Judgement,Mercy and Forgiveness

Sermon The Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity, 13 September

Readings: Genesis 50.15-21; Romans 14.1-12; Matthew 18.21-35

Theme: Judgement, Mercy, and Forgiveness

The bundled theme of judgement, mercy, and forgiveness is a complex one. Not simply due to the fact that these elements are weighty, each in themselves, but because what they imply is challenging for anyone to put into practice. Even a cursory, but honest, review of our own lives reveals this to be the case. Whatever approach we take to these issues, the approach which the Bible takes to them is one which reveals God to be infinitely greater than we can ever think of or imagine these divine realities to represent.

Each of the three readings which are given to us on this Sunday present dimensions of these themes that we should reflect upon. In a world which is ever more driven to refuse mercy and forgiveness, destructive notions of judgement are reigning supreme. With this in mind, what do our readings reveal to us of God’s wisdom in these matters?

The Genesis story of Joseph is a well-known one. It depicts rivalries and jealousy that result in a family breakdown. Joseph is sold into slavery, put into prison, and eventually finds a new life for himself through correctly interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh’s officials in an Egyptian prison.

Due to famine in Canaan, the other sons of Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, later find themselves in Egypt. The brothers are reconciled and Joseph forgives them and looks after them in their time of need. 

This story portrays Joseph as just, forgiving and merciful. He does not judge his brothers, because he knows that judgement belongs to God alone. The figure of Jacob, the father of Joseph and his brothers, though dead at this point, is made present through his words which echo the loving mercy of God. These words point to the transcendence of God which departs from the limitations of our calculating ways within the world.

Such interwoven themes surface in the second reading, drawn from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. They are retaken in terms of the dietary laws that were of concern to the early Christians in Rome during the first century of the common era as the early church emerged.

Paul had already dealt with these dietary matters in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 8.1-13) and it is unsurprising that he returns to them here because he is writing to the church in Rome from Corinth, during his third and final missionary journey prior to sailing to Rome.

Since the early church in Rome was a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers who had different background experiences regarding the food laws, these were live issues in the emerging Roman church. It was, therefore, important for Paul that each group considers how their own behaviour affects the other groups because, we will all “stand before the judgement seat of God” for how we have treated our sisters and brothers.

Modelling healthy patterns of church behaviour is how Christians reflect God’s infinite life into the world. This is at the heart of the message of the Gospel in which Peter puts the question to Jesus of “how often should I forgive another member of the church?” Jesus then recounts a parable about the kingdom of heaven and how the king in that kingdom behaves. This is a story which reveals just how it is that God’s kingdom working through us, orders judgement, reconciliation, mercy and forgiveness to the building up of the body of the church. This ordering is one which traces the infinite justice, mercy and forgiveness of God onto the finite reality of the church in history, so that this body may bear witness to what is still and always yet to come in its fulness with the final return of the Lord.

The parable tells of how a king wishes to settle his account with his slaves and comes across one slave who owes him an extraordinary amount. In forgiving this slave, the king expects him to treat his debtors similarly, but this does not happen. Instead, he treats his fellow-slave without mercy and has him thrown into prison. The other slaves report this to the king, and furious at this behaviour of the ungrateful slave, the king has him tortured, until he can repay his debt. 

The point of the parable is to show us that when we realize how God has redeemed us, our new lives in the kingdom, like that of Joseph, are transformed to model the pattern of the forgiving king. Yet, a point which is easy to miss in this parable is that of the quantities being referred to. The amount owed by the first slave is so large that it would never be possible for that slave to pay back. The amount owed by the second slave is a much lesser amount that lies within the realms of possibility to pay off. 

This difference of the two quantities is intentional in the parable. It is meant to illustrate the qualitative and not simply quantitative difference between the two types of forgiveness being considered. In the first case, the king represents the forgiveness of God. A forgiveness which is literally infinite and for which no amount of debt is too much to be forgiven. However, the forgiveness in the second example of debt between the two slaves is comprehensible in finite terms. This is the forgiveness of one another which we are each called to apply ourselves to, so that the world may be a more humane place.

In the end, all of these readings point towards the difference between divine and human justice, mercy and forgiveness. These qualities have something in common between the divine and human realms which allow us to apply them to both realms without wasting our time. However, we should never think that divine justice, mercy and forgiveness is reducible to what our experience of these realities is. And, that is why, only God is the one to mete out judgement in salv1ation terms and not us.