The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 17, 2023

Pentecost XVI
Matthew 18: 21-35
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church
Sean C. Kim
17, September 2023

The Gospels are filled with difficult passages. And today’s reading from Matthew is one of them. Sometimes, the difficulty lies in trying to understand what Jesus meant. We’re separated from Jesus by more than 2,000 years and vast cultural and social differences, never mind the challenges of translation. But the problem with today’s text isn’t about understanding what Jesus meant; rather, the difficulty lies in following what Jesus tells us to do. And what is that message? Forgive.

Peter comes to Jesus with the question: “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus responds: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22). He follows this up with a parable. A king forgives a servant who owes him a huge sum of money, but then that same servant fails to forgive a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller sum of money. The point of the parable is clear and simple: forgive as you have been forgiven. But this is so much easier said than done.

Practicing forgiveness is hard, and, at least for me, preaching on forgiveness is also hard. But, fortunately for today, I had some great outside help. The last time I preached on forgiveness, one of our parishioners sent me a kind email that provided a wonderful summary and commentary on my sermon. And, quite frankly, her feedback was more lucid and eloquent than my sermon. So, in preparing today’s sermon, I dug up that email and used it to help organize my thoughts. I don’t want to put that person on the spot, so I won’t mention her name, but thank you for the help!

Forgiveness is hard because it runs counter to our nature. When we are wronged, we want to seek revenge and restitution. Think of when we watch a movie or read a novel. There is something deeply satisfying about the villain getting his just desserts at the end of the story. Forgiveness, on the other hand, requires us to abandon the idea of getting even. It requires us to rise above our self-interest and even risk vulnerability and rejection.

But, no matter how difficult it is, Jesus commands us to forgive. Moreover, he has personally set the supreme example of forgiveness. As he hung on the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And throughout Christian history, the faithful have turned to Jesus as the example and inspiration for forgiveness.

As many of you know, I was born and raised in the Korean Christian tradition. Our family used to attend a small Korean Presbyterian church on the corner of 81st and Holmes in south Kansas City. The Presbyterians don’t commemorate the saints in the same way that Anglo-Catholics do, but they do have their own unofficial saints whom they remember and honor.

One of the Korean saints that has left a deep impression on me is Pastor Son Yang-won. Almost every Korean Protestant has probably heard of Pastor Son, and he is remembered by the Church for an act of radical forgiveness. Pastor Son was a Presbyterian minister who lived through the turbulent history of Korea under Japanese colonial rule and then the painful division of the country into North and South Korea. In 1948, a couple of years before the Korean War, a communist insurgency took over his town. The rebels descended on his family, attacking them for their Christian faith. During the persecution, one of the insurgents, a young man named Chae-son, shot and killed two of his sons. When the government restored order in the town a week later, Chae-son was apprehended and found guilty of murder. But before the sentence of execution could be carried out, Pastor Son intervened and pleaded for Chae-son’s life. And he also made a surprising and unusual request. He asked the court for the prisoner’s release so that he could be adopted as his son. The court granted the request. Chae-son was released and adopted by Pastor Son, who cared for him as his own son and taught him the Christian faith. Later in life, Chae-son himself became a Christian minister. Tragically for Pastor Son, he was killed by the communists during the Korean War, becoming one of countless martyrs who died for the faith.

Not many of us can practice the kind of radical forgiveness that Pastor Son exemplified. He is remembered precisely because what he did lies beyond the reach of most people. But, even if we don’t attain to the spiritual heights of Pastor Son and other saints, we are still under the same command to forgive.

To return to today’s reading from Matthew, at the end of the passage, Jesus tells his disciples to “forgive your brother or sister from your heart (Matthew 18:35). To forgive with our heart is the start of the process of forgiving. When we forgive with our heart, we make the choice to set aside the desire for getting even and commit to restoring the relationship. It involves the intention to follow Christ’s command and example to forgive. What comes next, however, may often be beyond our control.
At one of the churches where I’ve previously served, I knew a saintly woman who embodied Christ’s love and was a faithful member of the parish. Kind and compassionate, she gave generously of her time and money to the church and the community. Everyone respected and admired her. I was surprised one day during a small group meeting when she shared that she had been estranged from her son for several years. In spite of her attempts to reconcile, they had not talked for a very long time. And soon others shared their stories of unresolved conflicts in their lives.

An idea that we encounter in our culture as well as in church is that once you forgive, everyone lives happily ever after. It’s seen as a kind of on-off switch. Just do it, and everything will be fine. But, of course, life is not that simple. Forgiveness is not that simple. Yes, it involves making the choice to forgive, but in following through, we may encounter struggles and challenges. In fact, there may be situations in which the only thing left to do is to leave it to God and pray for reconciliation. Forgiveness can be a long, messy process. Forgiveness is hard work.

But, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, forgiveness is not optional for us. It’s an integral part of our faith commitment. Soon, as we gather at the altar, we will join together in the Lord’s Prayer, in which we pray that God “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, at the Eucharist, or in our private devotions, we are not only reminding ourselves but making the resolve, the intention, to forgive.

But, of course, it does not stop there. The hard work of forgiveness takes place in the messiness of our daily lives. Who among us is immune from slights, grudges, and grievances? And confronted with difficult situations, we may not always succeed in our efforts to forgive. But Christ calls us to try over and over again – even if it means seventy-seven times.