Scripture

Matthew 18:21-35

This is the parable of the merciful monarch and the unforgiving citizen. It seems to suggest that unforgiving people condemn themselves to imprisonment.

I want to start with three 'axioms' about the individual in society, with which I'd be surprised to find anyone in disagreement!

First is the reality of human imperfection. There are all sorts of ways to put this. I like Reinhold Niebuhr's juicy phrase. He said that in all of us there's 'an entrenched predatory self-interest'.
Second is that, because of this, we all hurt one another. Sometimes this is by accident, sometimes by design. But whatever form it takes, this is a fact of life.
Third is that the ability to recover from hurt is a law of our being, just as the body must mobilise healing energies within - or cease to exist as a living organism!

In the parable, Jesus is putting what we've just said in the idiom of theology. He's saying that being able to forgive (that is, put behind us the hurts others inflict) is of the very nature of things. Indeed, it is of the very nature of the divine - of the ground of all being.

The monarch in Jesus' story must decide how to deal with someone who owes him a prodigious amount. The original says 'ten thousand talents'. Talanton in Greek was the equivalent of about five thousand dollars today. So, the debt was something like fifty million.

Because this first century 'cowboy' can't meet his obligations to the monarch, he is looking at a life sentence to slavery - not only for himself but for the whole family. He pleads for time to pay, and the monarch takes the extraordinary step of letting him off the entire amount. No 'ten cents in the dollar' of 'two cents in the dollar'; the whole amount wiped out, like it never happened!

You would think a man might learn something, but it seems not. He promptly demands payment from a fellow citizen who owed him a few dollars, and has him gaoled because he can't pay on the spot! When the monarch hears, the uncharitable one is called in. He is sent to prison until he pays back the fifty million - which presumably means he'll never get out now!

Jesus ends the story by saying, 'This is how God will deal with you if you don't forgive your brother (or sister), every one of you, from the heart'.

In other words, to be unforgiving disqualifies one from all benefits that go with being a free citizen. Unforgiving people effectively condemn themselves to prison!

Even as I typed those words, my mind went to the recent Mike Tyson rape trial. The judge who handed down sentence said she was looking in vain for some hint of regret, which could have affected her view of things. But there was none. Tyson sought only to justify himself. In so doing, he really condemned himself to prison.

I want to explore with you the idea that by being unforgiving, like the ungracious person in the parable, we actually consign ourselves to prison: to 'The Devil's Island of perpetual disaffection'. You remember that Devil's Island, off the coast of South America, was at one time France's most feared penal colony. It was the place where Alfred Dreyfus was sent in that celebrated case of wrongful imprisonment.

There are three things that happen to us on this self-imposed 'Devil's Island'. Let me state each one, and tell a story or two.

1. We rot in this prison

The first is that we rot in this prison! There's any amount of medical evidence to show how resentment spreads through the whole psycho-somatic system. It turns against us, gnawing away like rats infesting a stinking dungeon!

When I was preparing this, I made a discovery about the word 'rankle'. It's rather an old word, probably more often used by my generation than by younger people. It means treasuring up bad feelings over some hurt we feel has been done to us. 'Rankle' has a fascinating origin. It comes originally from the Greek drakon, meaning serpent or dragon. The Romans borrowed it and made it draco. From this, they got dracunculus which meant little dragon - or ulcer, because an ulcer was like the gnawing of a dragon. Finally it came via French into English as 'rankle'. 'Rankle' therefore means like a dragon gnawing at your inside, or an ulcer burning within you.

I'm sure I'm not telling you anything when I remind you that ulcers in the gastric system are frequently due to hypersecretion of gastric juice, which in turn is often caused by emotional tension and psychological conflicts. There are two main forms of treatment. Medication can, of course deal with the secretory over-activity. But the patient also needs to take it easy - on the intake of certain foods, of course, but also getting free of what is 'rankling' psychologically.

Now, I'm not saying that if someone here has an ulcer in the gastric system, this must be due to your refusing to forgive someone. What I am saying is that refusing to forgive someone can affect the whole system - and that includes setting up conditions that are ideal for developing an ulcer. In other words, if we violate a law of our being, we cause a process of rotting away to begin.

2. Cut off from those we do not forgive

I've said there are three things that happen to us in this self-imposed 'Devil's Island'. The second is that we are cut off from those we do not forgive, like being cut off in prison from normal human contacts.

I realise this is so elemental that to some of you it could be bordering on puerile. But now and then these things have to be said. Not too many people like the prickly, sulky, surly, morose, 'bearish' person who repels other human beings, and then becomes the loneliest of all.

Let me put this as a kind of theorem. Those good at forgiving multiply the number of their friends. Those not good at forgiving reduce the number of their friends.

For my sins I sit on about ten boards and committees. On one I chaired several years ago, there was a rash of threatened resignations, for reasons I found unconvincing. When pressed privately, these people would say, 'If X stays on, I go'. 'Why?' 'Because every time he fails to get his own way, he acts hurt and sets about blocking.'

I knew exactly what they were talking about. They found him unable to handle disagreement with his ideas. He seemed to take this as personal attack, and would then set about obstructing every proposal from people who had differed with him. Of course, all sorts of reasons would be advanced, but his 'hidden agenda'' was to get back at people.

When he walked into the room you could see others exchange glances, and some visibly wince at the prospect of another of those meetings. The thing actually solved itself when his employers moved him. Otherwise I'm not sure I would have known what to do. All I knew was that he had alienated all his former friends on that committee.

3. We cut ourselves off from God

The third feature of the 'Devil's Island of perpetual disaffection' is that we cut ourselves off from God. In the parable, the unforgiving citizen becomes estranged from the monarch - the monarch who wants his subjects to be merciful as he is merciful.

Ten or twelve years ago I was at a clergy conference, and took a walk the first evening with a man who had not long gone to a place where I had relatives. I'd heard a little about him, but didn't let on. Instead, I asked how things were going in the new parish. He said, 'They're wonderful people, and they've done everything possible to settle us in. You'd think after six months I would be thriving, but I can't seem to get going at all. Sermons have become a terrible chore. My faith seems in tatters. I'm not sure any more what G-O-D means.' In fact, I'd already picked up whispers of this from my relatives. They sensed he was struggling, but couldn't figure out why.

This is what I found out. His first settlement had been in a newer suburb, with a parish consisting mainly of young families. The congregation was only about ten years old, and there weren't too many venerated ways of doing things. He had a wonderful five years there, and left with some regrets to take up his second settlement.

It was a very different outfit. The church had been established in the gold rush, and the grand old buildings indicated how much money had been around. There was space for a crowd, but the big numbers were only a memory. The congregation was mainly middle-aged and elderly; many had been there all their lives. The denomination had recommended him because of his good record in the other place, and the urgent need here for some new directions.

The first part of his grand scheme was that the cavernous old parsonage of ten or twelve rooms be bulldozed, and the land leased. He argued that there was enough in the kitty to match a big down payment from the leasing body, and build a smaller, newer house. Against the rest of the income, a loan could be raised to convert a kindergarten hall into a kind of coffee lounge 'drop-in ' place. His theological rhetoric about 'mission' and his financial calculations were hard to refute. The older people hated it all, but felt it was impossible to disagree with him.

The developments went ahead with a massive under-current of feeling. He tried to ignore this, but finally it erupted in a meeting with the parish. He realised too late that he had torn a community apart, and that many of them saw him as ambitious, ruthless and insensitive. He was terribly hurt by this; put in his resignation on the spot, and three months later was in the place where I had heard of him. All this story took three nights. At the end of the third he said he felt somewhat better, but I said, 'I don't think you'll be okay until you can forgive your opponents back there - and maybe ask them to forgive you too'.

I didn't see him again for almost a year, but I did inquire of my relatives how he was. 'Funny you should ask', they said. 'After that conference, he seemed to get himself together. The smile came back, the energy was restored and he was like a new person in the pulpit. Nobody can forget a sermon he preached on Jesus' words about sorting out hassles with others before bringing your gift to the altar, or whatever it was. He said he had discovered it was the secret of inner freedom and peace with God.'

The real message of this parable is not that we pray for grace to be forgiving because we're scared of punishment if we don't. It's that the one here referred to as the monarch of the universe is indefatigably and everlastingly merciful towards us - and that's the motivation, the stimulus and the power to be forging ourselves.

Reproduced here on the Warragul Uniting Church web site with the permission of the author,
Rev Dr John Bodycomb -2004.