Pentecost 19, October 3

A young man was recently interning at a major corporation and noticed that he had been assigned a heavy work load. He asked around to the other interns to see if they were experiencing a similar amount of work and discovered that he had been assigned more than double the average work given to the other interns. Concerned about the discrepancy he went to his boss and let him know that he was struggling to get his work done, hoping for some relief. “Looks like you are going to have to learn to manage your time a little better.” was the reply.
There are times when the Christian life can seem to be a burden. There are times when we feel that we need help and strength and relief. There are times when we feel, just like that intern, that God has piled up on our shoulders more than what we can handle.
Fortunately, for the Christian, our Lord is merciful. He strengthens our weak knees, he binds up our hands, he provides for us the strength that we need to complete the tasks that he sets out in front of us.
The task Jesus set out before his disciples, on this day, was the work of forgiveness. “Rebuke the sinner, restore those who repent. If someone sins against you repeatedly, over and over and over again, forgive the sinner over and over and over again. You must forgive him.”
There are times when that seems to be an overwhelming task. When something as simple as forgiveness seems as though it is more than we can handle, a bigger task than what we can perform.
If the work of forgiving someone who has sinned against you seems like a daunting task to you, then know that you are not alone. It is common to the human experience that we struggle with the sins of others. We struggle when others sin against us and we struggle with forgiveness. When Jesus gave this command even to his disciples, it was more than they thought they could handle, so they went to our Lord with a request, much like that overworked intern, and asked for some relief. “Increase our faith.” they said.
Perhaps you have felt the same way.
Forgiveness is not an easy thing. I was reading a story told by a woman whose child had been abducted. And the abductor found her phone number and would call her home and talk to her, meanwhile holding her daughter captive. The woman was a Christian woman and her biggest struggle was learning to forgive this man for all he had taken from her. It was not easy to do.
And that is forgiving for one offense. For us, it makes a difference the number of times we have been offended. Jesus says, forgive not just once, not just twice, he says if someone sins against you seven times in one day, each and every time forgive him. The number seven is one of those biblical numbers that hints at completeness, the total/the whole thing. What Jesus is saying is that if your brother sins against you repeatedly, all day long, forgive him repeatedly as many times as he sins against you.
And so the response of the disciples. Probably about the same as any one of us, once we have finally understood what our Lord meant...
“Increase our faith.” “Add to us faith.” “Lord you are asking more of me than what I think I can handle. You are going to have to help me through this one. I am not equipped to do it. I am going to need a little bit, no scratch that, I am going to need a lot more faith.”
Lord, have mercy.
That's the place to start. When you find yourself in a position to give out forgiveness, when you find yourself sinned against, hurt and offended, dragged through the mud and dishonored, the place to begin is with that simple prayer, “Lord, have mercy.” “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.”
It seems that the biggest obstacle to forgiveness is pride. “I don't deserve this. I should be treated better than this. I have been wronged.” And so, as we are holding on to and holding out for our own rights and our own righteousness we are tempted to with hold forgiveness. We are tempted to place ourselves in God’s place as the one who judges and condemns this sinner. But that is not for us to decide. Jesus is the one who forgives, who has forgiven us, who has released us from our debt to him, and now he commands us to release one another.
And so we begin with a prayer that acknowledges our own sin. We are all sinners, we are all in the same boat. We have all received the forgiveness of Christ and He would have us pass that forgiveness along to each other. Why? Because that is the work that God has given Christians to do.
We are His priests, his servants in the world. We are those who are given the privilege of passing out his gifts of forgiveness. It is our job, the duty of our faith. We are here to forgive.
Or didn't you catch that last part of the text.
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Our text comes to us in three parts; a section on forgiveness and restoration for the sinner, a section on faith, and this last section on serving. But they are all three drawn together. In the first section, Jesus commands us to forgive. In the second section, after the disciples realize what a daunting and overwhelming task this forgiveness can be they ask the Lord for faith so that they can complete the task, and then in the third, Jesus reminds us that when we have forgiven we are only doing our duty as his servants. The bottom line? Forgive because it is your duty as a Christian.
But that is a tall order. Isn't it?
The disciples were right to request faith. Not one of us could do the job without it. Wounds we have received at the hands of others can sting us still years into the future. And those wounds can be hard to heal. Years later, we can still hold on to these sins that have been committed against us. And so we pray with the disciples, “Lord, increase our faith.”
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” says Jesus, “you could tell a tree to go plant itself in the ocean and it would obey you.”
These days with cgi animation and computer generated graphics we aren't surprised to see anything on screen any more. The limits of what directors can show on film are all but gone. So when Jesus says, a tree will be uprooted and go plant itself in the ocean we don't bat an eye. Those who have gone to the movies and have seen Prince Caspian or The Two Towers have already seen it happen. But Jesus isn't talking cgi graphics. Jesus isn't talking fantasy. Jesus is talking faith. Jesus is saying that even that thing you believe to be impossible is possible through even the smallest of faiths.
Faith, you understand, is only as powerful and as strong as its object. Christian faith holds on to Jesus and for Jesus nothing is impossible. Everything is possible. Everything including forgiveness.
You see, the one who believes and has faith in Jesus has received His gift of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in your heart. And the Holy Spirit sanctifies you through the Word of God and prayer. That is to say, the Holy Spirit makes you Holy and overcomes sin in you through the Word of God and prayer. Perhaps you already know what this is like, perhaps you already know how this happens. You find yourself sitting alone with you Bible open on your lap. You are reading it and praying. And as you read, you come across a verse that suddenly opens your eyes to see something you have seen before. A particular aspect of God’s law or sin comes to mind, or perhaps an aspect of God’s forgiveness you had previously overlooked is revealed to you. That is the Holy Spirit. Comforting you, encouraging you, or convicting you of some sin. This is how the Spirit works to overcome sin in us. This is how the Spirit works to move us to forgiveness, even to forgive those sins and those sinners who especially have wronged us.
But there is more that God does for us. To say that the Spirit works to overcome sin in us means that somewhere along the way we have sinned. We are guilty and we need forgiveness. Jesus compares the disciple tasked with the duty of forgiving “a slave”. When a slave goes out into the field and does his job, he doesn't get special treatment; he is only doing his duty. He comes in and gets himself dressed to serve dinner.
See what kind of a Lord we have. Even as he calls on us to do our duty and to forgiven and to love, he has done this very thing for us. Even while we were still sinners he came to us to be our slave, to be our servant. Just as he calls us to dress ourselves to serve, he set the stage for this when he got up from dinner to wash the feet of his disciples. He didn't hold it over their heads, he didn't ask them for any more than what he was willing to do himself. He even went above and beyond. He did greater and more. He made himself the servant and the slave of us and of all people when he even died for our sins on the cross. Your Lord, Jesus, died for you on the cross and you are forgiven.
We are challenged and even overwhelmed by the task of forgiveness. It is over our heads and more than we can accomplish. But still God calls us to do it. We struggle at it, we do our best but even then our own sin gets the better of us. We deny forgiveness. We withhold forgiveness. We hold back and hold out. But not Jesus. He gives the whole thing. Every time. He makes himself our servant so that we can serve each other.
Amen.