Sermon by the Rev.
Andrew S. Rollins
Sunday, September 14
(Proper 19A)
Text: Matthew 18:21 -
35
Title: “An Explosion
in Your Heart”
Why Parables?
Today we hear “The Parable of the Unmerciful Slave.”
All of the gospel writers agree that parables were the main method by which Jesus taught the crowds of people that came to hear him. There are 37 recorded parables of Jesus in the four gospels. Unless you were a part of the inner circle of disciples, parables would probably be all you would’ve heard from Jesus.
So why did Jesus choose to tell parables?
Jesus was not a moralist. He came preaching something
Christians call “the gospel” -- the Good News. He did not come to just tell
people what to do. W. H. Auden wrote, “You cannot tell people what to do, you
can only tell them parables; and that is what art really is, particular stories
of particular people and experiences . . . .” You can’t just tell people what
to do. (Perhaps you’ve tried that?) The parables don’t tell us what to do. A
parable may speak to you, and you may change, but a parable doesn’t just
moralize at you. Most of the parables, like this one, are introduced with the phrase, The
Why did Jesus tell parables? For one thing, speaking in
parables allowed Jesus to unmask, criticize, question, even attack people or
institutions indirectly. In parables, Jesus took aim at
A Spiritual Hand
Grenade
A parable functions like a sort of a spiritual hand grenade. Jesus would tell a story (pull the pin and throw the grenade) and leave the story to explode in the hearer’s life. Usually we need something to explode the defenses we’ve built around our hearts. The parables are violent in that they shatter our defenses. Sometimes the hand grenade doesn’t go off; you can hear a parable, but not hear it. But sometimes a parable will hit you, like it hit the people who first heard it. You haven’t really heard a parable unless you feel a jolt or a shock – an explosion in your heart.
Explaining a parable is a bit like explaining a joke. The punch, the power, the explosion, the joke is lost if you have to explain it. So I’m not going to disarm this parable by explaining it. I’m going to tell the parable and place some images alongside it that might help to get the grenade closer to your heart.
A Little Story About Forgiveness
Matthew tells us that Peter got up the nerve to ask Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother. Seven times, perhaps? This may have been a live sibling issue for Peter because we know that Peter had a brother (Andrew) – one who would’ve been standing right there at the time. Jesus responds, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven. And then, instead of moralizing to Peter about how he just really ought to forgive 490 times plus, Jesus tells a harmless little story about forgiveness.
The
At that time, one silver talent was valued at six thousand denarii. One denarii was the equivalent of one day’s wages for a common laborer. So, since the federal minimum wage is now $6.55 an hour, a common laborer today might expect to earn $52.40 a day. Which means that one talent would be worth about $314,400 American dollars. Altogether, therefore, this slave owes the King at least $31,440,000 American. The point is that his debt was incalculable. There was no possible way for slave to ever pay back the King.
So the king ordered the slave, his wife, children, and all of his possessions to be auctioned off in the slave market. At this, the slave fell on his knees and begged, “Just give me a chance and I’ll pay everything back to you!” . . . an impossible promise.
But the king was so moved by the plea of the slave that he did the unthinkable; he completely cancelled the man’s debt, in full, on the spot. A full pardon.
Do you remember that scene in Schindler’s List where Oskar Schindler tells the Nazi Amon Goeth another little story about what real power is? Schindler says, “A man steals something, he's brought in before the Emperor, he throws himself down on the ground. He begs for his life, he knows he's going to die. And the Emperor . . . pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go. . . . That's power. That is power.” The King in Jesus’ parable has the power to send the slave to the slave market. But he also has a greater power: the power to give a full pardon.
But then, this slave [whom we can now refer to as ‘the Forgiven Slave’] left the presence of the king and immediately ran into a fellow slave who owed him a hundred denarii (about $5240 American) . . . a comparatively small sum . . . not that much. Certainly something could be worked out?
Over a Few Plums
William Carlos Williams wrote a poem to his wife. It’s called a ‘found’ poem, meaning that it’s written to look like a note found left on a refrigerator. The poem is called “This Is Just to Say”: I have eaten/ the plums/ that were in/ the icebox/ and which/ you were probably/saving/ for breakfast/ Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet and so cold.
Later, the poet Erica-Lynn Gambino wrote a poem in response, which she titled “This Is Just to Say” (for William Carlos Williams): I have just/ asked you to/ get out of my/ apartment/ even though/ you never/ thought/ I would/ Forgive me/ you were/ driving/ me insane.
A few plums. It’s the little wrongs, the small breaches of etiquette , the minor offenses that often end relationships. Two people are unwilling to ask for forgiveness and equally unwilling to extend forgiveness. Relationships end over a few plums, an offhand comment, a forgotten ‘Thank You’. A whole family leaves a church when the rector moves the couch that great-grandmother donated in 1907 . . . a few plums . . . a hundred denarii.
The Forgiven Slave seized the man by the throat and demanded that he pay up immediately. The poor wretch threw himself at the Forgiven Slave’s feet and begged, “Just give me a chance and I’ll pay everything back to you!” (Where have we heard that plea? Word for word.)
But . . . instead of extending mercy to his fellow slave, the Forgiven Slave has him arrested and thrown into jail until his debt can be paid. Of course, once in debtor’s prison, the man has no possible way to pay the small debt. The door has been slammed on forgiveness.
The Forgiven Slave’s choice sounds like the woman who wrote an editorial in last week’s Newsweek titled “The Power of ‘I Am Sorry’”. It begins, “When I was growing up my family had its own way of dealing with disagreements. We stopped speaking. Sometimes the freeze lasted a day, sometimes a week. Every once in a while, an offending cousin or aunt was simply erased from the family landscape, airbrushed out of our lives like a deposed member of the Politburo.” That’s what the Forgiven Slave does; he puts the freeze on his fellow slave. He simply airbrushes him out of the landscape. The author of the editorial had no interaction with her parents for 12 years. She sent her parents to debtor’s prison for 12 years. 12 years. (Is hell too strong a word?)
There is one final twist in the parable. Other slaves have been watching this freeze out, this cut off. They see what has happened and tell the King. The King summons the Forgiven Slave and says, “You wicked slave! I forgave you an entire debt that you had no hope of paying. Yet you refuse to show even the smallest bit mercy to a fellow slave.” And the King had the screws put that Forgiven Slave until he had paid back the entire debt.
The Heart of the
Matter
So Jesus pulled the pin and threw the spiritual hand grenade. And it’s aimed at my heart, and your heart. This parable hasn’t exploded in your heart until you are actually moved to extend forgiveness to an actual flesh and blood person who owes you a debt. That’s a direct hit!
Don Henley of the “Eagles” wrote a song called “The Heart of the Matter”, a song about forgiveness about which Henley said, “It took 42 years to write and four minutes to sing.”
The song tells the story of how he split form his wife and then later gets a phone call from an old friend who informs him that she has found someone new. And he struggles to forgive her so that both of them can move on:
These times are so uncertain/ There's a yearning undefined
People filled with rage/ We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age
The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness
They're the very things we kill, I guess
Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us/ Doesn't keep me warm
There are people in your life who've come and gone
They
let you down and hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; life goes on
You keep carrin' that anger, it'll eat you inside
I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the
Matter
But my will gets weak/ And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness/ Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don't love me anymore
Forgiveness. “It took 42 years to write and four minutes to sing.”
If you won’t listen to Jesus, then please listen to Don Henley!