The Release of Forgiveness
Matthew 18:21-35
Sunday, September 13, 2020
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church[a] sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Grace abounds in today’s Gospel reading. I need the slow breaths of this text and the invitation to play in the preposterous, extravagant forgiveness of God. In today’s text, Jesus tells a parable to give the disciples some space to consider what forgiveness really is. Lost to time, we don’t hear the playfulness and ridiculous example he lays out. It’s like saying, “Suppose someone owes a billion dollars and gets it wiped clean but then turns around and has someone arrested for owing them 20 bucks.” Breathe out the extravagant, preposterous love of God in your every day, walking around life.

See, Jesus’ work is about restoring the world around him to a state of flourishing—the kind of flourishing we read about in the dream-like poetry of Genesis 1 as God breathes a world into being. Our congregation tends to hold to Matthew chapter 25 pretty closely as a guide for what our Christian faith calls us to do in the world. And we are right to do so for sure! Give water to one who is thirsty, food to one who is hungry, welcome to one who is a stranger, humanity to one who is incarcerated. We know those verses give us a lifetime of work to do and, sadly, still leave plenty of work left for our children and our children’s children.

But here in chapter 18, Jesus is talking about a different kind of flourishing that is connected to a hidden, even invisible world. The kind of work Jesus points to here is the kind that lives deep within our hearts but has the power to take over every thought and action we have, if we ignore the work and stubbornly push on. I think it is grace to come to this text today in the midst of so much happening everywhere on every front—the disasters of fire to the West, another hurricane to the Southeast, continued urgency on pretty much every social justice issue that we deeply value, and this weekend marking six months of COVID lockdown and physical distance from one another.

Jesus is talking about the psychic and soul effects of carrying everything and bottling it up deep inside. He’ll do this same work on worry and anxiety in other texts, so know those are just a flip of the page away when you need them. But there is grace for me in knowing that Jesus is every bit as concerned about the inner life of my mind, body, and spirit as he is about the good, hard work I do “out there” in the world. Not only do both the inner and outer worlds deeply matter to Jesus, he understands they are intimately connected; yet another grace he offers today.

When it comes to forgiveness as life’s work, Nadia Bolz-Weber comments on the multi-directional nature of that inner mind, body, spirit tending. She writes, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus always seems to be pairing God's forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others.” And when we read Matthew 18 alongside Nadia’s commentary, we can begin to understand this forgiveness work as freeing, releasing work. Hear her observation again but with the word “release”—Jesus always seems to be pairing our release with the release of others. We do this work together, we do this work for each other. My release impacts yours, your release impacts mine. And when we model Jesus’ way, we are setting people free all over the place.

Nadia goes on to say that this forgiveness is so significant that it is God’s “way of combating evil. It's not punishment and it's not retaliation, fear or anger. It's forgiveness. Forgiveness is God's way of combating evil.“ Think about the festering power of resentment and grudges and fantasies of retribution just within your own body. Now consider the effects of all of that on a city, a nation, a planet. Jesus isn’t just getting at warm fuzzies here. He’s saying our great big work out there cannot be done without the honest, hard work within us—both are connected. If we’re trying to do one without the other, then the power of our efforts are diminished. 

Going back to Nadia’s writing, she gets at this same idea of forgiveness as release, adding, “We are cut loose. God's forgiveness is like giant bolt-cutters. And then God says go and do likewise. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Cut others loose too. Jesus commands it. He commands us to forgive just as he commands us to love…maybe forgiveness is actually the opposite of saying that what someone has done is ok…it's saying it's so not ok that I am not going to absorb it any more. I simply won't be tied to it...Because we can't be bound to that kind of evil. Lest it find the evil in our own hearts and make its home there.”

Whenever we talk about this kind of deep, personal work, I feel pretty compelled to step outside of the text and need to name some of the evil and heartbreak and grief we have faced that might be part of our releasing work. If you’ve experienced it, you have already begun thinking about whatever that storyline is. The person who is toxic and needs to stay far away from you. The person who physically harmed you or allowed physical harm to come to you. Please let me remind you and remind me: forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation. You cannot be reconciled to someone who is not fully committed to righting their wrongs and doing their own work. And sometimes there are relationships so unhealthy that the very best and most loving thing you can do for yourself is to stay as far away as possible from that person. Forgiveness can still happen within your mind, body, and spirit while maintaining some really strong and healthy boundaries. You release the grip they have on you at the cellular level of your body and send them on their way. You fill the mote with water and pull up that drawbridge and do not let it down again. In forgiving, whatever that may look like, you are doing the work that is YOURS to do.

It is daunting work, this kind of forgiveness. It’s the eating your vegetables instead of another slice of cake kind of work. If you’ve ever done a New Year’s detox or cleanse with green smoothies for breakfast and a gallon of water throughout the day with only fresh, healthy snacks and meals, this forgiveness work is that same effort for that cosmic part of you that cannot be seen but touches everything. And this forgiveness/releasing stuff is certainly our work together as a collective, too. There is a magnifying power when we commit ourselves to being a people who live this way out together. Our collective release is intertwined in the ways we ask forgiveness/offer forgiveness, set others free and set ourselves free. How many times do we do it? Don’t count. Just do the work. Give yourself to the work of letting go and being set free. 

Nadia puts it like this, “So if there is someone who you feel you just can't forgive think about how much that resentment is continuing to tie you to them and know that God wants you free from what was done to you. So here's what you do…. reach for the bolt-cutters.  Because, when we forgive someone, it's not an act of niceness, it's not being a doormat, it's an act of fidelity to God's evil-combating campaign. Forgiveness is an act of fidelity to the kingdom of God and a defiant stance against the forces of evil – even the evil in our own hearts. And in turn when we are forgiven by someone else we are set free because they are saying they will no longer be bound to the harm we did them.”

This is such a significant part of how Jesus spent his time in that mission of restoring his world to flourishing; “he was going around telling people they were forgiven. He went about freeing people, cutting them loose. And that kind of freedom is always seen as threatening,“ because all of the forces of this earth that intend evil and separation and division and power and control and fear rely on our distraction and separation for their survival. The systems and structures get changed when we stop engaging them with the rules of this old world. When love and grace and forgiveness become our action plan, then Nadia really is right to say we’re handed a pair of bolt cutters. We’re freeing ourselves and each other and then getting to work in our world to make it brand new.

I want this freedom for your spirits. I want you to be unbound from the resentment and anger and grief that you carry and don’t know what to do with. I want you to be lighter in your step because you have let go of that old story.

May you give yourself to this life’s work today. May you start in the quiet spaces of your own heart and mind and pay attention to the stories that are festering in there and causing you pain. May you release those old narratives and somehow, by God’s grace, release the people who still have a grip on you. 

May you know when it is right to be reconciled in love and peace with your neighbor and when it is better to bless them on their journey.

May you recognize when forgiveness is an act of resistance in the face of systems and structures that benefit from keeping us stuck and separate from one another.

May you release all that you carry and know the freedom of forgiveness.

May you know you do not have to do this work alone.

May you be set free.

Amen.