16th Sunday after Pentecost A; 09.13.26
Updated: Oct 4
Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35
G. Miles Smith+
[Preface: In fairness to everyone this morning, I want to acknowledge that my homily is effectively a minority report on today’s gospel reading. Many Christian denominations would agree with almost everything about my homily except my conclusion. The Episcopal Church does not have an official position on the matter which Jesus raises this morning. The prayer book says neither yeah nor nay. So our prayer book effectively allows for both the majority and minority view to exist among its clergy and members. And just in case you wonder later, my conclusion is not a modern interpretation, but actually follows on a persistent thread of Christian interpretation that goes back to some of the early church fathers themselves. Throughout my ministry until more recently, I have assumed some form of the majority opinion, but now I find myself in the minority. Whatever you think, I hope my homily will challenge you, and the Holy Spirit may move within it to enrich your faith in Christ.]
The gospel reading from Matthew is not likely to be on anyone’s list of favorite stories from Jesus…
And yet it is part of the larger story of the gospel…which I believe is hopeful beyond our wildest imagination.
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It would be understandable if you found Jesus’ story disturbing. One good reason to find it so…is because Jesus drew a lot of basic features of his story from the grueling reality of life in the 1st century within the Roman Empire. There was then…an extreme gulf between the wealthy…and everybody else. Slavery was commonplace—and not just captives sold into slavery from other lands which Rome conquered…but people who couldn’t pay their debts and ended up in some form of slavery. It was a society of the powerful who threatened others…and the powerless who were threatened with impunity. And it was a society where abuse and torture were normalized. That was the 1st century. It actually sounds familiar.
Jesus told a story about what was painfully familiar…speaking their cultural language…in order to tell a story about something shockingly unfamiliar and of ultimate importance to God.
Jesus understood very well…that in every age…it is incredibly difficult…for us to see beyond the familiar ways in which we struggle and suffer and try to cope. It takes something unexpected.
So Jesus told what at first sounded like a familiar story…about a king…two slaves…about debt…threats…and torture. But it took a completely different turn.
The first sign that something is unusual about this story is the king…forgiving…the first slave his debt…especially since it was a wildly exorbitant amount…the equivalent of billions of dollars. No powerful person would do that.
And the second sign that something unfamiliar is afoot here…is that Jesus threatened his audience…with the imperative of…forgiveness.
So, Jesus was not being nice here. But he was using the familiar language of threat…to flip the culture of threat…into a completely different vision of our life together in God.
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Jesus’ threat…may not be unlike…the possibility…of a parent…making some kind of parental threat to their child…in order to wake them up…to changing their behavior in a given moment. It is of course a tricky parental move to accomplish well…since it can be either helpful or harmful, depending on how you do it…and where it comes from. How parental threats may ultimately play out… depends on whether the overarching trajectory of the parent’s life with the child is…one of abiding love…or not.
And so, Jesus threatened…in order to shock his audience into realizing…the absolute… nonnegotiable…necessity…of forgiveness. And that we are called to the endless work of forgiving others…and others are called to the endless work of forgiving us.
This is shocking…because…forgiving is really hard. After all, if a situation even merits forgiveness… then that means someone has already been wounded…and angered. Someone may have already retaliated…and things may have already spiraled into yet more offenses. It is incredibly hard to step out of all that. And that is especially so when we don’t even want to. The problem with forgiveness…is that we don’t really like it. Unless, of course, we happen to need forgiving.
So, it is strange…but accurate…that Jesus apparently has to threaten us…about forgiving…for us to even begin to imagine something different…than the cycles of harm that hold us tightly in their grip in this lifetime.
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But it still begs the questions:
Why is forgiveness between people so important to God?
Why is something which is so hard for us…nevertheless made an absolute imperative by God?
Forgiving…sounds like an unreasonably harsh expectation.
Unless…perhaps…one remembers what it takes to be a good father and a good mother.
We have to realize that this story Jesus tells here…requires a larger frame of reference that exists elsewhere in the gospel. We cannot quite find it here in this story.
I have come to believe that we get a glimpse of that larger gospel story in many places in the New Testament which the Church often either overlooks or minimizes (1).
If indeed all people are God’s creation…and all people are God’s family…along with all the living and the dead… then the gospel story is different from the stories we act out in the world in endless cycles of hurt and harm.
There is of course an almost endless list of wrongs…wounds…injustices…and horrors…within the human family…that beg to be made right…and corrected by judgment…and they shall be…before God can finally be all-in-all within his family (1 Corinthians 15:28). Just like a good father and a good mother…who want their whole family to be good and well…so does God…who definitely knows how to give good gifts to God’s children (Matthew 7:11).
What is at stake for us within this age…is the beginning of a journey toward reconciliation through forgiveness…because I have come to believe that the reconciliation of all…is the ultimate destination of Christ’s work.
And so Christ emphatically does not want us to just wait…until the age-to-come. There is so much now, in this age, that needs correction, repair, and mending in our lives and the life of the world.
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This is what I have finally come to believe since I have been here with you. I would never have been able to imagine anything this hopeful…if it were just up to me. The only reason I have…is Jesus.
I cannot begin to imagine how God’s judgment…in the age-to-come…will restore and reconcile everyone. But maybe that’s a sign that churches have too often been imagining things according to human thinking rather than divine.
And I would be less than honest if I did not also say…that even when wrongs will ultimately be righted and the wounded made whole by God…that forgiveness does not always sound so appealing.
So, maybe the truth is…regardless of whether we fall within the majority or minority reports of the Church on the final outcome of everything in the age-to-come…that in this age…we still need to be…threatened by Jesus…to forgive.
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(1) There are many biblical texts which speak of judgment within this age and in the age-to-come. Judgment within this age is often quite dire given the powers and principalities, including death, that trap us in suffering and violence. What is so often strangely overlooked is just how many New Testament texts frame the ultimate scope of God’s will in the age-to-come toward the greater end of restoring the whole world to each other and God, within which God’s judgment then is a means toward that end: 1 Corinthians 15:22-28; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Romans 5:18-19; Colossians 1:19-20, 27-28; Philippians 2:9-11; 1 Timothy 2:3-6, 4:10; Romans 11:32; Titus 2:11; Ephesians 1:9-10; John 12:32, 47; John 17:2; 1 John 2:2, 4:14; 2 Peter 3:9; Matthew 18:14. The frequent assumption of judgment to eternal damnation is a curious combination of decisions by biblical translators (who, for example, choose the translation “eternal”) and our own cultural placement within empires of retaliation and absolute punishment. In other words, the assumption of judgment to “eternal” damnation actually says more about us than it says about Christ and the gospel.
