary to deliver such a message and that your congregation will have the
grace and openness of heart to hear it.

(see more at top URL)

 

 

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