But I Don’t Like the Answer

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 16, 2014

The Second Sunday in Lent

But I Don’t Like the Answer

Matthew 18:21-22

At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask,

“Master, how many times do I forgive

a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?”

Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly.

Try seventy times seven.”

(The Message)

Peter walked back to join the other disciples

all them gathered, sitting, talking.

They looked up at him as he approached them

and they could see by the look on his face

that something was bothering him.

Before anyone spoke up, Peter said to them,

“I just asked our Lord a question.

and I really don’t like the answer he gave me.”

Andrew asked his brother

“What question did you put to our Teacher?”

Peter replied, “I asked our Lord,

how many times I must forgive a brother or sister,

anyone who hurts me.

I suggested seven times –

I thought that was a generous number,

a number that showed my grace, my patience,

my mercy,

all those things our Lord has taught us are important.”

“But do you want to know what Jesus said,

what number he said?

He said I must forgive ‘Seventy times seven’!

Seventy times seven!

Do I have to keep track of every time I forgive a person,

keep a count?”

“Or was it his way of telling me

that I am to forgive every time,

time and time again,

time after time?”

“I could tell by Jesus’ look

that I shouldn’t even bother

to ask him whether the nature of the injury

would affect his response;

After all, it is much easier to forgive a small injury.

But I wanted to ask him,

what about forgiving someone who tries to kill me,

or who tries to kill one of my family,

or one of you,

….or him?

Am I to forgive them, too?”

Just how far are we to go with this forgiveness?

Am I to forgive the Romans their brutality?

Am I to forgive the Samaritans their hatred of us

just because we disagree on certain things?”

“Our Teacher has told us many things,

and we have all agreed

that much of his teaching is difficult,

his standards high,

at times almost impossibly high.

But this new answer, that I am always to forgive,

this seems to me to be taking things too far.

I’ll be honest:

I don’t like his answer.”

How do you suppose you would have reacted

if you had been with Peter,

if you had been standing at his side

as he asked his question of Jesus?

How do you suppose you would have reacted

as you heard Peter ask,

“Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me,

how often should I forgive?

As many as seven times?...”

And then heard Jesus respond,

“No, I tell you, seventy times seven.”

Would you have shared Peter’s frustration?

Would you too have thought

that Jesus asks too much of us?

Would you wonder, as Peter surely did,

whether forgiveness should depend upon the sin,

the extent of the sin,

the damage done and to whom?

It only seems logical that forgiveness should be coupled

with a hierarchy of injuries:

Someone who humiliates us,

or lies about us,

or even steals from us –

as bad as those things are,

we can be quicker to forgive them,

than someone who attacks us,

or who attacks a loved one,

or who takes it to true extremes

and commits an atrocity against us,

our family,

against our whole community.

Would you have nodded in agreement

if you had heard Peter say,

“I don’t like our Lord’s answer”?

Forgive.

That’s what Jesus calls us do to.

The number of times Jesus tells us we are to forgive

is important only in the sense that it is so high

that it is beyond counting,

and that is Jesus’ point,

reinforced in a rather wonderfully divine way

by the disagreement among interpreters

of exactly what the number in the text was

that Jesus used.

Scholars are not sure whether we should

translate the number as seventy-seven times or

seventy times seven.

Either way, Jesus used hyperbole to make his point:

that there is no limit on how often we are called to forgive.

And there is no limit on what we are called to forgive.

We are to forgive.

Period.

End of Jesus’ lesson.

We are to forgive, in the same way

that we ourselves have been forgiven,

words we say every time we lift up the Lord’s Prayer:

“Forgive us our sins

just as we forgive those who sin against us.”

That’s an absolute statement:

“we forgive those who sin against us.”

There is nothing conditional,

nothing comparative,

nothing relative about it:

We are not saying, “Forgive us

just as we forgive those who seek our forgiveness.”

We are not saying, “Forgive us O Lord,

as we forgive those who have injured us in a forgivable way.”

We are not saying,

“Forgive us Lord as we have forgive our friends,

our loved ones,

those we know,

those we don’t consider our enemies.”

Our Lord’s call to us is absolute:

we are to forgive.

Still, why does Jesus do this –

set this standard that seems impossibly high for us?

Why does Jesus turn from teaching

that was thousands of years old,

teaching that was Scriptural

that said we could seek to avenge ourselves,

as long as it was proportionate,

as long as it wasn’t excessive:

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

That seems so fair:

we can forgive once the scales are balanced,

once the wrong has been redressed.

Jesus is only building on

what he has already taught us, though:

“Turn the other cheek,”

“Love your enemy.”

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him,

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.”

And so we have it: if someone hurts us in any way,

we are to forgive them.

Still, who wouldn’t agree with Peter –

we hear what our Lord says,

and we don’t like it!

It seems too hard,

and too unfair.

But Jesus is calling us to new life,

a new way of life,

life in God’s Kingdom,

a community, where all,

all,

all are reconciled.

All of us reconciled:

the wounded and those who wound;

the injured and those who injure;

the scarred and those who scar.

For we all are wounded,

and we all wound.

We are all scarred,

and we all cause scars.

We cannot hope to live in a reconciled community

if we are angry,

filled with resentment,

bitter, holding fast to our grudges.

We cannot hope to know peace ourselves

until we let go,

until we let go of our anger, our resentment,

our bitterness,

until we let go of our grudges.

We cannot know peace until we forgive.

Jesus calls us to forgive because

he knows it is the best thing for us:

the best thing for you,

the best thing for me.

To forgive is to be transformed.

As theologian Miraslov Wolf puts it,

“It is the beginning of a transformational relationship.

It is the beginning of reconciliation.

It is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.”

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote,

“Returning hate multiplies hate,

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Love is the only force capable of transforming

an enemy into a friend.

We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate;

we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.”

Forgiving it isn’t easy – Peter understood that;

the other disciples understood that,

we understand that.

Professor Wolf understands that with his pointed questions:

“Are we generous enough to [forgive]?

Do we have the inner strength [to forgive]?

Are we humble enough to forgive?”

We’ve heard the aphorism “forgive and forget”

and perhaps it is the “forgetting” that trips us up.

It isn’t a helpful saying;

We’ll never completely forget.

We’ll always have the memory.

But forgiving can take the sting,

the pain out of the memory,

it can soften its impact.

Forgiving heals our memories,

as well as our hearts.

If you still think you should give up something for Lent,

then give up a grudge you’ve been carrying,

give up your anger at someone for whatever they did,

whatever they said,

or for whatever they didn’t do, or didn’t say.

If you are going to give up something for Lent,

give up your hesitancy,

your reluctance,

perhaps even your unwillingness to forgive.

Start right now.

Begin now to work toward forgiveness.

Yes, it can take time.

But the sooner you begin,

the sooner you start working at it

the sooner you and the other person will be reconciled,

and the sooner you’ll be that much closer to God’s kingdom.

The sooner you begin,

the sooner you will be transformed and know peace,

the peace of Christ,

that extraordinary peace

which surpasses all understanding.

Forgive.

Period.

End of lesson.

AMEN