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Proper 19, Year A
September 15, 2002
Christ Church, Covington
“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not
forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (Matt. 19:35).
Our Gospel today couches the claims of the kingdom of heaven; a
characteristic move of the evangelist Matthew, who’s convinced that Jesus’
teaching about the kingdom has everything to do with what we do here and
now. Peter’s question to Jesus, “How often should I forgive?” is answered
with a story about the kingdom. Jesus tells Peter that he must forgive,
not seven times, but seventy-seven times (a Hebraic way of saying an
unlimited number of times). Then Jesus tells the story we’ve just heard,
about the king who forgives the slave who then does not forgive his fellow
slave. The kingdom of heaven is like this, in that our forgiveness by God
depends on our own forgiveness of others. The life of the Church is
connected to the life of the kingdom and the sort of life we live within
the Church here and now determines whether or not we will inherit that
kingdom.
This notion is a discomfiting one, often either glossed over and ignored
(“How can we make God’s love conditional?”), or misunderstood and misused
(“Do what we say, or you’ll go to hell!). Still, the teaching is the same
as the one found in the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we
forgive those who trespass against us.” The petition means what it says:
our sins will be forgiven as we have forgiven others. “Forgive, and you
will be forgiven… For the measure you give will be the measure you get
back” (Lk. 6:37-38), as Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel.
We must be very clear here that we are not talking about “step on a crack,
break your mother’s back”; going to hell on a technicality, as it were.
What about the un-baptized?; the Hindus?; those who have never heard the
Gospel? People come up with ingenious questions about eternal salvation
and eternal punishment to which there really is no answer, except to say
that the answer is with God who is the final arbiter of these things, and
who isn’t really letting on about the answer. The story of the kingdom
which Jesus tells is not a question of technicalities, but cuts to the
core of human character, and the Divine character, as well.
We should also make clear that the image of torture that our Gospel story
leaves us with is not a means of coercion. Christian faith is not a means
of societal “crowd control”, through the threat of eternal punishment;
though God knows there are voices that would like the Church to be
society’s “moral policeman”. If this is what religion is about, then Karl
Marx was right about it. But Jesus never intended the life of the kingdom
to be a means to anything except itself: not even the good order of
society. We do not teach a hope for heaven so that people will be good,
but we live the life of disciples for the sake of the kingdom.
But here we have it: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of
you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart”. The
issue is forgiveness. As disciples, we must learn to forgive as we have
been forgiven: perfectly, in every instance. It is a matter of relearning
the grammar of the heart, learning to speak the language of love and
forgiveness. We human beings are not quick to forget the wrongs that are
done us, and our failure to forgive is like a well worn groove in which we
travel. To vary the metaphor, our hearts are way too small, and need
enlarging. The capacity for forgiveness is the way in which our hearts are
renovated and renewed, by Jesus Christ.
If our hearts are shaped and formed by the practice of forgiveness, then
they will be large enough to receive the forgiveness of God. Can we really
imagine entering the kingdom of heaven with a grudge still tucked away
inside, with a lurking anger still inhabiting our hearts? Well, of course
not. So our own forgiveness depends on learning the language, on getting
out of the groove, on enlarging our hearts.
The last thing that should be said about forgiveness is that it is hard
work; work done with God’s help, through grace; the work, in some cases,
of a lifetime. Jesus makes it clear that this work is necessary, and that
our own salvation depends upon it. Yet we ought not to be dispirited about
it. By his death on the cross, and by his resurrection, Jesus has shown us
that the way of forgiveness is the way to life. It may take our lives to
be able to forgive the evils we have suffered, or that others have
suffered; a lifetime to put behind us the damage that we have inflicted
upon ourselves by our abuse of others. Forgiveness is the work we’re
called to; but thanks be to God that Jesus has forgiven us and begun the
transformation of our hearts so that they will be big enough, of such
capacity, that the work of forgiveness may be completed in us.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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