You’ve undoubtedly heard the story that Jesus said we are to turn the other cheek if someone strikes us on the cheek. When we mentored international students at Marietta College, I remember one evening explaining this to a student from China. After hearing it and making sure the translation had come through to him correctly, he just blurted out: “That’s just crazy!” Unfortunately, that is the world’s reaction to this fundamental Christian teaching.
When I was living in Atlanta, Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight boxer lived in the area. Holyfield is a born-again Christian and had his own take on the subject of turning the other cheek. The story goes – I’m not sure whether it was true or not – that one day a group of young men broke into Holyfield’s home to rob the place and he happened to be there. They did not realize that at the time Holyfield was the undisputed Heavyweight champion of the world. Holyfield asked them to leave. One of the young men punched him in the face. Holyfield said quietly, “Gentlemen, I really must insist that you leave.” Another young man punched him in the face. The very large Holyfield then stood tall, leaned back into a fighting stance and said, “Gentlemen, my Lord Jesus has no further instructions for me at this time.” The police arrived a few minutes later to find a group of men on the floor who offered no resistance to arrest.
In our Gospel reading today, Matthew 18:21-35, Peter is clearly upset at someone. He has heard that he has to turn the other cheek, but apparently Peter had been through a rough time and so He comes to Jesus and demands an answer to a question. “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Oh yes. Peter understood forgiveness. But Peter was through forgiving. He wanted a hard and fast rule – 5 times, 7 times, 10 times he could forgive, but then, Peter, the big fisherman, was ready to act like Evander Holyfield and solve his problems with his fists. Up to seven times, Lord? The rabbi’s always gave a legal ruling. Surely Peter didn’t have to put up with whoever was hassling him more than seven times!
Nope. Jesus answered Peter. “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Some believe the ancient Greek actually says 70 times seven times. 490 times. Forgive someone 490 times – almost five hundred times.
In the words of my student friend, “That’s crazy!”
And so Jesus tells a story. He says that the kingdom of heaven is like this story. This is the way things are in Jesus’ world – you may live in the world around you, but this is the way things are in Jesus’ world, the kingdom of heaven.
A king wanted to settle accounts with his servants, but as he was staring the process, a man who owed him ten thousand talents of gold was brought before him. Now a talent of gold – a single talent – was worth about 20 years of an ordinary laborer’s wages – call it three-quarters of a million dollars. And this man owed the king ten thousand times that – around $7 billion. Impossible for man to pay back – and so the king ordered that the man and his wife and his children be sold into slavery and everything else he owned be sold to pay off the debt. The man begged the king – “Be patient with me and I will pay back everything.” And the king took pity on him, forgave the debt and let him go.
So the guy leaves the king and finds someone who owes the guy a hundred silver coins – about $10,000. The guy grabs this other man, puts his hands around his neck and begins to choke him, demanding – Pay back what you owe me!
The second guy also falls to his knees and begs – Be patient with me and I will pay it back!”
But the first guy refused, had the second guy thrown into prison for the debt. But others were watching and told the king what had happened.
So the king called the first guy in. “I forgave your debt because you begged me to. Why didn’t you have mercy on your debtor like I had on you?. And so, the king had the first guy handed over to the jailors to be tortured until he paid back the $7 billion.
And Jesus draws the morale. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Hmmm. There’s a lot to learn here – strong lessons about what it means to be a Christian in good standing with God.
To Whom is Jesus Speaking?
First, notice to whom Jesus is speaking. This is not a parable told to the Pharisees or the Jewish leadership. It is not told to people outside the church. This parable is told, probably to the disciples, but definitely to Peter, the leading disciple. This is a parable told to Christian followers of Jesus. It is told to us in the church – people who have already chosen to believe in Jesus, even to follow Jesus. And Jesus makes sure we know that this applies to the kingdom of heaven by saying “the kingdom of heaven is like” and then he speaks of the king and his servants.
The interpretation is that God is the king in this story. He forgives us of much, more than we can ever repay, for the man in the story represents us. The purpose of the story is to remind us that we have been forgiven much and therefore we are to forgive others of much in the same way. Forgiveness is a key Christian virtue, a core Christian value, something that is not optional, but is to be front and center for Christians.
And don’t we often, like Peter, hold grudges? Don’t we forgive once, twice, thrice, and wonder how many times we need to forgive.
But the implication of Jesus’ parable is that we are to forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive daily, weekly, monthly, annually, forgive for the rest of our lives. And so we might come to a different understanding of forgiveness from our normal meaning.
For the normal idea of forgiving a person is that this is an event. Once and done. “You are forgiven!” we say, and its over. That’s the way it is when God forgives us. “You are forgiven!” and everything is fine between us and God. And so we should forgive others in the same way. “You are forgiven!” and its over.
But we know it isn’t over, is it? We humans seem structurally unable to forgive once and be done with it. The natural person cannot do this. Peter could not do this. We cannot naturally do this. And so, until we have practiced this skill for years and decades, until we have turned this part of our life over to the Holy Spirit, until we have followed Jesus long enough, Jesus tells us how to forgive.
We are to forgive a person hundreds of times. Every day that we see the person who has hurt us, when the memory of the hurt comes back, when the anger starts to build, when the hate starts to flow – we are to forgive. We practice forgiving the person every day. If necessary, we practice forgiving every hour, even every minute. And we do this every time we need to forgive the other. If we have to, we might even say we must CONTINUALLY forgive those hurts against us.
But what about the other person? Don’t they need to ask us to forgive them?
No. Forgiveness is not a negotiation with the other, forgiveness is not a matter of pride, forgiveness is not about showing yourself as “the bigger person” or “the better person” or “winning over the other.”
Most of us just continue to hurt others and spread the rot, though. Most of us would rather be right than kind. In the name of justice, most of us would rather hurt other people than help them with their souls. And so we don’t like to make it easy for others to forgive us, do we? We insist upon apologies, we insist upon pushing people into corners, we insist upon punishments and revenge and causing trouble for people who have hurt us. But Jesus says to forgive them. And it always helps to apologize to others.
But what about issues of theology? What about the very important issues of following God’s will and God’s Law?
In our reading from Romans 14:1-12, Paul tells us to “accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.” He then goes on to give the examples that were very important in the early church, such as whether or not the Jewish dietary laws applied to Christians or not. Paul and Peter clearly taught that, unlike Jews, it was not necessary for Christians to avoid pork or shellfish. But Paul also said that those people who were “weak in the faith”, those people who thought it necessary to follow the Jewish dietary laws and who avoided pork and shellfish, those people should not be argued with, but accepted. The same goes for those people who carefully observed the Jewish holidays, while Paul taught that those holidays need not be observed. For, Paul said, “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
And we might apply this principle to our Christian theological disputes today. And you know that our various denominations have all sorts of minor disputes, mostly over the time, place, and meaning of baptism and communion. Paul would say, “Don’t argue, because those on one side of the issue are trying their best to follow God as they understand God’s rules, and those on the other side are also trying their best to follow God as THEY understand God’s rules. So if people are truly trying their best to get close to God, who are we to judge?” In other words, don’t argue, but give your Christian brother and sister the grace that God has given you.
You know, if Paul tells us to avoid “quarreling over disputable matters,” then doesn’t it follow that there are some things that are “disputable?” Let me give you an example: The Bible is rather vague about the exact meaning of communion. There are no instructions about the age and other requirements about to whom and when communion may be received. And guess what? Various denominations have developed different ideas of what communion means and who can receive communion. The same goes for baptism – who, when, where, and why. Clearly, these are “disputable matters”.
Also, it is clear that Christians are to receive communion and Christians are to be baptized. These are NOT in dispute. It is the details that cause our fights.
Since God could obviously have written the Bible in such depth as to make these issues crystal clear, could it be that those issues that are clear are very important – and those things where many learned men and women have studied and come up with different views are not so important? Christian – get baptized. Christian – receive communion. Don’t sweat the details.
And all this goes to the heart of the difference between the Gospel of Jesus Christ – and the Law that God gave to the Israelites through Moses.
The Law was a series of “do this” and “Don’t do that” commands. It established a standard of just and righteous behavior for the Israelite community. But over the centuries, because of our natural desire to do what we want to do instead of following God, a series of interpretations led to people using the Law to justify injustice and unrighteous behavior. And so Jesus came to us to be sacrificed under the Law for our sins. His death upon the cross was a voluntary sacrifice for everything everyone had done wrong over the centuries before and since.
And the Holy Spirit arrived when Jesus returned to Heaven. Now, instead of looking to the Law, instead of following the Law rigidly, instead of finding loopholes in the Law to treat people poorly and to harm people, those baptized Christians were given the ability – if they chose to listen to the Holy Spirit – of receiving guidance directly from God on all matters. No longer did they have to do wrong to follow the Law. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, that they could heal a person on the Sabbath day while the Law said no work must be done. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, poor people did not need to create and wear special garments that were worth 6 months of wages. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made clear, people could eat pork without endangering their immortal souls. For Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit had made it clear that what was important was to love God, to love other people, and to learn to follow Jesus’ example for living.
And all those little wrong-doings, all those thefts of pencils, all those lustful looks, all those times spent coveting our neighbors’ things – were forgiven when the Christ-follower took some time, bowed down and apologized to God, asked for help in avoiding wrong-doing, and stood once again in preparation for following Jesus, God’s Son.
God’s forgiveness. God’s grace. God’s choice to set aside the punishment that we deserve for the simple reason that God loves us more deeply than we love ourselves and wants us to spend eternity with God and Jesus rather than wander alone, forever fighting with the other creatures who will not bow down to a wise, loving God.
And how to follow Jesus daily? It begins when we forgive others as we have been forgiven. It is core to the Christian life. It is even included in the prayer Jesus taught us.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life, to forgive others daily, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remember: Forgive others as God has forgiven you. Forgiveness is the core of the Gospel. Do not quarrel over disputable matters. And forgive others continually as God continually forgives us.
The interpretation is that God is the king in this story. He forgives us of much, more than we can ever repay, for the man in the story represents us. The purpose of the story is to remind us that we have been forgiven much and therefore we are to forgive others of much in the same way. Forgiveness is a key Christian virtue, a core Christian value, something that is not optional, but is to be front and center for Christians.
And don’t we often, like Peter, hold grudges? Don’t we forgive once, twice, thrice, and wonder how many times we need to forgive.
But the implication of Jesus’ parable is that we are to forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive daily, weekly, monthly, annually, forgive for the rest of our lives. And so we might come to a different understanding of forgiveness from our normal meaning.
For the normal idea of forgiving a person is that this is an event. Once and done. “You are forgiven!” we say, and its over. That’s the way it is when God forgives us. “You are forgiven!” and everything is fine between us and God. And so we should forgive others in the same way. “You are forgiven!” and its over.
But we know it isn’t over, is it? We humans seem structurally unable to forgive once and be done with it. The natural person cannot do this. Peter could not do this. We cannot naturally do this. And so, until we have practiced this skill for years and decades, until we have turned this part of our life over to the Holy Spirit, until we have followed Jesus long enough, Jesus tells us how to forgive.
We are to forgive a person hundreds of times. Every day that we see the person who has hurt us, when the memory of the hurt comes back, when the anger starts to build, when the hate starts to flow – we are to forgive. We practice forgiving the person every day. If necessary, we practice forgiving every hour, even every minute. And we do this every time we need to forgive the other. If we have to, we might even say we must CONTINUALLY forgive those hurts against us.
But what about the other person? Don’t they need to ask us to forgive them?
No. Forgiveness is not a negotiation with the other, forgiveness is not a matter of pride, forgiveness is not about showing yourself as “the bigger person” or “the better person” or “winning over the other.”
Forgiveness is all about self-healing
Forgiveness, you see, is all about self-healing. Forgiveness is about you fixing your hurts. Forgiveness is when you use Jesus’ teaching to heal your soul before God.
When Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, God gave them a just punishment. God had told them, the people He had created that they could eat any fruit in the garden except the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that was the fruit they ate, in disobedience, and thus God justly punished them by sending them from the Garden into the world. A bit of rot came into the world with Adam and Eve. And that was inherited by their son Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, and the rot continued to be inherited, passing from parent to child down through the ages.
Every person receives the sin rot from other people, like rot passes from one peach in a basket to the next peach, until the entire basket is rotten. One person hurts the next, passing on the hurt from one person to another, until the entire world is rotten.
The interesting thing is this – a natural person cannot help but hurt other people. But when we choose to follow Jesus’ teachings, when we choose to accept baptism and the Holy Spirit of God, when we LISTEN to the Holy Spirit’s quiet whisper in our ear, we can remove the rot from our soul – and gradually, gradually learn to stop hurting others, to stop spraying rot on others – and we can learn to clean the rot from our own soul. For it is only when our soul has been cleaned that we can stop hurting others.
And the cleaner that we use to clean our soul is forgiveness. It doesn’t clean others. It simply cleans our soul. Forgiveness takes away the rot. Forgiveness gives us healthy souls.
The opposite of forgiveness is the desire for revenge. And you may have heard that seeking revenge, desiring revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Seeking revenge rots our soul faster. Forgiveness cleans our soul of the rot.
God says we should ask God to be forgiven. And God immediately forgives us. God restores our relationship right now! God can do this. God has the self-discipline to forgive immediately and completely. We don’t have that self-discipline because our soul has been damaged in many ways. Only a completely perfect soul such as Jesus has can forgive completely and immediately. But the first step when we have offended God is to ask God to forgive us. The second step is to accept that it has happened.
Yet, how many times have we said, “I’ve apologized to God, I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself?”
There are two reasons we have trouble forgiving ourselves.
First, our soul is still damaged. We have to practice forgiving ourselves 70 times 7 times just as we have to practice forgiving others daily, constantly. We have to practice until we have cleaned our soul of the damage that has accumulated by following the world’s advice over years and decades, the advice that has hurt us deeply and led us down the wrong paths. We have to practice forgiveness, for ourselves as well as others. It takes time.
But there is a second reason. It is because we have bought into the devil’s lie, a particular lie, a devious lie that is hard to see. This particular lie is that the moral and ethical law of this world is fundamental. We hold ourselves to principles, we look at the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses, to our own ethical and moral standards, and we say that these are the foundation of what it means to be a good person. If we have done wrong, we say this in relationship to some idea of good, proper behavior, and we say that we have done evil, we have failed, we have done wrong.
Justice, you see, is when we get what we deserve. And, unfortunately, every man, woman, and child has broken the Law of Moses. The tenth commandment says not to covet, not to desire the things of your neighbor. How many of us can truthfully say we have never wanted anything that any of our neighbors have? The commandment lists our neighbor’s wife, his servant, his donkey. Have you ever desired a neighbor’s wife or husband, an appliance, a home, a vehicle? Have you ever wanted clothing that a friend had, a phone they had, a big-screen television? Have you ever wanted a piece of jewelry, a tool, a pickup, a camper, a pair of tennis shoes, a toy? You have broken the Tenth Commandment and broken God’s command, and thus justice says you deserve to die forever. When you demand justice, you are asking to receive what you deserve. Is this why we demand justice for our enemies, but mercy for ourselves? And when we realize what we have done wrong and realize what justice would do to us, we search desperately for a way to beg for mercy, don’t we?
Let me tell you a story. You are traveling somewhere in Europe, it’s Tuesday at 4 pm, and you know that one of those tiny little postage stamp countries is coming up. You are driving in Europe in a rented Porsche convertible, along a straight-away, and that means you can travel 60, 80, 100 mph and it’s perfectly legal. Life is good, life is free!
But you suddenly pass onto a different piece of pavement, and you notice blue lights behind you, it’s the police pulling you over. And so you stop, the officer checks your license, realizes you’re an American and tells you in English that you were doing over a hundred miles per hour in a 60 mph zone – and he points to the speed limit sign a couple miles back. There will be a terrific fine, maybe $2000, he says. And just at that moment, a man in a black Mercedes pulls up, walks up, and you recognize him as the guy who rode beside you on the ferry crossing the English Channel. And he recognizes you, talks to the officer for a moment, and officer tears up the ticket and sends you on your way. For, you see, the man in the black Mercedes is the prince who rules this little country, his word IS law, and he has forgiven you for your speeding, and so it is as if you had never broken the speed limit, because your friend has said the law didn’t apply to you this time because it was Tuesday at 4 pm. Will you run after the officer, asking to pay the $2000? Or will you simply be grateful to your friend who has forgiven you?
You see, the Truth is that the ethical and moral Law, the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses is not fundamental. God’s will is what is fundamental – God established what is right and wrong. God decided what the Ten Commandments would be, what the Law of Moses would be, what the ethical and moral Law is. And, like an absolute King of old, our God has the ability to say that this part of the Law applies to you and this part does not, simply because God, out of God’s complete mercy, has decided that it was ok for you to drive 72 miles per hour yesterday at 5 pm.
God, you see, has the ultimate power – including the ability to suddenly write a clause into the moral law that says God has forgiven you for the time you stole that stuff from your employer, a clause that says God has forgiven you for the harsh words you said to your mother, a clause that says that the Law didn’t apply to you for such and such an action on such and such a day because God has changed the Law just for you when God forgave you. And so you can now forgive yourself, because what God decides is of far more importance than some moral or ethical set of ideas that you have decided is your basis for living.
When Adam and Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, God gave them a just punishment. God had told them, the people He had created that they could eat any fruit in the garden except the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that was the fruit they ate, in disobedience, and thus God justly punished them by sending them from the Garden into the world. A bit of rot came into the world with Adam and Eve. And that was inherited by their son Cain, who murdered his brother Abel, and the rot continued to be inherited, passing from parent to child down through the ages.
Every person receives the sin rot from other people, like rot passes from one peach in a basket to the next peach, until the entire basket is rotten. One person hurts the next, passing on the hurt from one person to another, until the entire world is rotten.
The interesting thing is this – a natural person cannot help but hurt other people. But when we choose to follow Jesus’ teachings, when we choose to accept baptism and the Holy Spirit of God, when we LISTEN to the Holy Spirit’s quiet whisper in our ear, we can remove the rot from our soul – and gradually, gradually learn to stop hurting others, to stop spraying rot on others – and we can learn to clean the rot from our own soul. For it is only when our soul has been cleaned that we can stop hurting others.
And the cleaner that we use to clean our soul is forgiveness. It doesn’t clean others. It simply cleans our soul. Forgiveness takes away the rot. Forgiveness gives us healthy souls.
The opposite of forgiveness is the desire for revenge. And you may have heard that seeking revenge, desiring revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Seeking revenge rots our soul faster. Forgiveness cleans our soul of the rot.
God says we should ask God to be forgiven. And God immediately forgives us. God restores our relationship right now! God can do this. God has the self-discipline to forgive immediately and completely. We don’t have that self-discipline because our soul has been damaged in many ways. Only a completely perfect soul such as Jesus has can forgive completely and immediately. But the first step when we have offended God is to ask God to forgive us. The second step is to accept that it has happened.
Yet, how many times have we said, “I’ve apologized to God, I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself?”
There are two reasons we have trouble forgiving ourselves.
First, our soul is still damaged. We have to practice forgiving ourselves 70 times 7 times just as we have to practice forgiving others daily, constantly. We have to practice until we have cleaned our soul of the damage that has accumulated by following the world’s advice over years and decades, the advice that has hurt us deeply and led us down the wrong paths. We have to practice forgiveness, for ourselves as well as others. It takes time.
But there is a second reason. It is because we have bought into the devil’s lie, a particular lie, a devious lie that is hard to see. This particular lie is that the moral and ethical law of this world is fundamental. We hold ourselves to principles, we look at the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses, to our own ethical and moral standards, and we say that these are the foundation of what it means to be a good person. If we have done wrong, we say this in relationship to some idea of good, proper behavior, and we say that we have done evil, we have failed, we have done wrong.
Justice, you see, is when we get what we deserve. And, unfortunately, every man, woman, and child has broken the Law of Moses. The tenth commandment says not to covet, not to desire the things of your neighbor. How many of us can truthfully say we have never wanted anything that any of our neighbors have? The commandment lists our neighbor’s wife, his servant, his donkey. Have you ever desired a neighbor’s wife or husband, an appliance, a home, a vehicle? Have you ever wanted clothing that a friend had, a phone they had, a big-screen television? Have you ever wanted a piece of jewelry, a tool, a pickup, a camper, a pair of tennis shoes, a toy? You have broken the Tenth Commandment and broken God’s command, and thus justice says you deserve to die forever. When you demand justice, you are asking to receive what you deserve. Is this why we demand justice for our enemies, but mercy for ourselves? And when we realize what we have done wrong and realize what justice would do to us, we search desperately for a way to beg for mercy, don’t we?
Let me tell you a story. You are traveling somewhere in Europe, it’s Tuesday at 4 pm, and you know that one of those tiny little postage stamp countries is coming up. You are driving in Europe in a rented Porsche convertible, along a straight-away, and that means you can travel 60, 80, 100 mph and it’s perfectly legal. Life is good, life is free!
But you suddenly pass onto a different piece of pavement, and you notice blue lights behind you, it’s the police pulling you over. And so you stop, the officer checks your license, realizes you’re an American and tells you in English that you were doing over a hundred miles per hour in a 60 mph zone – and he points to the speed limit sign a couple miles back. There will be a terrific fine, maybe $2000, he says. And just at that moment, a man in a black Mercedes pulls up, walks up, and you recognize him as the guy who rode beside you on the ferry crossing the English Channel. And he recognizes you, talks to the officer for a moment, and officer tears up the ticket and sends you on your way. For, you see, the man in the black Mercedes is the prince who rules this little country, his word IS law, and he has forgiven you for your speeding, and so it is as if you had never broken the speed limit, because your friend has said the law didn’t apply to you this time because it was Tuesday at 4 pm. Will you run after the officer, asking to pay the $2000? Or will you simply be grateful to your friend who has forgiven you?
You see, the Truth is that the ethical and moral Law, the Ten Commandments, the entire Law of Moses is not fundamental. God’s will is what is fundamental – God established what is right and wrong. God decided what the Ten Commandments would be, what the Law of Moses would be, what the ethical and moral Law is. And, like an absolute King of old, our God has the ability to say that this part of the Law applies to you and this part does not, simply because God, out of God’s complete mercy, has decided that it was ok for you to drive 72 miles per hour yesterday at 5 pm.
God, you see, has the ultimate power – including the ability to suddenly write a clause into the moral law that says God has forgiven you for the time you stole that stuff from your employer, a clause that says God has forgiven you for the harsh words you said to your mother, a clause that says that the Law didn’t apply to you for such and such an action on such and such a day because God has changed the Law just for you when God forgave you. And so you can now forgive yourself, because what God decides is of far more importance than some moral or ethical set of ideas that you have decided is your basis for living.
What Does God Ask of Us?
God does ask something, though. As Jesus said, God asks that you forgive other people their debts, just as God has forgiven your debts. God asks that you forgive yourself, just as God has forgiven you. God wants your soul polished clean of the rot – and the way to remove the rot is to forgive others and forgive yourself!Most of us just continue to hurt others and spread the rot, though. Most of us would rather be right than kind. In the name of justice, most of us would rather hurt other people than help them with their souls. And so we don’t like to make it easy for others to forgive us, do we? We insist upon apologies, we insist upon pushing people into corners, we insist upon punishments and revenge and causing trouble for people who have hurt us. But Jesus says to forgive them. And it always helps to apologize to others.
But what about issues of theology? What about the very important issues of following God’s will and God’s Law?
In our reading from Romans 14:1-12, Paul tells us to “accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.” He then goes on to give the examples that were very important in the early church, such as whether or not the Jewish dietary laws applied to Christians or not. Paul and Peter clearly taught that, unlike Jews, it was not necessary for Christians to avoid pork or shellfish. But Paul also said that those people who were “weak in the faith”, those people who thought it necessary to follow the Jewish dietary laws and who avoided pork and shellfish, those people should not be argued with, but accepted. The same goes for those people who carefully observed the Jewish holidays, while Paul taught that those holidays need not be observed. For, Paul said, “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.”
And we might apply this principle to our Christian theological disputes today. And you know that our various denominations have all sorts of minor disputes, mostly over the time, place, and meaning of baptism and communion. Paul would say, “Don’t argue, because those on one side of the issue are trying their best to follow God as they understand God’s rules, and those on the other side are also trying their best to follow God as THEY understand God’s rules. So if people are truly trying their best to get close to God, who are we to judge?” In other words, don’t argue, but give your Christian brother and sister the grace that God has given you.
You know, if Paul tells us to avoid “quarreling over disputable matters,” then doesn’t it follow that there are some things that are “disputable?” Let me give you an example: The Bible is rather vague about the exact meaning of communion. There are no instructions about the age and other requirements about to whom and when communion may be received. And guess what? Various denominations have developed different ideas of what communion means and who can receive communion. The same goes for baptism – who, when, where, and why. Clearly, these are “disputable matters”.
Also, it is clear that Christians are to receive communion and Christians are to be baptized. These are NOT in dispute. It is the details that cause our fights.
Since God could obviously have written the Bible in such depth as to make these issues crystal clear, could it be that those issues that are clear are very important – and those things where many learned men and women have studied and come up with different views are not so important? Christian – get baptized. Christian – receive communion. Don’t sweat the details.
And all this goes to the heart of the difference between the Gospel of Jesus Christ – and the Law that God gave to the Israelites through Moses.
The Law was a series of “do this” and “Don’t do that” commands. It established a standard of just and righteous behavior for the Israelite community. But over the centuries, because of our natural desire to do what we want to do instead of following God, a series of interpretations led to people using the Law to justify injustice and unrighteous behavior. And so Jesus came to us to be sacrificed under the Law for our sins. His death upon the cross was a voluntary sacrifice for everything everyone had done wrong over the centuries before and since.
And the Holy Spirit arrived when Jesus returned to Heaven. Now, instead of looking to the Law, instead of following the Law rigidly, instead of finding loopholes in the Law to treat people poorly and to harm people, those baptized Christians were given the ability – if they chose to listen to the Holy Spirit – of receiving guidance directly from God on all matters. No longer did they have to do wrong to follow the Law. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, that they could heal a person on the Sabbath day while the Law said no work must be done. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made it clear, poor people did not need to create and wear special garments that were worth 6 months of wages. Now, Jesus and the Holy Spirit made clear, people could eat pork without endangering their immortal souls. For Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit had made it clear that what was important was to love God, to love other people, and to learn to follow Jesus’ example for living.
And all those little wrong-doings, all those thefts of pencils, all those lustful looks, all those times spent coveting our neighbors’ things – were forgiven when the Christ-follower took some time, bowed down and apologized to God, asked for help in avoiding wrong-doing, and stood once again in preparation for following Jesus, God’s Son.
God’s forgiveness. God’s grace. God’s choice to set aside the punishment that we deserve for the simple reason that God loves us more deeply than we love ourselves and wants us to spend eternity with God and Jesus rather than wander alone, forever fighting with the other creatures who will not bow down to a wise, loving God.
And how to follow Jesus daily? It begins when we forgive others as we have been forgiven. It is core to the Christian life. It is even included in the prayer Jesus taught us.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Father, I pray for these people in this church and all those watching and listening at home. Fill them with your Holy Spirit, teach them Your ways, help them bring the Good News of Jesus’s love into their hearts so that they may do great things by trusting and following Your Son Jesus and Your Holy Spirit. Give them the courage to step away from their old life, to forgive others daily, and joyfully do Your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Remember: Forgive others as God has forgiven you. Forgiveness is the core of the Gospel. Do not quarrel over disputable matters. And forgive others continually as God continually forgives us.
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