"Haywired Grace" - Pentecost 15A

Romans 14:1-12 

Saint Matthew 18:25-35

Before the start of this year whenever one of those multi-state super lottery jackpot drawings my friends and I would play the game, “What would you do with all that money?”  And then we would all sit around and fantasize of what we would buy or where we would go. Sometimes we got so caught up in our dreams that each of us would pitch in a dollar or two and a volunteer would be sent off to buy the lucky ticket.  When they returned from the convenience store with a fistful of tickets in hand our imaginations would shift into overdrive.

Lotto tickets sell us hope.  It may even be hope again hope and it built on the almost perfect slogan enticing us to try: “Somebody’s gotta win and it might as well be you.”

“Yeh!  Why not me?  Remember what they say: “You can’t win if you don’t play!” and so we produce another dollar so that the daydreaming can begin again.

What would you do if you won the 17 trillion, bazillion dollars in offered up as the latest jackpot in the Lottery?
That question has been changed over the past nine months.  No longer are we asking each other about what we would do if we became unbelievably rich; now we are asking each other what we are going to do when this virus comes under control.

I’ve been asking this of friends, aquaiintences, and even the young man bagging groceries at the check out line of my local grocery.

The answers have been heartbreaking.  “We were going to get married,” said one couple, “but now that’s on hold.”  A friend said that he and his partner were planning a trip to Brazil.  A woman and her partner had to postpone their honeymoon in Paris.  The young fellow behind the counter at Happy Foods told me that he was scheduled to start at the University of Cincinnati this fall but instead he’s taking online courses at Wright Junior College.  One person you know very well was hoping for a transatlantic crossing but has only been able to cross the county line between Cook and Kane County on more than one occasion.

These are but trifles compared to the big picture.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a loved one hospitalized and have them disappear into their restricted ward never knowing if you would see them again.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be “an essential worker” who went to work every day never knowing if you would become infected. For them, “what are you going to do when the quarantine is lifted” must have a special, deeper, meaning.

While we may console ourselves with the thought that we we’ll finally be able to take that vacation we have been meaning to take since March.  That we’ll be able to eat out until you are as tired or fine dining as you were of home cooked meals.  Invite friends and family over for a huge party and when the arrive greet each with a long and lingering hug. Have Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Easter all rolled into one as soon as we have received your all clear.

What would you do with your new found freedom and your life restored?  That’s the issue behind Jesus’ parable that comes hard on the heels of Peter’s important question.

Peter is still working out his theology of forgiveness left over from last week.  He hasn’t had six days to mull over Jesus’ teaching on restoration of a fallen member of the church like we have. Probably no more than a minute has passed between when Jesus taught about restoring a wayward brother or sister to the life of the community and the question coming to Peter’s mind.

Peter’s question is perfectly rational: “Lord, when someone has sinned against me, how many times ought I forgive him? Once? Twice? As many as seven times?”1

The rabbinical standard in Peter’s day was three.  “Three strikes and you’re out!” Peter decides to double the standard and add an extra one for good measure.  Seven is a very good guess except when you are dealing with Jesus.

Depending on what translation you are reading Jesus either says 77 times or seventy times seven times.  Either way that is a lot of forgive­ness for one person.  Seventy-seven is a considerable number but (for those of you who did not bring your calculators to church or can’t do challenging math in your heads) seventy times seven is 490.

Most preachers I’ve read leave it there.  Don’t keep score. Be forgiving.  They throw at their listeners some examples of people who are more forgiving than they will ever be.  Like a magician they cause us to conjure up in our minds all the gruesome details of those times when we have not been forgiving.  They conclude with “God loves you and so do I” and send their people on their way.

Jesus never seems to want to leave well enough alone.  He is not going to send us on our way before we hear a little parable about a guy who, even though he had been forgiven, just could not be forgiving toward others.
The servant who is dragged before the king owes more than a tidy sum of money.  He owes the equivalent of the national debt.  Ten thousand talents? The entire budget for the province of Judea for a year was 600 talents.  This guy must have been quite the high-roller.  Cue Edie Adams for a chorus of “Hey big spender, why don’t you spend a little time with me.”

It would take a lot of time, effort, and moxie to come up with that kind of money.  It is the stuff of which at least a half-a-dozen corporate bankruptcies could be made.  And for a minute there we might think that the guy had learned his lesson.

With a jail sentence looming over not only his head but the heads of his wife and children he throws himself at the mercy of the king.  “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything."1

Considering the amount of the debt what the servant is promising is impossible.  This isn’t a promise the guy is just blowing smoke. There is no way he is going to be able to come up with that kind of cash.

Jesus doesn’t give us any hints about what the king was thinking. Did the king honestly think that the servant would turn his life around? Did the king really believe that the servant would be so chastened and embarrassed at being called out that he would mend his ways?  Or, did the king start an office pool with overs and unders as to how long it would take the servant to get in trouble again.

Those who had “less than a minute” in that lottery are the winners.

The newly liberated man doesn’t even make it to the sliding-doors before he finds a slave that owes him a paltry sum of money in comparison, grabs him by the throat and yells, “pay me what you owe.”

This guy had just won the lottery of all lotteries.  He had walked away absolutely free of debt.  He owed nothing to anybody.  He could start his life all over again.  All those worries he might have had at night about his tremendous debt were gone.

I’d like to think I would have sailed out of the king’s palace happier and more relieved than I had ever been in my life.  I’d like to think that coming upon a fellow slave that only owed me a paltry sum by comparison I wouldn’t have attacked him but invited his and his whole family out for dinner and drinks.  I would have been walking on air and would have gathered all my friends together to share my good-fortune.

Instead of celebration this guy practices retaliation.

His entire life may have been built around them principal of using fear as a weapon. Free as he was, he thought that the only way he could hold on to whatever power he had left was through fear.  As one politician was quoted as saying: “Real power is – and I don’t even want to use the word – fear.”3 He may have equated fear with respect.

Or, and this one puzzles me even more but Dr. Brian Blunt, President of Union Presbyterian seminary, made me realize something obvious and something deeper.

There are a lot of angry people out there in our city, our country, our world. And you can’t convince me that they don’t enjoy the anger that they’re feeling. they’re angry. They’re mad. And they can’t let go because it’s become part of them. Anger is like that. It gets in you. It becomes you.4

I honestly don’t want to believe that some people live their lives like that as they angrily going about attacking others for the least little thing. I don’t understand the person who spends their time on the internet to expressing their ire at anybody they believe has wronged them. 

I cannot understand how, for some, anger is their dominate word.  They wake up angry, they go to bed angry, and they spend most of their day angrily trying to get back at those they believe have slighted them. They demean and degrade others with a contemptuous attitude.  They are angry, period.

For them God’s grace has gone haywire.  They never ask for forgiveness because they don’t think they need it.  God is a talking point not a reference point. Their life is centered on whatever money they can make and whomever they can use to achieve their ends.

But this dastardly slave gets done in by some whistle blowers, fellow slaves who saw what he did and not only said to themselves but told the king, “something’s not right here. Your grace has gone haywire.”

The king investigates and adjudicates and before the servant can plead for mercy he hears the bars of the jailhouse doors clanging shut behind him.

He wasn’t put there by the king but by his own actions.  He has caused the grace which was shown to him to go haywire.

It is never God’s intent to cut us off from God’s love but humans have an infinite ability to do it to ourselves and when we do it is nothing less than torture.

There are some people who by all outward appearances have it all. They have titles, fame, and fortune beyond measure but they are angry, unforgiving, and always on the lookout for the slightest slight.  They live in a prison of their own making.

We don’t have to be like that.  We’ve heard the good news!  Even in the midst of these difficult days we have the assurance of God’s love and forgiveness for us and for those we love.

We have the assurance of God’s presence in our lives that has brought us through the tough times of the past and will bring us through these days as well.

God’s grace to us, God’s love for us, never goes haywire and for this day and for all the days to come that may be better news than winning the lottery.  For God’s grace and love is a sure thing, a sure bet.
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1. St. Matthew 18:21. (VOICE) [VOICE=Ecclesia Bible Society (Nashville: TN Thomas Nelson and Son Publishers. (2012)

2.St. Matthew 18:26. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]

3.Austin Sarat, “Trump Says He Wanted to Avoid COVID Panic‑But Panic Is His Whole Shtick,” The Bulwark, September 10, 2020, https://thebulwark.com/trump‑says‑he‑wanted‑to‑avoid‑covid‑panic‑but‑panic‑is‑his‑whole‑shtick/?utm_source=afternoon‑newsletter.

4.Br3. Brian K Blount, “Extravagant Forgiveness,” A Sermon For Every Sunday, September 8, 2020, https://asermonforeverysunday.com/wp‑content/uploads/2020/09/Brian‑Blount‑Extravagant‑Forgiveness.pd