Forgiveness

Exodus 14:19ff, Psalm 114, Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35

In our readings we have the Israelites crossing the Red Sea safely whilst the Egyptians perish leading to the Israelites respecting and being in awe of God. All, like in our Psalm, in the presence of God. Paul in Romans highlights that we are the Lord’s and should do all things in honour of the Lord; giving Him thanks. And Matthew with the key word that binds all this together – forgiveness.

Exodus is a book about migration. It means a mass departure of a large group of people (in this case the Israelites) from a place (Egypt) all at the same time. At this point in the Exodus of Israel the Israelites were camped at the edge of the Red Sea. The Angel of God and the Cloud Pillar, sent by God to lead them, moved behind the Israelites whilst they were waiting to cross the Red Sea becoming a barrier between them and the Egyptian Army. God was with and protecting His people.

Just like He was with and protected His people then, God is with and protects His people now. Even when we feel overwhelmed in a struggle of some kind God is with and protecting us.

There was a time delay before the parting of the Red Sea. During this time when the Angel and Cloud were between the Egyptians and the Israelites both were protected. The Cloud was a source of light to the Israelites symbolising God’s glory and salvation; but a source of darkness to the Egyptians symbolising God’s judgement.

Like He so often does for us, God was giving the Egyptians another chance. During this time before their sentence was carried out the Egyptians were being given time. Time to repent form the heart, time to turn around, time to let the Israelites go, time to go home. Had they done this their sentence would have been lifted, they would have been forgiven, they would have been spared.

The waters of the Red Sea parted and the Israelites walked across the dry land in the middle to the other side. The Egyptians tried to follow the Israelites across the sea bed and God fought on the side of the Israelites until they were all safely across. The Egyptians started to flee back the way they had come but God commanded Moses to hold his staff over the sea and the waters returned.

God doesn’t need people in order to perform miracles but He often gets them to take part. God used this opportunity to vindicate Moses, who had been accused by the Israelites, before our reading starts, of having the lowest of motivations and an evil heart. God is showing the Israelites that Moses is their chosen leader.

Seeing the Egyptians dead on the seashore proved to the Israelites that God keeps His promises, that their deliverance from Egypt was real and that their oppressors were dead.

God delivered Israel in a miraculous way, demonstrating His faithfulness to Israel and to all His people.

The deliverance of Passover and the miracle of the Red Sea go hand in hand. Without the victory at the Red Sea the redemption at Passover would have been lost; and they would never have made to the Red Sea without the redemption at Passover. Likewise, the redemption of the cross would be lost without the miracle of the resurrection. Israel walked through potential death to new life in the presence of God. When we accept God’s unconditional forgiveness and when we forgive others we also have new life, a fresh start, in the presence of God.

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans teaches us that we should accept all in faith, the new to faith, the mature in faith, and all those in-between, without condition i.e. we should not make spiritual maturity a condition or requirement for fellowship.

Paul reminds us it is not our place to pass judgement on any fellow Christian. They should stand or fall before their own Master – God.

There is a lot of useless, harmful division amongst some Christians over silly, unimportant and bigoted things. Paul does not say we must erase our differences but to rise above them as Christian brothers and sisters.

Or as Bishop Rose says: Instead of being a melting pot and all melding into one unidentifiable gloop we should be a fruit salad. Each a different bit of fruit all rubbing together in the fruit salad making it more interesting and flavoursome.

From beginning to end our lives are connected to others. No one is an island. From beginning to end our lives are to be dedicated to God and so whatever we do we must honour the Lord. We will stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ; which is concerned with a Christian’s rewards and position in the Kingdom. Don’t judge your brother or sister in Christ for we will all be judged by Christ.

Every knee shall bow! All will have to appear before God in humility and give an account of ourselves before Him. We should forgive our brothers and sisters and let God deal with them as He will surely deal with us all.

Again, our instruction is to forgive, which brings us to our excerpt from Matthew.

Peter asked how many times we are to forgive, suggesting seven times. To us that doesn’t seem very many but the accepted limit taught by many rabbis of the time was three; and so Peter probably felt seven was more than generous.

Jesus’s answer alludes to and is in contrast with Lamech’s in Genesis 4:24, in which Lamech says “If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times, then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times.” Lamech is talking unlimited vindictiveness.

In giving the answer of seventy-seven, Jesus is saying we are to forgive the repentant an unlimited number of times. But even more than that we should also forgive the unrepentant unlimitlessly.

Jesus follows His answer with the story about the servant who did not forgive.

This servant owed a huge debt which he would never be able to repay. He begged for more time – even though it would be fruitless. His master took pity on him in compassion and mercy and forgave him the debt,

However, upon his return home this servant found someone who owed him a debt in an amount which was a tiny fraction of the amount he had just been forgiven. With unsparing severity he demanded repayment. The one owing this smaller amount used the same plea yet instead of being met with the same compassion and forgiveness he was thrown into the debtor’s prison.

When the master of the servant who had received mercy heard what had happened he was understandably angry that this man who had been forgiven so much had then been so unforgiving. The servant ends up in prison to be tortured.

Giving genuine forgiveness from the heart is required of all who have been forgiven. God forgives us all unconditionally and in comparison our sins against each other are but a tiny percentage of our sins against God. Therefore we have no justification for not forgiving.

We incur greater wrath from God by refusing to forgive than we do for the rest of our sins.

We must forgive from the heart, unconditionally and not determined by whether those who sin against us are repentant.

It’s worth saying again; since we have been forgiven so much we have no right to withhold forgiveness.

Jesus’s parable shows we must be more forgiving not less forgiving. If we forgive in words only and not in our hearts we are still condemned.

Granting forgiveness is evidence of having truly been forgiven. Whereas being unforgiving shows that the heart of the unforgiver has not allowed in the love of Jesus.

The unforgiving servant in the parable was delivered to the torturers. Not forgiving others is a form of torturing ourselves and can do us great harm.Those who will not forgive cannot expect forgiveness.

Forgiveness goes hand in hand with love. If we really want to love and be loved we must learn how to forgive and how to accept forgiveness. There is no love without forgiveness and no forgiveness without love. Forgiveness is the final form of love and cannot be separated from love.

When you forgive, you love, and when you love God’s light shines upon you.

So, if we really want to live, we must learn to forgive.

We can pray: I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.

Forgiveness. One forgiving another. (Photo by Clement Eastwood on Pexels.com)

Calling Levi

In chapter 9 of Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew recounts his own call from Jesus to become a disciple. Matthew was the name Jesus gave him. Until he became one of Jesus’s disciples, he was called Levi. And he was at his place of work in the tax office. The Jewish people did not like those among their number who became tax collectors. They viewed these people as sinners and collaborators with the Romans against their own people. Tax collectors had the force of the Roman soldiers behind them to force the people to pay the taxes, but not only that, they were considered to be extortioners because they were allowed to keep any money they over-collected. Consequently, most if not all tax collectors over-charged on purpose to line their own pockets.

The call from Jesus gave Levi Matthew the opportunity to literally turn his life around. When he was a tax collector he was busy taking but Jesus was calling him to a work that was essentially giving.

Jesus said to him “Follow Me” and he did. He left his desk, taking nothing but his pen. Jesus called him and the only thing he took from his trade was the pen this trade had taught him to use; a skill he then used to compose his Gospel of Jesus’s teachings.

There is archaeological evidence that fish taken from the Sea of Galilee were taxed. So Jesus took as His disciple the taxman that may have taken money from Peter, James, and John and the other fishermen among the disciples. Certainly, initially, it would have been difficult for them to accept each other. Yet, in one way, Levi made more of a sacrifice than some of the other disciples. Peter, James, and John could easily go back to their fishing business, but it would be practically impossible for Levi to go back to tax collecting.

Jesus sat at the table in the house, and many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him. This context suggests that this was a gathering of Matthew’s friends and former business associates. Possibly, Jesus took advantage of Matthew’s decision to also reach those whom he knew.

And so the disciples were asked, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” The answer to this question was simple, because Jesus is the friend of sinners. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.

We are fortunate that God calls sinners and not just saintly people. Jesus came to benefit those who understood their inherent need for Him. Yet the proud who see no need for Jesus do not benefit.

Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. In Hosea’s day, God’s people were still good at bringing sacrifice, but they had abandoned mercy because they gave up the knowledge of God and truth. God would rather have right hearts, full of truth and mercy than sacrifice.

These words are more striking when we remember that they were addressed to the teachers of men. This rebuke showed that they did not know God, and Jesus bade them go and learn the meaning of their own Scriptures. These “teachers of men” thought they knew everything already, and the rebuke made them angry.

This event illustrates Jesus’s mission to seek and save the lost, calling them to repentance and a new life.

The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan is a well-known story. Is it really just a parable or was Jesus recounting something that actually happened?

It’s certainly feasible and likely enough to have been an actual occurrence. Let me tell you a real, modern day version:

We got in the car, turn the key in the ignition, and, you’ve probably guessed it, the car wouldn’t start. The battery had suddenly and unexpectedly died. RIP battery!

So, there’s us by the roadside with my husband holding jump leads and jumping up and down trying to flag down the cars that were passing to ask them for help.

So many cars just drove past …

… and then another past, slowed down, turned around and drove back to us. The driver had turned around so that his car was facing the right way to be able to link up the jump leads. He got the car started for us.

We didn’t know him, he didn’t know us, he was just passing through, seen someone in need of help and provided that help.

Willingly, for no reason other than seeing someone in trouble and knowing that they could help. A real good Samaritan.

Jesus told the parable in response to the questions from the lawyer. Now, the lawyer had asked Jesus a question to which he knew the answer and so Jesus answered him with a question, drawing out the answer to the lawyer’s question so that it was provided by the lawyer himself.

Consequently, in a bid to justify asking the question in the first place, the lawyer asks for clarification on who classes as his neighbour. It is this that provokes Jesus into telling the good Samaritan parable.

There was a constant threat of bandits on the wilderness roads. And they did indeed beat people up and steal their possessions. Jesus’s audience, therefore, would not have been surprised by this scenario; it was after-all a part of their normal lives.

The audience may well have expected it to be the priest or Levite who’d help the victim, especially as they both have a calling to care for others.

Yet, they just pass by.

It is the one the audience would have least suspected to assist who gave the victim aid. Samaritans and Jews were not normally friendly towards each other. In fact, the Samaritans were hated by the Jews.

The victim’s own people passed him by. It was someone they would have considered an enemy who stopped and saved his life. Not only that the Samaritan provided for him whilst he healed and returned to health.

Jesus gave the lawyer, crowd, disciples and us the instruction to “Go and do likewise”.

But, like those cars that just drove straight past, how frequently are we the ones who pass the other by. The compassionate generosity of the Samaritan are the example for us to follow but so often we ignore the cries of the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, the forgotten.

The victim. ignored by his own people, reminds us what it feels like to be forgotten by others. The feelings of loneliness and forsakenness call for compassion and empathy for all experiencing it.

Whilst Jesus is the one telling the story, on a theological level God is both the one in the ditch as His children pass by, and the one who shows compassion and mercy to us when we are in need – the one who saved us through the cross.

This parable is a reminder that the call to care for others often goes unheard as we pass by the cries of those needing help.