Exodus 14. 19-31

Matthew 18. 21-35

How do we forgive from the heart? It isn’t easy, and I think most of us have unforgiveness in our hearts: unforgiveness of someone, something or perhaps unforgiveness of ourselves.  Does that mean that we are shut out of heaven for good? Is God going to throw me into an eternal prison?

Today’s readings raise many questions and so I want to look at two aspects that are so important for understanding this passage:  the nature of God and what Christian forgiveness actually means.

First: the nature of God. A quick reading of the parable would probably make God like the king in the parable. Vastly wealthy and powerful, and who throws the unforgiving steward into the torture cells. But parables have lots of nuances and levels. This king forgives the debt of 10,000 talents- roughly a billion or so dollars. A humungous amount. The steward refuses to forgive a debt of a 100 denarii, roughly $36,000. The steward has placed himself far outside the king’s protection. He is not working within the compassion of the king. So, he does not belong to his kingdom.

 And Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven in these stories. The kingdom is that realm of God, different from this world and human culture, but entering at times and places in this material, physical world when people live, act think and love in the ways of the kingdom. The kingdom is known by the fruit of the Spirit (compassion, patience, forgiveness peace, courage, etc). These fruit can result in physical effects: a contented community of good relations and peace, but these physical results arise from the spiritual attitudes. 

 If we don’t have the spiritual attitude that seeks to produce spiritual fruit, we are not in the kingdom.  We may not be able to see God’s fruit in a certain relationship, perhaps, because any relationship depends on two people. If someone continues to be violent and manipulative and will not seek reconciliation, then the relationship cannot be resurrected. However, if one person is trying to produce fruit (eg forgiveness) then that person has done all he or she can, and is in the kingdom.

God ‘s nature is not angry and vengeful. At his heart is the Trinity, the mutual desire for the flourishing well-being of the other. Infinite grace poured out through each of them, into each other and into the universe forever. But God is total love, truth, justice and mercy and that which is not of God, the dark forces, hate cannot live in his presence. It will eventually die, as the Egyptian forces were washed away in the waters of the Red Sea.

The spiritual understanding of the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites is not that God wants to cause death and favours one group over another. The story seeks to show that the grace of God for those suffering adversity and violence will overcome the suffering. The Egyptian forces are that which is part of the wrongful human machine of oppression and enslavement. God seeks to free people, as Jesus physically did when he cast out demons: those force of chaos in individual’s lives.

When God causes the water to drown the army, the story is saying that the power of God is greater than the powers of corruption and chaos.  In Scripture, this dark chaos which seeks to destroy human relationships and connection to God is symbolized by the stormy waters. But in the Exodus story, God is greater than the waters. As he separated the waters from the land in the beginning, so that new life could come, so he brings the suffering to new life in his Kingdom.

God is always working for life- but life for all. His nature is mercy, but there is also justice. We need to co-operate with him. He is always ready to hear and forgive, but we need to go to him and seek his will, not ask him to do our will.

Which brings us to forgiveness.  So many Christians bear life-long guilt because they think they have failed to forgive. The hurt is so deep.

But the problem is not, I think, lack of forgiveness, but a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is. Forgiveness does not mean that you forget what happened, or that you need to believe that what happened was really all right. Forgiveness is not, as some suggest, just forgetting and moving on. People can’t just ‘move on’. Not because they are bad people but because they are trying to do something that is not humanly possible.

We simply cannot forget a deep hurt. It scars and shapes us. To forget hurts and betrayals is to open ourselves to manipulation! Forgiveness does not mean that you resume an old relationship in the old way, where one person dominates another. That is enabling sin, not forgiving.

Some people interpret ‘moving on’ as simply burying feelings. But we cannot bury feelings, they sit there and pop up when we least expect them, seventy times seven times, as Jesus wisely points out.

So, forgetting is not forgiveness. And forgiveness is also not a feeling. If we expect that we will no longer feel resentment or anger or whatever, and instead expect to feel warm and loving towards someone, we will also be disappointed. Emotions and feelings are automatic human responses to external events.  We cannot manufacture emotion. We can pretend or mask feelings, but that does not change the reality of the feeling! And we cannot change how the other person feels and acts.

So we need to stop feeling guilty if we haven’t made a peaceful reconciliation with someone or something.  That happy outcome is not always possible.

But forgiveness is always possible, and true forgiveness is liberating. But I don’t believe we can do it ourselves because forgiveness is of God. It is part of the abundant grace he pours upon us, which draws us into his kingdom.  Thus, it does require us to step back and look at the person/the situation with God.

First, we need to name our hurt and pain, and recognize that the God of compassion, who became sin to free us from sin (which is separation from God), takes our pain into his crucified body and longs to comfort us with his love. He longs for us to be free. So, accept his grace and know your hurt is heard. Know the power of God is working through the crucified Body of Christ to bring resurrection to you.  Resurrection is the experience of the compassion of God for self and the inner peace from the hurt.

Second, start to see how God sees the situation. How does he see the other person? Does he discern the bad behaviour and grieve for it because it is keeping the person from God? Or does he judge the person as totally useless? See last week’s reflection on the distinction between judgment and discernment.  Are we judging or discerning?

What is God’s will in all this? He wants everyone to come into his Kingdom.  Can we will what God wills? Can we will that our hurt and pain does not stop the person entering heaven?  Forgiveness doesn’t mean everyone will enter heaven no matter what they have done or willed. Justice will still be done but it is up to that person to ask for God’s mercy; it is not up to us to withhold God’s mercy. Christian forgiveness isn’t denying us justice, because we are justified only in God, not by other people’s behaviour.  Our inner value is not determined by what other people do or think  but how we relate to God;  and we can determine our will.

But willing God’s will, not our own, is not easy. It wasn’t for Jesus. It is a sacrifice of self for the will of God. As Jesus showed us the way to resurrection, new life in God, so Jesus will carry us through this struggle.

Forgiveness is not really about how I think or feel about another person. Christian forgiveness is really about my relationship with God and how much I want (will) to live with God and in God. If I can will that, then whatever happens externally (whether the relationship is renewed or not, whether the person confesses or not), is out of my hands, and I am not responsible for the other’s behaviour. What is left for me is a stronger connection to God. And, in my experience, that connection brings a profound inner peace and release from the hurt.

At the Transfiguration, Jesus talks about the Exodus, the Israelite’s escape from Egypt, with Moses and Elijah. On the Cross, Jesus enacts a new Exodus for us all. He carries us, and our sins, into the compassionate caring hands of the Father, to be brought to new freedom and new life. God doesn’t want us in the eternal prison, but with him as sons and daughters in the Kingdom.  Forgiveness is not about feeling, but willing God’s will, and that is forgiving ‘from the heart’.

This week: Can I sit with Jesus, and let my Cross meet his Cross, and let his sacrifice meet my sacrifice of will, so that I and others can build the spiritual kingdom God wants? For the sake of God’s will, can I try to will the release of the other from the debt he/she owes me?