Trinity 15 

Opening Verse of Scripture Ephesians Chapter 4:32

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

God, who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit upon your Church in the burning fire of your love: grant that your people may be fervent in the fellowship of the gospel that, always abiding in you, they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Lord God, defend your Church from all false teaching and give to your people knowledge of your truth, that we may enjoy eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

First Bible Reading Genesis 50.15–21

Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’ So they approached Joseph, saying, ‘Your father gave this instruction before he died, “Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.” Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.’ Joseph wept when they spoke to him. Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, ‘We are here as your slaves.’ But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.’ In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

Second Reading  Romans 14.1–12

Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarrelling over opinions. Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

 Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honour of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God.

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Why do you pass judgement on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God.For it is written,

‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

Gospel Reading  Matthew 18.21–35

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

 ‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 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. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 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.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt. 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. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

Post Communion Prayer

Keep, O Lord, your Church, with your perpetual mercy; and, because without you our human frailty cannot but fall, keep us ever by your help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Commentary The Arithmetic of Mercy

For centuries, Christians have looked upon the cross and seen different aspect of the mystery of Christ. Some churches emphasize the empty cross: Christ is risen, death is defeated, and the work of salvation is complete. Others place before us the crucifix, where the suffering body of Jesus remains visibly present. The empty cross proclaims victory. The crucifix reminds us what that victory cost.  I am suggesting to you that we need both images. The empty cross tells us that violence, suffering, and death do not have the final word. The crucifix shows us how God confronts violence—not by becoming more violent, but by absorbing human hatred and answering it with forgiveness and mercy.

 

When we look upon Christ crucified, we see forgiveness enacted in flesh and blood. We see the innocent one refusing to return hatred for hatred. In the received text of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus prays from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

I suggest that you treasured tis verse as a profound witness to the mercy of God expressed by Jesus. That mercy challenges not only our personal relationships, but also the way we imagine justice, security, and the conduct of nations.

 

Peter’s Question In Matthew 18, Peter comes to Jesus and asks:

“Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”

Peter thought he was being generous. Seven times sounds like an impressive amount of patience. Surely there must be a limit. Surely, after someone has hurt us repeatedly, we are entitled to close the door.

But Jesus answers: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times”  —or, as some translations render it, “seventy times seven.”

The precise number is not the main point. Jesus is not giving Peter a larger forgiveness calculator. He is telling him to stop keeping one.

Forgiveness is not a ledger in which we record every offence and wait until the account is full. Jesus rejects the arithmetic of retaliation:

• one injury does not deserve one response
• one insult deserves another insult
• one act of violence must not be answered with greater violence.

In Genesis, Lamech boasts of vengeance multiplied beyond measure. Jesus offers a different kind of multiplication. Instead of multiplying wounds, his disciples are called to multiply mercy. But forgiveness does not mean pretending that evil has not happened. It does not mean abandoning truth, accountability, or the protection of the vulnerable. It does not require victims to remain in danger. Christian forgiveness releases our claim to personal vengeance; it does not remove the wrongdoer’s responsibility before God, the community, or the law.

 

We have remembered September 11 this week.  As we remember the attacks of September 11, we must begin with grief.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed. Families lost parents, children, spouses, brothers, and sisters. First responders entered danger to save others. Communities were traumatised, and many people still carry the wounds of that day. We must name the evil of terrorism clearly. Murdering civilians cannot be justified by politics, religion, history, or grievance. The perpetrators needed to be held accountable, and societies have a duty to protect innocent people.

 

On September 12, 2001, NATO invoked Article 5 of the Washington Treaty for the first time. Article 5 recognised the attack on one member as an attack on all, while allowing each member to determine what action it considered necessary. It did not prescribe one automatic military response. That distinction is important. The desire to defend the innocent and pursue those responsible is not identical to revenge. Justice and vengeance are not the same thing. Yet we must also face the consequences of what followed. The response expanded into prolonged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and into military operations across several countries. Research estimates vary, but the post-9/11 wars have produced enormous loss of life and displacement. Brown University’s Costs of War project reports hundreds of thousands of deaths in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan alone, while broader estimates include millions of direct and indirect deaths and tens of millions of displaced people

 

These figures are not merely statistics. Each number represents a human being made in the image of God. The question for Christians is not whether terrorism was evil. It was. Nor is the question whether governments have a duty to defend their citizens. They do. The question is this: at what point does defence become destruction? At what point does accountability become collective punishment? At what point does the pursuit of security reproduce the very cycle of fear and grievance that it claims to end?

 

The Cross and Holy War.  One of the dangers of Christian language is that we can baptise our own ambitions. When leaders describe political opponents as absolute enemies, when nations portray their wars as battles between pure good and pure evil, and when military campaigns are given the language of crusade, compromise begins to look like betrayal and civilian suffering becomes easy to dismiss. The history of Christianity contains many examples of nations claiming divine approval for their violence. We should therefore be cautious whenever political power borrows the language of holy war.

 

The crucifixion gives us a different image of divine power. Jesus does not call down an army from heaven. He does not respond to the executioners by promising that their children will suffer. He does not deny the injustice of what is happening, but neither does he allow injustice to dictate his character. At the cross, God does not say that violence is harmless. God reveals what violence does. The innocent body of Jesus exposes the cruelty of the world, while his mercy shows that evil need not determine the response of the righteous. This does not make the cross weak. It makes the cross radically strong. The world says strength is the ability to destroy one’s enemies. Jesus shows strength as the ability to refuse becoming like them.

 

A New Measure of Justice If Jesus’ teaching applies only to private disagreements, we have made his words too small. It is true that nations are not individuals. A government has responsibilities that a private person does not. It must protect its citizens, prevent violence where possible, and sometimes use force to restrain an aggressor. But even governments must be judged morally. They must ask whether their actions are necessary, proportionate, lawful, and directed toward the protection of human life. They must distinguish between perpetrators and civilians. The innocent must never be made to pay for the crimes of leaders. A Christian vision of public justice should therefore seek:

· accountability rather than revenge;

· protection rather than domination;

· proportionate action rather than indiscriminate destruction;

· diplomacy wherever diplomacy can save lives;

· restorative justice wherever relationships can be repaired;

· and peace that addresses the grievances and conditions in which violence grows.

Forgiveness does not mean refusing to confront evil. It means confronting evil without surrendering our souls to it. It means refusing to let the wrong committed against us become the author of our future.

 

The Call to Restraint Jesus gives Peter a new arithmetic: not seven times, but seventy-seven times—or seventy times seven. The meaning is clear: do not make revenge your measure of justice. This does not mean that we forget the dead. We honour them by telling the truth. It does not mean that we excuse the perpetrators. We honour the victims by insisting upon accountability. It does not mean that we abandon the vulnerable. We honour Christ by protecting those who are at risk. But it does mean that Christians must resist the temptation to call vengeance justice simply because it is carried out in the name of security, patriotism, or even God. The crucified Christ asks us to imagine another future: a future in which justice is not measured by the number of enemies destroyed, but by the number of lives protected; not by the size of our retaliation, but by the depth of our mercy; not by how completely we defeat our enemies, but by whether we prevent hatred from creating new enemies.

The cross was never empty. It was filled with love—not sentimental love, but costly love; love that tells the truth, bears suffering, protects the innocent, and refuses to return violence for violence.

May the crucified and risen Christ reshape our hearts, our churches, and our nations.

May we remember those who died on September 11 and all who have died in the wars that followed.

May we seek justice without hatred, accountability without vengeance, and security without cruelty.

And may we, like Peter, learn to stop counting forgiveness—not because evil does not matter, but because Christ’s mercy is greater than the arithmetic of revenge. Amen.  Charles Royden  

 

Meditation

“May the lives remembered, the deeds recognized, and the spirit reawakened by eternal beacons, which reaffirm respect for life, strengthen our resolve to preserve freedom, and inspire an end to hatred, ignorance and intolerance.” From the memorial at the former World Trade Center 

Hymns

• God forgave my sin In Jesus name
• Come let us join our cheerful songs (Nativity)
• Praise him in the morning
• Through the night of doubt and sorrow (Marching)
• O for a thousand tongues (Lyngham)
• From all that dwell below the skies (Lasst uns erfreunen)
• New every morning

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Faithful God, we need your forgiveness, constantly renewing our lives, freeing us to be a people of faith, hope and love made whole by your grace. We pray for those struggling to forgive others; people who have had great wrongs done to them or to those they love. Loving God, help us to forgive from our hearts. Amen 

We pray for those who cannot forgive themselves; people who cannot live with the knowledge of what they have said or done. We pray for those in desperate need of forgiveness; people torn apart by guilt or regret, their lives in need of rebuilding. Loving God, help us to forgive from our hearts. Amen

We pray for ourselves, learning to offer forgiveness by absorbing hurts and not returning them; learning to offer to all the forgiveness made known in Christ upon the cross. Loving God, help us to forgive from our hearts. We pray for ourselves, learning to accept forgiveness as we give our lives in faith to you our loving Father, learning to accept the forgiveness offered by others as we live in humble love with one another. Loving God, help us to forgive from our hearts. Amen Companion to the Revised Common Lectionary, Intercessions, Christine Odell

May you experience the breadth and length and height and depth of the forgiving love of the trinity, and the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Additional Material

Commentary  

Forgiveness must be unlimited - Peter comes to Jesus and he asks about forgiveness and he is really sharp. He knows Jesus is into forgiveness and so instead of suggesting that we should forgive once, or twice, or three times, he really goes for it, he suggests no less than seven times! Jesus remembers that in the Old Testament scriptures Lamech called for vengeance seventy seven times and so Jesus reverses those words of vengeance and calls for forgiveness seventy times seven. Jesus us saying that there should be no limit for forgiveness. Jesus makes Peter’s attempt at generosity seem totally lame. 

 

Why does Jesus demand unlimited forgiveness? Perhaps first of all because forgiveness is good for you Forgiveness is about you, not the person you are having to forgive. The Greek word for forgiveness is apheemei. It means “letting go.” Forgiveness is much more beneficial to the one who forgives than to the one who is forgiven. Forgiving, letting go of feelings of revenge and retribution, is a potent healing act. Research shows that holding on to anger increases your chances of a heart attack! Forgiveness "reduces anger, hurt, depression and stress and leads to greater feelings of optimism, hope, compassion and self confidence." Forgiveness has healing power in the lives of those who utilize it. Forgiveness means letting go of stuff which hurts us and that must be good. Forgiveness is letting go of the anger, letting go of the resentment and letting go of the hurt that lives within our hearts. 

 

Forgiveness should not be simply equated with forgetting. There is quite a lot of contradicting advice about whether we can forgive and forget. Forgiveness doesn't pretend that it never happened -- that's amnesia. I suppose humanly speaking there are sometimes things which we can never put out of our minds, but forgiveness means that if we look back on them then they have no power to hurt us and we give them no power to hurt others. The slogan “forgive and forget” is about denial and there are some hurts and scars from our past that need to be remembered. If we don’t remember some of the hurts of the past and refuse to be victim to them again, then we stand to repeat our past mistakes. We remember the hurts of our past not to repeatedly play the role of victim or to hold the perpetrators hostage with guilt, instead we are empowered to make wiser choices in the present and the future. Remembering the hurts of South African apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared forgiveness draws out “the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.”  Tutu says, “We must forgive if there is to be a future.” Forgiveness does not require us to forget, what it does require is “release,” the release of the negativity and hostility associated with the past - Letting Go. Christ compels us to forgive and so the desire for revenge does not poison our souls. 

 

Forgiveness is not condoning wrong. Just as forgiveness does not require us to forget, neither does it require us to ignore injustice or injury or behave as if it does not have consequences. Sin must be acknowledged for what it is both by the victims and the perpetrators. Too often, Christians equate forgiveness with passively accepting or ignoring wrong. If we ignore the wrong and do not recognise sin for what it is, then we are dangerous people. So often the church has preached that forgiveness requires persons to be allowed second chances, this has meant that victims have been victimised. This has been seen where priests have been relocated away from churches where they have abused children. It is seen when women are told it is their duty to return to marriages with abusive partners. Forgiveness does not condone sin, or ignoring wrong. Forgiveness insists that perpetrators confess and repent. 

 

Forgiveness should not be equated with reconciliation, it takes two to be reconciled, it only takes one to forgive. Today Jesus is talking about us and what we must do, forgive, the behaviour of the one who is forgiven is quite a different story. If a person accepts forgiveness, then the assumption is that they know they are wrong and want to change. Forgiveness is about you alone, setting yourself free from the burden of the past, the anger, vengeance, things which burn us up. It was Gandhi, who said ‘an eye for an eye" leaves the whole world blind’. Forgiveness on the other hand allows us all to let go and move on. 

 

The forgiveness which we are concerned about today is also not just about a psychological process which is good for us. For the Christian forgiveness has a completely different and spiritual quality. We have no choice about whether to forgive, because we have been forgiven. As we realise the cost of forgiveness shown by Jesus, so we cannot be other than forgiving. Since we know immeasurable forgiveness, how could we possibly be miserly with forgiveness towards others? There is a direct correspondence between our ability to forgive with our understanding that we too have been forgiven. As our souls are at peace with God, so we are at peace with others. To be a Christian is to be somebody who knows they are forgiven, and to be a person able to forgive You don’t just forgive because it’s good for you, you don’t just forgive because the Bible tells you to, you forgive because you have been forgiven. As the writer of Ephesians puts it, "Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you" (Ephesians 4:32). Charles Royden 

Commentary

Today's readings follow on from last week's and continue the theme of forgiveness and unity, living together with, and resolving, conflict. 

In Roman society, it was considered the height of bad manners to "pass judgement" on the conduct of another man's servant; each servant was answerable to his "own lord" or master. Paul picks up this theme in Romans when he states 'To his own master he [the servant] stands or falls'. Similarly for Paul, each Christian will stand before God's judgement seat and will be answerable to Him alone. Even if we see others as weak we should not judge them; for God will judge us all at the end of time as we each give an account of ourselves to God. However, what we are called to do is continually forgive each other time and time again, no matter what the circumstances.

Peter's question in the gospel reading tries to clarify what this might mean. In his response Jesus indicates that true forgiveness has no limits. This sets the Christian way apart in an age when so many groups utter angry denunciations and act violently toward those who differ with them. Forgiveness is not merely an ideal toward which we should strive, but the most practical way of settling our differences and living together as neighbours in a global society. Moreover it illustrates the principle of forgiveness Jesus gave us in the Lord's Prayer.

Sometimes we mix up forgiveness with the concept of saying sorry. Forgiveness involves both being sorry and being restored, being reconciled to God and each other. The gospel we preach is a gospel concerned not just with our being sorry for our sins, but with their forgiveness and the wholeness we can experience in Christ through being reconciled to God. 

Forgiving ourselves and each other can be costly because it involves letting go, giving something up. Its costly because it entails acknowledging the need of forgiveness allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, and to be loved. It means facing up to ourselves. Some forgiveness demands a degree of restitution, not as the repayment for past wrongs, which can mostly never be repaid, but because injustice and loss are acknowledged.

Forgiveness is facing realities and doing something which changes the balance. It disturbs the established values. Forgiveness and being forgiven is about liberation, letting go of control, accepting that debts can sometimes never really be repaid, accepting above all that God is in control. 

Jesus calls us to forgive each other from the heart, not just with our voices, so that we can be made whole. For Jesus the depth and breadth of forgiveness was limitless, in terms of both it's scale and its frequency. He calls us to forgive others as He has forgiven us, quite a challenge in a fallen world. Sam Cappleman