Colossians 3:12-17
Matthew 18:21-35

 

Two famous movie stars died this past week: Robert Mitchum, then four days later, Jimmy Stewart. Mitchum was a big name in the movies, a superstar, and extraordinarily productive. He must have made over 200 movies. In one year, I think it was 1944, he made eighteen movies.

But Jimmy Stewart was a different kind of actor. Jimmy Stewart was in the pantheon that is reserved for those we lift up to be icons, mythical figures who represent what we believe in, and who act out on the screen the way we would like to be.

I heard Janet Maislan interviewed on the NewsHour by Jim Lehrer this last week, on the day that Jimmy Stewart died. Lehrer asked Maislan, who is a movie critic for The New York Times, "What was Jimmy Stewart really like? What was the real person behind the myth really like?" She said, "Nobody knew. And what's more, nobody wanted to know." They didn't ask, because they wanted him to be that icon.

I suppose that the icon that he represented was America that we associate with white, middle-class, midwestern, small town, where he grew up in the first decades of this century, in Pennsylvania, where neighborliness was taken for granted and life was relatively simple. In fact, "simple" was an adjective that would denote virtue, as in "simple kindness" and in "simple honesty," indicating a kind of integrity, with no sham or hypocrisy, just simple kindness. As if that is all that was required to get along in this world, to work out your problems and achieve happiness. Just be loyal to these simple virtues. A simple, honorable life is the icon represented by Jimmy Stewart.

But America has changed. It is much more complicated now. The small, homogeneous, midwestern town is dying. A new America is emerging. In fact, it is already here. It is the America that you and I live in, which is urban, huge, complex and heterogeneous, and often confrontational between the many types and groups of persons who live in the modern, metropolitan area.

In this new culture a new star has been born, and lifted to iconic dimensions, as big a star as Jimmy Stewart ever was, and one of the biggest box-office draws in history. His name is Clint Eastwood. Like Jimmy Stewart, it is said of Clint Eastwood, "He always plays himself." Which is what is expected of icons. In every role they are to represent what we believe in, and to act out the way we would like to be.

The values that we associate with the movies of Clint Eastwood are justice, retribution, vengeance and retaliation. Clint Eastwood is the source of one of the most popular phrases in our time, "Go ahead, make my day." He uttered that, as I recall, in one of his Dirty Harry movies, where he played an urban cop who is utterly frustrated with the bureaucracy and the complication of life in the city.

His cowboy roles were the same way. In fact, even more so. As a cowboy, he had this mysterious, superhuman aspect. As a cowboy, he was the "pale rider," an apocalyptic image taken right out of the Book of Revelation. In his movies he would ride into the scene quietly, like an angel of vengeance. Nobody knew where he came from. Then with a surfeit of violence, he would solve the problem, eliminate the evil, and then quietly leave, mysteriously going to nobody knew where.

I believe that one of the reasons for the growing incivility of our time is that the "in your face" confrontation that is so much of our life together, is seen and encouraged in the Eastwood films, and in the torrent of films that imitate him, including those cartoons shown Saturday morning for the benefit of children.

I read an op-ed editorial last week written by a woman who picked up her young girl at a preschool. She had a lot of errands to run before she went home to fix dinner for her family. She went to the post office first to get her mail. As she reached for her mail box, there was a woman bent over to get the mail out of her box. The first woman brushed the head of the second woman with her arm. She apologized, and then stepped back to read her mail. She was about to walk away when the other woman came at her, head down, and rammed her in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her. The woman said, "That's payback for what you did to me." Then she added, "If your child hadn't been here, I would have been much worse."

So dominant is the idea of confrontation, vengeance and retribution, that the Church's teaching about forgiveness will be heard in our time as news, as something radical and different, which is exactly the way it was heard in the first century. The first century was also a time in which disputes between people were settled by vengeance and retribution.

Listen to our text for this morning. Peter asked Jesus, "How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Forgiveness was a major part of Jesus' teaching. You need look no farther than the Lord's Prayer, the prayer that he taught his disciples to pray daily. There are only three petitions in the Lord's Prayer:

Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation.

If there are only three petitions in that prayer, then they must be important. It means that each day you ought to prepare yourself for a life of forgiveness. Which sounds to me like forgiveness is not just an occasional thing, something that we use in order to settle disputes. But forgiveness is a way of life, a strategy, an alternative way of living to the retribution and vengeance that characterizes so much life in our time.

That is reinforced by this passage: "How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Which is a whole lot of times, seven times. Peter knew that Jesus was going to expect an extra effort on the part of the Christians, so he chose a big number, much bigger than anybody would have expected, seven times.

Peter lived in a time in which life was outlined by rules. Everything was spelled out. You not only knew that you were supposed to forgive a brother, or a sister, or a neighbor, but you knew exactly how many times you were supposed to forgive them. You also knew that there were some people that you didn't have to forgive, those who were outside of the kinship circle, those who were foreigners outside of the nation. But your neighbor, your brother and sister, you were to forgive. And you were to forgive them a specific number of times. Three or four times the rabbis said. That was their job, to interpret the law and make it practical for us.

So it is a proper question addressed to Jesus, who, especially in the Gospel of Matthew, is referred to as Rabbi, as Teacher. "How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?"

Knowing that three or four times was what the law required, Peter asked, "As many as seven times?" He reasoned that if our righteousness as Christians is to exceed that of the Pharisees, then that ought to do it. I mean, seven times seemed about right. It is more than anybody else would ask. It doubled what everybody else was supposed to do, so nobody could ask more than seven times.

Except, Jesus said, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." Which means, forgiveness is beyond calculation. There are no limits to it. Which means, it is not a specific solution to a particular problem in your life, but it is a way of life. To drive it home, Jesus tells the parable of the unmerciful servant.

A king wants to settle accounts with one of his servants. He discovers that the servant cannot produce the ten thousand talents that he owes.

We know that King Herod collected 1000 talents a year in taxes from his people so that he could maintain his lavish lifestyle. This is ten times more than what Herod collected in taxes. It is an impossible sum.

The man begs the king that he be allowed time in order to pay it. The king, unexpectedly, and most graciously, forgives it. He writes it off. He tells the man, "Forget it. Don't worry about it."

This very same servant, having had his debt forgiven, meets one of his fellow servants. This man happened to owe the first servant 100 denari, a paltry sum, just a few dollars, in comparison to what the first man owed the king. Yet this man grabs that servant by the throat, and says, "Pay what you owe me." He could not pay. So the unforgiving man sends him to debtors prison.

This act of vengeance is reported to the king, who summons the unmerciful servant to come before him, and says, "I forgave your debt; you should forgive your debtors." "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." In anger he sends him to the jailers.

The point is obvious. Freely you have received, freely give. God has forgiven you, which is the whole point of the Gospel. You have been dealt with graciously, now live that way with other people. Make graciousness, make magnanimity, a way of life for you.

It is the point that Paul makes in these beautiful words that he wrote to the Colossians. He says, this is what it means to be a Christian. People ought to be able to identify you as a Christian.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

That is the expectation of the Church that Paul holds for us. We should be a forgiving community. Forgiveness for us is not just a way of healing conflict. Forgiveness is a strategy for changing the world.

It was illustrated immediately in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, which is the history of the Church, given to us as an example of how the Church should behave in the world. So we have this example before us. The first incident in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, reported after the founding of the Church at Pentecost, is the martyrdom of Stephen.

When Stephen was being stoned, he repeated the words of his Lord on the cross, "Father, forgive them." Which was heard by Saul, who hated Stephen and his colleagues. He left that scene in Jerusalem to go to Damascus to persecute the Church. On the way, he is knocked over, dazed, blinded. He stumbles on toward Damascus. There he is visited by a Christian.

Now he doesn't like Christians. He doesn't trust them. He thinks they are evil. This Christian's name is Ananias. Saul says, "What are you doing here?" Ananias says, "I have come to care for you, to help you get well." "Why?" Saul must have asked. "If this hadn't happened to me, I would be hunting you down. Instead you have come to me to care for me. Why did you come?" Ananias said, "The Lord Jesus sent me."

Which is to say, I don't do this because I am particularly fond of you. In fact, I really don't like you. I don't like your politics. I don't like your theology. I don't like your attitude. I don't like your personality. You're a real jerk, Saul. But Jesus told me to forgive my enemies and to pray for those who persecute me, so I am here to be as gracious to you as God has been gracious to me.

I tell you, forgiveness is not just advice for handling uncomfortable situations in our life. Forgiveness is given to us by our Lord as a strategy for changing the world.

If that is true, then what would it look like? We know what it looks like in individual relationships, because we practice forgiveness at that level. We think that is what forgiveness is for, to be reconciled with individuals. But what about groups? That is the real question. Is forgiveness possible for groups? We should ask this on the Fourth of July weekend, is forgiveness possible for nations? Can nations forgive?

The question was raised just a few weeks ago in reference to repentance and remorse on the part of the white majority in this country for the sins committed against the African Americans at the time of slavery. Most people throw up their hands at such a suggestion. They say, it is just absurd that you should even suggest that we should atone for something that happened 150 years ago. I had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

That's true, it is absurd. Which is exactly how the world reacted when Paul said, "We preach Christ crucified." The Greeks said, "It's foolishness." The Jews said, "It's a scandal." It is absurd to think that the world could be saved because a man, who was without sin, took on the sins of the world, like a paschal lamb, so that the world could put the past behind it, and open up to a whole new future.

Maybe that's what is wrong with the world is that we have tried to forget the past, not forgive it. We tried to forget the past, but we couldn't get rid of the consequences of deeds done in the past. They refuse to go away, because the consequences of sin don't go away by trying to forget them. They go away only when we forgive them.

The image that is before us today is the image of dealing with such matters only by retaliation and retribution. "If you do this to me, then I am going to do it right back to you." "Make my day." "Payback time." Those images are before us daily, in the movies and television, even in the entertainment that is presented to our children. We are surrounded by such images. We need other images. The Church is here to provide other images.

I remember the Pope, some years ago, in an amazing scene, went to the man in prison who had tried to assassinate him, and knelt before him to forgive him.

Nelson Mandela, in prison thirty years. When he was inaugurated as the president of the new republic of South Africa, he invited the two white guards who guarded his cell for all those years to be at his inauguration.

In Atlanta last year, a service was held where the descendant of a plantation owner knelt in front of the descendant of a slave who worked on that plantation, and asked for forgiveness for the sins of slavery.

Last year at Sand Creek, Colorado, some Methodists, whites and Indians, gathered together at the very spot where soldiers under the command of a Methodist pastor slaughtered over 100 Arapahos and Cheyennes.

Two years ago some of you went to those islands in the South Pacific where you had fought during the II World War. There also at those reunions were Japanese who fought on the other side. There were beautiful moments of reconciliation.

At the Coventry Cathedral in England there is probably the most dramatic symbol of forgiveness. The old cathedral, you remember, was destroyed in the blitzkrieg, in the constant bombings in England. Only a shell of the old cathedral was left. They left it, and built the new cathedral right next to it, so that the entrance into the new is through the ruins of the old. You enter new life through forgiving the past. So in the courtyard of Coventry Cathedral, where the altar was in the old church, there is a cross made out of the charred timbers of the roof of the old cathedral. It says these words, "Father, forgive."

Germans came to Coventry Cathedral and established the International Center for Christian Reconciliation. That center sponsored a team of Germans who went to Israel to work in a kibbutz. They lived with Jews in the kibbutz for six months, working side by side. When the time came to leave, an Orthodox Jew said with tears in his eyes, "When one person says to another, `I want to love you,' one is glad. But when this is said by a person at whose hands one has suffered, there is no greater joy in this world."

Peter asked, "How often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"

Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven."

Because for the Christian, forgiveness is not only an occasional gesture that we extend to individuals. Forgiveness is a strategy for changing the world.