Proper 19
Preaching
PREACHING MATTHEW'S GOSPEL
A Narrative Approach
In our previous chapter we discussed the importance of Matthew 18 as a whole. It is the fourth of the major discourses of Jesus:
the Discourse on the Church. The entire chapter is to be read as a unified treatise on life in the community of believers. Matthew is seeking in this chapter to show that this community is to live as a community of Christ! In the light of Christ, pity, compassion, and forgiveness are to be the hallmarks of the community: 5:21-26; 9:13; 12:7.
There is a second structural comment on the placement of Matthew 18 that needs to be made. In 19:1 we read: "When Jesus finished saying these things...." We recognize this formula as Matthew's way of bringing a section of his Gospel to a close. (See also 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 26:1.) This fourth discourse of Jesus is the climax to this section of Matthew's Gospel.
The schema of Matthew 18 turns on two questions. The first question (v. 1) asks about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. In 18:2-20 Jesus sets out to answer this question. A second question then arises. Peter, representative of the disciples, asks this question. In Chapter 19 we discussed the pivotal role played by Peter in the central section of our first Gospel. Here he is again.
He asks: "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" (18:21). (The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible chooses to translate the Greek word for "brother" as "church member" in this passage. Given the ecclesial context of Matthew 18 this may be a wise translation.) Peter has clearly heard Jesus' message that forgiveness is to be at the heart of the life of the Christian community. Now he wants to calculate! How much forgiveness is enough? Seven times? Peter was being generous. The rabbis, after all, taught that it was enough to forgive four times.
Jesus' answer must have shocked Peter. "Not seven times," says Jesus, "but seventy times seven." Commentaries often cite this number as an allusion to Lamech in the Old Testament who wreaked vengeance upon his enemy seventy-seven fold (Genesis 4:23-24). If Jesus has the Lamech story in mind, then it is the case that in Jesus' vision unlimited vengeance is to be replaced with unlimited forgiveness! Unlimited. Incalculable. That is surely what "seventy times seven" means. This is not a new mathematical equation in order to determine how often we should forgive. Jesus simply means that forgiveness is incalculable.
Jesus wishes to expand upon the incalculability of forgiveness. He tells a story. Jesus often "thinks in stories." The story is about a king who wishes to settle an account with one of his servants. One servant comes before the king who owes him 10,000 talents.
Ten thousand is literally a "myriad," the largest number in the ancient Greek vocabulary, and talents were the heaviest weights or largest units of monetary value with one talent the equivalent of 6000 denarii (18:28). Ten thousand and talents together signify the biggest stack of money imaginable.1
The servant's debt is incalculable. That's Jesus' point. To turn parable into allegory for a moment we might conclude that Jesus is saying here that humanity's debt to God, humanity's sin, is incapable of calculation. The servant cries out for patience. Patience for what? There's no way he can repay such a debt. That's preposterous. Then, surprise! The story takes an incalculable turn. The king has pity on the servant and forgives him the entire debt.
This is not the first time we meet the pity of God in Matthew's story. By the way, the Greek word behind the translation "pity" is a difficult word to translate. A literal translation would be: "to be moved in one's bowels." Pity, compassion, mercy are deep inner feelings ascribed to Jesus as he views human need. In a passage that summarizes the deeds of Jesus in Matthew 8-9 we read that Jesus had compassion upon harassed and helpless people, people who were like sheep without a shepherd (9:35-38). In 14:13-14 Jesus is described as having compassion which leads to the healing of the sick. In 15:32-39 (v. 32) it is his compassion that leads him to feed the multitude. In 20:29-34 (v. 34) it is Jesus' compassion that leads him to heal the blind eyes of two men who cry out to him.
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." This is how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:12. Incalculable forgiveness on the part of God is to lead us to incalculable forgiveness as we relate to each other. The forgiven servant, however, shows no such pity: "...his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' " (18:32-33).
The servant was put in jail until his debt be paid. "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart" (18:35).
Peter now has the answer to his question. Forgiveness on the part of God and on the part of humans is beyond calculation. Let's not forget the context here. This is how life in the church is to be. The Office of the Keys makes it happen. Sins are loosed and sins are bound (18:18; 16:18-19).
The sin of the unforgiving servant is bound on earth and bound in heaven. He is bound in his sins. His debt is incalculable. Our debt is incalculable, too. Fortunately, Jesus has pity upon us. His power to loose us from our sins through words of forgiveness spoken in our churches is also incalculable.
Homiletical Directions
This week's passage does not stand in much narrative connection to other Matthean material. In some ways the passage stands alone as instruction to the church. We mentioned in our last chapter that 18:1-14 was discussed earlier in Chapter 12. If you have not made use of that material as yet, then we might think of a sermon on this text which deals with the entire narrative of Matthew 18. This sermon could begin by narrating the passages we have alluded to concerning the compassion and pity of God. These are found in 9:35-38; 14:13-14; 15:32-39; 20:29-34. These stories could be told briefly as an introduction to the compassion of God which is at the heart of ecclesial matters!
Tell next the story in 18:1-14. Here, too, is a story of God's compassion for the "little ones" who are the "greatest" in the kingdom of heaven. It is an offense to God when one of the "little ones" is led astray. The Greek verb in v. 6 is the Greek word skandalon. Matthew uses this word many times to describe a false reaction to God's Son, Jesus: 11:2-6 (v. 6); 15:12; 16:21-23 (v. 23); 26:30-35 (v. 31). God is scandalized when we get in the way of God's compassion!
God's compassion for the little ones is next demonstrated in vv. 10-14. God's incalculable compassion leaves the ninety-nine and seeks after the one who is lost. That's the kind of God that the Christian church gathers each week to celebrate.
Compassion is to be our way of settling disputes within the church: 18:15-20. We work to settle such disputes in the presence of our Emmanuel God. Matthew tells us in 1:21 and 1:23 that Jesus is the One who has come to forgive us our sins when he is present among us as Emmanuel. Compassion is the way of God's people with one another. This was last week's text, of course, and can be treated with much brevity in our narrative walk through Matthew 18.
The next story to tell is that of today's assigned text. The very heart of this story is the compassion of the king who acts in this story the way God acts towards us in Jesus Christ. Compassion is to be the way of life for God's people gathered in community. When compassion is missing we are bound in our sins.
In concluding this sermon we can note for our listeners that the church in which we gather each week is, indeed, a house of compassion. The primary activities of the Christian gathering are activities which celebrate the ongoing presence of God's compassion for people whose sins are incalculable.
Here we confess our sins and God says to us through those who exercise the Office of the Keys: "I am a compassionate God. Your sins, though incalculable, are forgiven."
Here we baptize and God says to us: "I am a compassionate God. It is my will that not one 'little one' should perish."
Here we meet at the table and God says to us: "I am a compassionate God. I meet you here in forms of bread and wine that I might be Emmanuel to you. I am present within your very body."
Here we gather around the Word of God through which God speaks to us: "I am a compassionate God. I forgive you your entire debt." Amen.
_________
1. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), p. 224.
the Discourse on the Church. The entire chapter is to be read as a unified treatise on life in the community of believers. Matthew is seeking in this chapter to show that this community is to live as a community of Christ! In the light of Christ, pity, compassion, and forgiveness are to be the hallmarks of the community: 5:21-26; 9:13; 12:7.
There is a second structural comment on the placement of Matthew 18 that needs to be made. In 19:1 we read: "When Jesus finished saying these things...." We recognize this formula as Matthew's way of bringing a section of his Gospel to a close. (See also 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 26:1.) This fourth discourse of Jesus is the climax to this section of Matthew's Gospel.
The schema of Matthew 18 turns on two questions. The first question (v. 1) asks about who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. In 18:2-20 Jesus sets out to answer this question. A second question then arises. Peter, representative of the disciples, asks this question. In Chapter 19 we discussed the pivotal role played by Peter in the central section of our first Gospel. Here he is again.
He asks: "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" (18:21). (The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible chooses to translate the Greek word for "brother" as "church member" in this passage. Given the ecclesial context of Matthew 18 this may be a wise translation.) Peter has clearly heard Jesus' message that forgiveness is to be at the heart of the life of the Christian community. Now he wants to calculate! How much forgiveness is enough? Seven times? Peter was being generous. The rabbis, after all, taught that it was enough to forgive four times.
Jesus' answer must have shocked Peter. "Not seven times," says Jesus, "but seventy times seven." Commentaries often cite this number as an allusion to Lamech in the Old Testament who wreaked vengeance upon his enemy seventy-seven fold (Genesis 4:23-24). If Jesus has the Lamech story in mind, then it is the case that in Jesus' vision unlimited vengeance is to be replaced with unlimited forgiveness! Unlimited. Incalculable. That is surely what "seventy times seven" means. This is not a new mathematical equation in order to determine how often we should forgive. Jesus simply means that forgiveness is incalculable.
Jesus wishes to expand upon the incalculability of forgiveness. He tells a story. Jesus often "thinks in stories." The story is about a king who wishes to settle an account with one of his servants. One servant comes before the king who owes him 10,000 talents.
Ten thousand is literally a "myriad," the largest number in the ancient Greek vocabulary, and talents were the heaviest weights or largest units of monetary value with one talent the equivalent of 6000 denarii (18:28). Ten thousand and talents together signify the biggest stack of money imaginable.1
The servant's debt is incalculable. That's Jesus' point. To turn parable into allegory for a moment we might conclude that Jesus is saying here that humanity's debt to God, humanity's sin, is incapable of calculation. The servant cries out for patience. Patience for what? There's no way he can repay such a debt. That's preposterous. Then, surprise! The story takes an incalculable turn. The king has pity on the servant and forgives him the entire debt.
This is not the first time we meet the pity of God in Matthew's story. By the way, the Greek word behind the translation "pity" is a difficult word to translate. A literal translation would be: "to be moved in one's bowels." Pity, compassion, mercy are deep inner feelings ascribed to Jesus as he views human need. In a passage that summarizes the deeds of Jesus in Matthew 8-9 we read that Jesus had compassion upon harassed and helpless people, people who were like sheep without a shepherd (9:35-38). In 14:13-14 Jesus is described as having compassion which leads to the healing of the sick. In 15:32-39 (v. 32) it is his compassion that leads him to feed the multitude. In 20:29-34 (v. 34) it is Jesus' compassion that leads him to heal the blind eyes of two men who cry out to him.
"Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." This is how Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:12. Incalculable forgiveness on the part of God is to lead us to incalculable forgiveness as we relate to each other. The forgiven servant, however, shows no such pity: "...his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' " (18:32-33).
The servant was put in jail until his debt be paid. "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart" (18:35).
Peter now has the answer to his question. Forgiveness on the part of God and on the part of humans is beyond calculation. Let's not forget the context here. This is how life in the church is to be. The Office of the Keys makes it happen. Sins are loosed and sins are bound (18:18; 16:18-19).
The sin of the unforgiving servant is bound on earth and bound in heaven. He is bound in his sins. His debt is incalculable. Our debt is incalculable, too. Fortunately, Jesus has pity upon us. His power to loose us from our sins through words of forgiveness spoken in our churches is also incalculable.
Homiletical Directions
This week's passage does not stand in much narrative connection to other Matthean material. In some ways the passage stands alone as instruction to the church. We mentioned in our last chapter that 18:1-14 was discussed earlier in Chapter 12. If you have not made use of that material as yet, then we might think of a sermon on this text which deals with the entire narrative of Matthew 18. This sermon could begin by narrating the passages we have alluded to concerning the compassion and pity of God. These are found in 9:35-38; 14:13-14; 15:32-39; 20:29-34. These stories could be told briefly as an introduction to the compassion of God which is at the heart of ecclesial matters!
Tell next the story in 18:1-14. Here, too, is a story of God's compassion for the "little ones" who are the "greatest" in the kingdom of heaven. It is an offense to God when one of the "little ones" is led astray. The Greek verb in v. 6 is the Greek word skandalon. Matthew uses this word many times to describe a false reaction to God's Son, Jesus: 11:2-6 (v. 6); 15:12; 16:21-23 (v. 23); 26:30-35 (v. 31). God is scandalized when we get in the way of God's compassion!
God's compassion for the little ones is next demonstrated in vv. 10-14. God's incalculable compassion leaves the ninety-nine and seeks after the one who is lost. That's the kind of God that the Christian church gathers each week to celebrate.
Compassion is to be our way of settling disputes within the church: 18:15-20. We work to settle such disputes in the presence of our Emmanuel God. Matthew tells us in 1:21 and 1:23 that Jesus is the One who has come to forgive us our sins when he is present among us as Emmanuel. Compassion is the way of God's people with one another. This was last week's text, of course, and can be treated with much brevity in our narrative walk through Matthew 18.
The next story to tell is that of today's assigned text. The very heart of this story is the compassion of the king who acts in this story the way God acts towards us in Jesus Christ. Compassion is to be the way of life for God's people gathered in community. When compassion is missing we are bound in our sins.
In concluding this sermon we can note for our listeners that the church in which we gather each week is, indeed, a house of compassion. The primary activities of the Christian gathering are activities which celebrate the ongoing presence of God's compassion for people whose sins are incalculable.
Here we confess our sins and God says to us through those who exercise the Office of the Keys: "I am a compassionate God. Your sins, though incalculable, are forgiven."
Here we baptize and God says to us: "I am a compassionate God. It is my will that not one 'little one' should perish."
Here we meet at the table and God says to us: "I am a compassionate God. I meet you here in forms of bread and wine that I might be Emmanuel to you. I am present within your very body."
Here we gather around the Word of God through which God speaks to us: "I am a compassionate God. I forgive you your entire debt." Amen.
_________
1. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), p. 224.
