A Way of Life

Text: Matthew 18:21-22 Other texts: Romans 14:10

Imagine.

Imagine a world in which people held grudges.

Imagine a world in which people extracted revenge for sins committed against them. Or against their friends, or even their ancestors. Imagine a world of blood feuds.

Imagine a world in which people executed others because of their sins. Imagine a world in which wars were fought over the sins of nations.

Imagine a world in which children were disinherited, or parents neglected, or brothers and sisters estranged because of sins of one sort or another. Imagine a world in which people were excommunicated, exiled, expunged for their sins.

It takes no imagination to imagine such a world.

“Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” asks Paul. “Or why do you despise your brother or sister?” Withholding forgiveness is the way we work. We are addicted to unforgiveness. Mercilessness, we might have once called it. But that word, meaning without mercy, now has a flavor of viciousness. We withhold forgiveness not because we are mean and vicious—though it might make us do things that are mean and vicious. We withhold forgiveness because it seems to be sensible, normal, and understandable. It is a way of life. Retribution is in the air. To forgive others seems, at times, at the worst times, to be naive, pathetic, unrealistic.

Unforgiveness is an addiction. It is a learned behavior that makes us uncomfortable when it is withdrawn. As Jesus asks us to, asking us to forgive one another. It makes us anxious.

So when Peter asks, “how many times do I have to forgive?” we listen with him for the answer from Jesus. Seven seems like more than enough. Let’s not go overboard. To forgive someone seven crimes, seven injuries, seven insults, seven threats. If Peter is like us, maybe he thinks: Already, seven is too many.

Seeking to explain why churches are losing members these days, a theologian has said recently that people see Christianity as a system of beliefs rather than a way of life. They think that Christianity teaches what to think more than it teaches what to do.

It is true that what you think makes a difference, just as what you say makes a difference. Sticks and stones may break bones, but people usually don’t wield sticks and stones unless they have thought and spoken about bone breaking long before they picked up their weapons. Wars and genocides and executions happen after people have thought and spoken about them. Words don’t just describe what we do, they form us. So what we think and say as a result of hearing Jesus makes a difference.

And one of the things Jesus said was that to follow him was to live in a different way. Following Jesus is a way of life. I am the way, Jesus said. This is more than a metaphor. Jesus taught about the coming kingdom of God. This kingdom on earth will come when people do the things that Jesus said to do. Among other things, believing in Jesus means believing that if we do what he said to do, we trust that the world will become the world he said it would. And what he says here in Matthew is to forgive one another.

We are taught as children to forgive each other. If you bean your sister with your toy truck, or smash your brother’s Lego castle, your mom or dad teaches you: “Say you are sorry.” And when you do offer your apologies, no matter how reluctantly, your folks tell your brother or sister to accept them. This is a protocol for forgiveness. I’m sorry—it’s OK. Even if you are not, and even if it isn’t, this protocol works. It is possible for us to forgive, and we are taught to do so. And we believe that that is how God works.

Forgiveness saves the one forgiving as much as the one forgiven. Not forgiving others is deadly. We use the expression “hold a grudge.” As if you could just pass it on to someone else. Here, hold this grudge for me a moment. Wouldn’t that be great. But the grudge is ours. And as we gather more and more unforgiven sins, our grudges accumulate. Pretty soon, we are weighed down with them. Our resentments and hard feelings sit like stones in our pockets. Before long our pockets—our hearts—are full of stones, and we cannot run, cannot play, cannot dance, cannot laugh.

The word for forgiveness that Peter uses in his question means to let go, but even more it means to “shove away.” How many times must I let go of sins done me? It takes effort. They are hard to get rid of. How many times must I shove those sins away from me? asks Peter.

There is no limit. That is Jesus’ answer. Whether it is seventy-seven times or, as you could also translate it, seventy times seven (490 times), the number means infinity. There is never a time, says Jesus, when you can stop forgiving the sins done to you.

This is not just therapeutic advice. To do this is to act in a new way. To live this way is to adopt a new kind of life. If people were to live this way, it would be new kind of world. It would be a new kind of kingdom. The difficulty of letting go of other’s sins is exceeded by the pow er of the results.

Baptism [a child was baptized today] is a sacrament of forgiveness. It bestows, as you just heard, new life. Not because it is a magic spell or because it is some kind of divine cleansing agent. But because it is an initiation into a new world. A world in which forgiveness, not retribution, is the expectation. A world in which forgiveness is the standard. Imagine a world that was addicted to forgiveness.

Imagine that.