Sermon - 15th Sunday After Pentecost (9/13/2020)
Gen. 50:15-21; Ps. 103:1-13; Rom. 14:1-12; Mt. 18:21-35
“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts.”
And so the king comes to a man who, it is discovered, owes him 10,000 talents. A talent is equivalent to about 200 days wages, so 10,000 talents is several lifetimes of wages, an impossibly large sum of money, tens of millions of dollars in our terms. One wonders how the king was seemingly unaware, before he set out to settle his accounts, that there was someone who owed him such a large debt with no apparent means to pay it back – which already tells us something about this king. He seems to be less than fastidious when it comes to managing his finances.
But the truth cannot be denied – the debt is there, and it cannot be paid. The king does what he is supposed to do – he confronts his debtor, grabs him by the throat – as if squeezing the man’s airways is going to make him able to pay money he doesn’t have. “Pay back what you owe!” the king demands. But it doesn’t matter what the king says, the man doesn’t have the money. He falls to his knees and says, “Please, Your Majesty, give me a little time, and I’ll pay you back in full.” But where is he going to come up with 30 million dollars? What could this man ever do to really pay the king back every penny that he owes?
“The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says, “may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts.” The king, apparently, is like God, and we, I suppose, are the supposed to be debtor who owes God more than we can ever hope to repay. And I am sure there are people who will immediately sense that this is their relationship to God. I imagine someone in prison for committing a murder that they sincerely regret – no matter what amends they make, they can’t bring the dead back to life. They owe a debt they know can never be repaid. And even if your regrets are not so dramatic, you also may feel that sense of helplessness, like a person with a powerful hand around your neck, demanding that you give something you do not have and can never hope to get.
But most of us, I suspect, don’t think of ourselves as someone stuck in a hole so deep we can’t find our way out of it. Because in the real world, where we all live, we try to be prudent in managing our affairs. If we owe someone money, it’s our responsibility to pay it. If someone owes us a duty, we expect them to fulfill it. If a person can’t make their mortgage payment, the bank is going to foreclose on the house. It is sad when you see someone lose their home, of course, but we tell ourselves this is the way the work has to work. If everybody could stop paying the mortgage or their rent and still stay in their house, then everybody would, and the economy would collapse in a minute. The world only works when people are held accountable, where there are consequences for failing to meet your obligations. That is the way the kingdoms of this world work. They always have, and they probably always will.
And so most of us imagine that this is the way it works with God, too. There are certain things that God expects of us, duties that we are to perform towards God and our neighbors. If we discharge our duties, more or less, we expect our due reward. If someone doesn’t behave responsibly, they get what they deserve. That is the way every kingdom works. Why shouldn’t the kingdom of heaven be any different? And so, you and I, those of us who are church people, people who try to do what we owe to God and to others, we don’t necessarily feel like we are somehow like this foolish man who got himself $30 million in debt with no means to pay it back. If we have played by the rules and gotten our just deserts, then why can’t everybody else? That’s life.
“The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says, “may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts.” And when the king discovered a man who owed an inconceivably large amount that could never be paid back, when the man said, “Please give me time and I will pay you back in full,” the king thought to himself, I could give you the rest of your life and you will never come up with a fraction of what you owe. And so the king forgave the debt.
But when the man felt the king’s hands released from his throat, and he began to breathe again, he could not imagine that the king would actually forgive $30 million, for nothing. Kings don’t get to be kings by not knowing how to call in their debts. And so the man thinks he has gotten the reprieve that he asked for, and now he needs to come up with $30 million. And so he finds someone who owes him 100 denarii, 100 days’ wages – let’s say 10 thousand dollars. It’s not 30 million, but it’s a start. And so the story begins again – one person grabs another by the throat and says, “Pay what you owe me, or else!” If I have to repay my debts, if I have to meet my obligations to others, you have to meet your obligations to me. Or else.
In the parable of Jesus, when the other servants of the king see what is happening, they are appalled. Because unlike the man who had been forgiven, they understand that the king did not merely grant the man’s request for a little more time to try to pay back the unpayable debt. They understand what the king has done, that is different from what any of the kings of this world have ever done. They understand that this king has gone out of the bookkeeping business. They understand that this king is willing to give up an enormous sum that he has every right to demand, but he wants even more for his servants to be free from the boot that is on their neck. If it costs him a price vastly greater than anything we can imagine, the king will pay it. Has already paid it. This is what the other servants of the king understand.
And so when the king calls the original servant back into his presence, he tells him: Look, if you want to live in the world of bondage and debt, where everybody is held responsible and all debts must be paid in full, you can. It’s not a problem. But if you want to stay in that world, you’re going to have to worry about when you’re going to be called to account. You’re going to have to worry about when the hands are going to be on your neck. If you want to take your chances in that kingdom, you do you. But I’ll tell you right now, you may think you’ll come out ahead, but when the day for settling accounts comes, you’re not going to like it.
But there’s a new kingdom now, and I’m inviting you to come live there instead. Where nobody counts debts any more, not yours, not anybody else’s. Where the price has already been paid. Where all you have to do is to stop counting who owes what to whom.
That’s why Jesus sets the limit on forgiveness at 77 times – more than you can keep count of. So don’t keep count. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us – we ask to live in the kingdom where nobody counts, we don’t count against others, no one – not even God – counts against us.
We are like the “other servants” in the parable – we see a world where people are constantly demanding of others, where hands and knees are put on human throats until no one can breathe, no one can be free, and we long for the kingdom that has been promised to us. We Christians are the people who are trying to learn to live without debts. If I don’t want anyone to worry about what I owe, then I can’t worry about what anyone owes me.
Maybe that’s impractical. As a lawyer, I know I have many questions. And yet, Jesus says, this is what heaven will be like, this is what the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven must be like, where everything is grace, where everything God has is ours and so I can claim nothing as my own, where everyone can finally breathe free. For as Christians we know that the king has already paid the price, has already given us everything, is even now inviting us, step by step, to learn to live in true freedom with one another, where nothing is counted and everything is ours.