The Rev. Dn. James Wesley Holcomb III- Mercy Comes First

I speak to you in the name of our one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

In today's gospel lesson, Peter asks our Lord a question.

How often should I forgive?

As many as seven times?

And seven seems to be a generous number.

But if we were to be honest, Peter is asking a sneaky question.

Because Peter is making the assumption that often we as humans make.

And if I was to be quite frank with you, it is an assumption that I have oftentimes made that forgiveness will and probably should eventually run out.

I have oftentimes thought that there is a point in which I have the right to say, I have forgiven enough.

And if the truth be told, I may not be the only one who has done that every once in a while.

But Jesus answers not seventy times, but seventy seven times.

In other words, on and on and on.

Because Peter was keeping a ledger book of offenses every time somebody rubbed them wrong, every time someone pushed them aside, he kept an account of every offense, every wrongdoing.

And in our Lord's answer, Jesus does not enlarge Peter's ledger, but he wipes it clean.

And the reason he wipes it clean is because God has forgiven with a mercy that is beyond measure.

A mercy that is beyond any possible way that we can count or keep up with it.

Jesus calls us to forgive others.

Here's the difficult part.

Without keeping count.

He calls us to forgive without keeping count.

And so he tells in the parable of the servant who owes this huge astronomical debt and begs the king for more time.

The king doesn't give the servant more time, the king gives him complete clearance and forgives him of the entire debt.

And then that same servant so quickly forgot the mercy and the grace that was shown to him.

And when he traveling along finds someone who owes him something far more smaller, he demands free payment.

In fact, the text illustrates it by saying he seizes them, he grabs them.

My grandfather said he would yoke them up by the neck and demands immediate payment.

Pay me what you owe.

That the debt that was forgiven on his behalf, the mercy that was extended to him, he failed in allowing that mercy to change his own heart.

The mercy that he received, he could not find it in himself to extend that mercy to other.

So then the king asks, Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you?

Why does the king ask this?

Because mercy comes first.

Not the point that we have to prove, not the art that we're holding, not the consequence that we're trying to force, but mercy.

And the servant here doesn't earn forgiveness by forgiving, but he is called to become merciful because he has already received mercy.

And that is why today, even in our collect, we prayed the words this, that the Holy Spirit will direct and rule our hearts.

Because forgiving is not easy.

Yes, it happened.

Yes, it was said, yes, it was done.

But forgiveness is an opportunity not to free the person, but to free ourselves from being bound to the offense, from being bound to the tragedy of what happened, and to being bound to the individual and the way things may have fallen apart.

And you know what?

It's not always easy to do that.

All of this is easier said than done.

And that is precisely why it takes somebody bigger than you and I to help us do that work.

It takes the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.

It takes the grace of God alive and well in our own lives.

We cannot manufacture this kind of forgiveness by sheer willpower.

Again, my friends, we need the grace of God that is mercy received in our own lives before it can be extended to others.

And I must reiterate that forgiveness does not mean denying what happened.

Forgiveness doesn't allow us to remain where harm can continue.

It doesn't allow us to just sit there and take things.

Forgiveness does not assume that trust in the relationship will return to what it once was.

We can forgive without pretending that trust has been fully restored.

Some things take time, some things will never be again.

And then there are times where forgiveness doesn't lead us to back to the relationship where we were, but it can give a sense of peace to accept the ways in which things have changed.

Peace and wisdom often remembers in order to learn, but it's resentment that remembers offenses in order to get a payback.

And thus is the difference.

What's our goal here?

Is our goal peace?

Is our goal to walk in community with one another in reconciliation, even if that means you stay on your side and I stay on mine?

Because sometimes the two just simply can't meet.

Or is the goal in my heart to simply get a payback?

Jesus does not ask us to deny any of the wounds or any of the offenses that we've encountered.

However, there is this invitation to refuse to allow that wound to rule our hearts.

It happened, but it doesn't have to have a hold of me.

I experienced it, but it doesn't have to arrest my very existence.

And Jesus makes this claim with a difficult warning that the unforgiving servant is handed over to punishment.

And while Jesus commands us to forgive from our heart, we have to bear in mind that forgiveness does not purchase God's mercy.

Forgiveness is possible because of God's mercy.

The servant had already been freely forgiven, but Jesus warns us that a heart that persistently is close to forgiving others is not compatible with a life that is governed by the mercy of God.

Forgiveness is not the price we pay for grace.

Forgiveness is the very fruit of that grace that is meant to bear.

So as we continue in worship today, and as we prepare to come to the altar and receive the blessed sacrament, may we ask ourselves whose sin am I still counting?

Even if it is my own.

Because oftentimes the number one person that needs to be forgiven in our lives is ourselves.

Bring that with you before God.

Don't deny what happened, but yet surrender what has happened.

Surrender whatever boundaries wisdom has now required of us, and surrender our claim to keep collecting on a debt that the grace of God has already paid.

And allow the Holy Spirit to maintain us with open hands and open hearts that we might receive again and again and subsequently give out the mercy of God that sustains us from day to day.

And may the Holy Spirit make the mercy that we receive be embodied and made alive in our very flesh, so that as we walk and we go about life, we walk in the mercy of God.

We embody the grace of God even when it's difficult, and even when we cannot do it alone, knowing that Christ Himself walks with us and makes it possible.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.