Homily for the 22nd Sunday after Trinity, 2021
Homily for Trinity 22, 2021
Christ the King Anglican
Fr. Tony Melton
“Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Our theme this morning is Forgiveness, not only of our enemies, but also of those for whom we expect a great deal—our family, our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a needful topic for several reasons. First, forgiveness is actually quite rare, especially in today’s world. When someone steps out of line, the first inclination in our culture is to cancel them, sue them, or take revenge. How many movies will be released each Fall that glorify violence towards others out of hate? Stories of mercy are tough to find. They no longer sell. We have been trained to require blood.
Our primary text this morning is from Matthew 18, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. We will see that the godliness of the Lord’s household is founded upon God’s forgiveness of us, supported by our unconditional forgiveness of others, and established by true love.
If you would, please turn to page 16 in your booklet. You’ll notice at the bottom of the page that we ask God in the Collect that He would keep us, His household, in continual godliness. Godliness. What is godliness? What images does it conjure up for you? To many, the word often has negative overtones, something puritanical. Yet, the word simply means to be like God. What is God like? One of the primary characteristics of God is His mercy. Our God is a forgiving God. Among His many attributes, this is certainly the most shocking. Both pagans and modern secularists would hardly expect that the God of the whole Universe would be so merciful, so forgiving. To be godly is to be merciful. Listen to this quote by St. Gregory of Nyssa.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' Now I know that in many passages of the Divine Scripture holy men call the Divine Power merciful; as does David in the Psalms, Jonas in his prophecy, and the great Moses frequently in the Law. If, therefore, the term 'merciful' is suited to God, what else does the Word invite you to become but God, since you ought to model yourself on the property of the Godhead? For if the Divinely inspired Scripture calls God merciful, and if the Divinity is truly blessed, then it should be clear how the following is to be understood. It means that if a man is merciful, he is deemed worthy of the Divine Blessedness, because he has attained to that which characterized the Divine Nature.”
We ask God to keep us, His household, in continual godliness, and this means especially on this 22nd Sunday after Trinity, that we desire to be a merciful, forgiving family. We get this theme particularly from our Gospel this morning, the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. The Parable shows a man who is forgiven, in modern valuation, millions and millions of dollars, yet he shows no mercy to his fellow-servant who owes him a couple hundred bucks. The Lord is repulsed by him. The Lord finds un-forgiveness repulsive. The inference of the text is that the man should have been merciful because God had forgiven him all.
Our forgiveness of Others is grounded in God’s forgiveness of us! The culture of the household of God is determined most of all by the fact that each and every one of us has been forgiven an unimaginable debt. This is what Bonhoeffer claims as the basis for Christian community in his book, Life Together. This is why we vest the way we do. We are sinners (black cassock), saved by Grace (white surplice)!
How fitting that this 22nd Sunday after Trinity, where we think upon Forgiveness, should fall on the day that we remember the Reformation. I say remember rather than celebrate because while it needed to happen, and God worked mightily through it, it is always tragic to have the family of God ripped apart. Schism is a terrible, though sometimes necessary thing. But one of the things that was so gloriously reclaimed in the Reformation is the clear and total forgiveness of sins that is ours in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are no, “Yeah, but’s”, or “only if’s”. If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Your sins will be forgiven you! The Reformation reclaimed an accurate view of two things: how great is our debt to God, and how total is His remission of that debt. God’s forgiveness of our sins is the basis of culture in the household of God. How can the Church have a culture of mercy if we are unclear about God’s forgiveness of us?
We have seen that we are to be godly by living out God’s mercy. We have seen that the culture of mercy in God’s house is rooted in His mercy towards us. Now we get to the our part. Forgiving one another. Peter asks, “How often should I forgive my brother? Seven times?” Jesus responds, “Seventy times seven”, which is to say, infinitely, unconditionally, totally, perfectly.
Children, are you a Christian? When someone wrongs you, whether that be a brother, or sister, a friend, or parent…Christians forgive always. Adults, if there is one thing that sets us apart as the household of God, it is that we forgive one another. Have you ever thought about how it would feel if you actually had to forgive someone for the 500th time? 500…? "They aren’t changing!! They keep on making the same mistake!!” We’d say that a person like that was pathological. Dangerous even! Seventy times seven.
It is hard to overemphasize how radical is the commandment of forgiveness. We often move off topic so quickly to draw lines of distinction about forgiveness and reconciliation. Those questions aren’t bad, but they often distract us to how total, painful, vulnerable, and unlimited is the command to forgive.
It is also easy to forget the seriousness of the command. We pray everyday, “Forgive us our tresspasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Meaning, we ask God to use the same measure towards us that we use towards others. Jesus mentions this several times in the Gospels, most clearly in the Gospel for this morning. The servant who grabbed his friend by the neck and said, “Pay me what you owe me!”, did he not have the decree of his forgiveness in his other hand? And because of His unforgiveness, that decree was taken away, and he was cast into utter darkness. “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” “For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”
We’ve just completed our membership documents as a mission, including our Letter of Transfer. In this letter, there is a section where each person, in order to join here, must testify to the following, “I have charity and good-will toward my previous parish. I have confessed my faults and failures to those whom I have wronged, asked for forgiveness, and forgiven all that have trespassed against me. I’ve shown due respect and obedience to my pastors, and pursued peace and/or reconciliation with any and all who have ought against me.”
I know for many of you, this will be really hard. We’ve lost people because of this commitment. I’d like to make you aware of a danger here in how we forgive. It is easy to imagine that we have forgiven someone if we simply cauterize our feelings toward them. We simply choose not to care about them or the hurt that they’ve caused us. While this might be considered a step in the right direction, it is still far from the godliness that we ask for today. Numbness is not the same as forgiveness. The bar for biblical forgiveness is not the absence of wrath, but the presence of love.
This is why we have the Epistle for this Sunday. It is St. Paul’s gushy intro to the Philippians. “I THANK my God upon every remembrance of you…being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: 7 even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart…For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment…” It is amazing how much love Paul had for these people! The household of God is not established by the absence of resentment, but by the warmth of love. “I have you in my heart.”
Think of someone who has wronged you. Do you desire God’s best for them? Can you join Paul in praying that they might be “filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God”? If not, then God still has healing for your heart. My guess is that every single one of us need this healing. To love our enemies, to love those who have trespassed against us, to love those who have hurt us again and again, that is godliness, and there is nothing that God loves to see in His children than Mercy.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that you are forgiven?… Will you be a people of Mercy?… Will you forgive one another?… Will you forgive your previous church?… Will you forgive your parents and family?… Will you forgive your enemies?… Will you strive to love all these people, to carry them in your heart to the Mercy Seat of God?
Lord, we ask you to fashion in us your heart that we might love all people. Let the water and blood which came from your side wash over the wounds of our heart and make it whole, that we might be able to carry our enemies there, even as we ascend to your heavenly banquet. Amen.