Defining Moments
It’s hard to believe that this Thursday marked seven years since the September 11th attacks. Seven years. It’s one of those events that forever changed the lives of countless people. Most people can remember where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news. Our corporate life as Americans hasn’t been the same since, and for the hundreds of people who lost loved ones in the attacks, their personal lives will never be the same again.
Whether we like it or not, September 11, 2001 was a defining moment for us as a nation. On that day we went from being a nation that read about terrorism that happened “over there” to a nation that bears the scars of terrorism. We are now part of a country that uses the word terrorism as a common part of its political language. Many people have emergency packs in their basement, just in case something happens. And we all have to plan on being at the airport hours before our flight departs so we can get through the increased security.
In some ways it’s natural that September 11th was such a defining moment for us. Traumatic moments in life often are defining moments for us. It’s often things like divorce or death of a loved one that drastically changes our self identity. It changes how we perceive the world around us and how we interact with people we come into contact with. But these defining moments don’t always have to be negative events. Sometimes they are really happy things, like the first time you fell in love or the day you first held your child in your arms, or the day you graduated.
Regardless of what they are, we all have defining moments in our lives. We all have moments in life that change how we perceive ourselves, and how we perceive the world around us. Those perceptions influence how we interact with people we come into contact with. Those moments will impact whether we choose to allow ourselves to care for others or shut others out. Those perceptions will affect how we react to conflict or difficult situations.
This past week as I thought about defining moments in life, I began to wonder, what were the defining moments in the life of the unforgiving servant in the parable Jesus tells? This servant owed the king ten thousand talents. That is a huge sum of money, in fact for the average day laborer, ten thousand talents was 150,000 years worth of wages. 150,000 years!
In the parable, the king calls the servant in and demands that the servant pay the king back. The servant isn’t able to pay and so the king orders the man, his wife, and his children thrown into prison and all of his stuff sold in order to pay off the debt. When the servant hears this, he drops to his knees and begs for patience from the king. The servant promises to pay everything back if he could just have a little more time.
A little more time? How does 150,000 years sound? After all that’s how long it would take a day laborer to earn enough wages to pay back ten thousand talents. The servant is stalling and the king has to know it. A little more time is not going to help the servant pay off the debt. But instead of dismissing the servant, and sending him and his family to jail, the king surprises us by letting the servant go. He not only lets the servant go free but the king also forgives the entire debt. The king forgives what amounts to billions of dollars in our day and age.
That’s a huge amount, and you would think someone who just went from the threat of their entire family being thrown into prison to having this impossible debt forgiven, would express a little gratitude or excitement. You’d think he would jump for joy or praise the king saying how wonderful and merciful the king is. Or maybe he’d celebrate with his wife and children their narrow escape from enslavement. But on the topic of the servant’s gratitude, the parable is glaringly silent. There is no mention of the servant’s relief or his gratitude for the king’s pardon.
Instead we’re told that the servant leaves and finds one of his fellow servants that owes him 100 denarii. A scene ensues that is remarkably similar to the previous one. The servant begs for more time to pay back the debt. Only this time, instead of just stalling, asking for time to pay back a completely unreasonable debt, this debt is one the servant would actually be able to pay back given more time. But the servant who has just been pardoned by the king, is unwilling to forgive the debt of his fellow servant.
Which leads me back to the original question, what were the defining moments in the life of this so called unforgiving servant? It would seem to me that if I had been dragged before the king, to pay back billions of dollars in debt, been sentence to imprisonment, along with my whole family, and then had the entire debt forgiven by the king and set free, I think that would be a defining moment! But it obviously isn’t a defining moment for this unforgiving servant. He shows no gratitude or joy that his debt has been forgiven.
What this servant receives but never comprehends is the king’s mercy. The servant doesn’t recognize himself as one who has been the beneficiary of mercy and forgiveness. What could have been an incredibly defining moment for the servant completely passes him by almost entirely unnoticed. Since the servant doesn’t see himself as someone who’s been forgiven, he is unable to see himself in the situation of the second servant. Consequently, the servant is unable to forgive the comparably small debt that is owed to him. The servant doesn’t recognize that he’s received mercy so he’s not able to pass that mercy on to the second servant.
I think many of us are the same way. We all know that we really ought to forgive. After all, the bible tells us over and over again that we should forgive. We know we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We know that Jesus tells us it’s the merciful and peacemakers who are blessed, that we’re to turn the other cheek, and to go a second mile. If all that weren’t enough, the scripture passage for today tells us that we are to forgive others not just once or twice but 77 times or 77 times 7. Either way, that’s a lot.
But regardless of how much we intellectually recognize that we are called to forgive, and even that forgiveness helps to free us from the anger and hate that’s eating away at us, sometimes we find it near impossible to forgive. After all, how do you forgive the person who actions cut so deep? How do you forgive the person that hurt you so badly, that betrayed your trust and left you feeling manipulated? Sometimes we find it near impossible to forgive, regardless of how much we know we ought to forgive.
Part of the problem lies in how we think of forgiveness. We have a tendency to intellectualize forgiveness but forgiveness is much more than an intellectual endeavor. We don’t just decide to forgive someone. Instead our ability to forgive others comes primarily from God’s action towards us. We have all fallen short of the expectations God has for us. We have all, in big or small ways, wrong others in our midst. We have done things intentionally that hurt others, and we have all stood by unwilling to act to stop some of the wrongs that happened in our midst.
In spite of all of that, God offers us forgiveness and mercy. God pardons us for the debts we have racked up with others. Sometimes we refuse to accept that forgiveness. But I think more often than not, we act like the unforgiving servant. More often than not, we receive God’s mercy but never really grasp it. We receive God’s forgiveness without allowing it to be a defining moment for us. We receive God’s forgiveness but don’t allow that forgiveness to change how we perceive ourselves. We don’t allow God’s forgiveness to help us see ourselves as forgiven debtors.
Without the recognition that we are forgiven people, our forgiveness of others becomes a trial of wills. We try to rationalize forgiveness and we have this ongoing battle within ourselves. Part of us just wants to hold on to our hurt and our anger. We tell ourselves that we have a right to be angry, that we’re right and they’re wrong. We tell ourselves that the other person doesn’t deserve forgiveness. But part of us knows that we have been called to forgive and that we probably should get around to forgiving so we try to force ourselves to forgive the other person. We try to forgive by brute force of will. But that tactic fails to recognize that human forgiveness is rooted in divine forgiveness.
Our ability to forgive comes from God’s forgiveness of us. God has forgiven us, but until we allow God’s forgiveness of us to become a defining moment in our lives, until we come to recognize ourselves as forgiven debtors, we will have a hard time extending forgiveness to others. Once we recognize ourselves as forgiven debtors, we come to realize that we are all forgiven debtors, living among other debtors. After that it becomes easier for us to extend forgiveness to others.
Once God’s forgiveness of us becomes a defining moment in our lives, forgiveness becomes something that God works within us. We can’t force ourselves to forgive others. But when we find forgiveness particularly difficult we can begin by praying that God use us as a channel of God’s forgiveness, even if we cannot forgive on our own.
Often forgiveness of serious offenses takes years. It can take us years to really work through the pain and hurt of a wrong someone has committed towards us. But that process of forgiveness, regardless of how long it takes, begins with the recognition that we are forgiven by God.
As we pray the Lord’s prayer together later in the service, I invite you to consider what the defining moments have been in your life? Is God’s forgiveness of your sins among them? Have you come to recognize yourself as a forgiven debtor and have you sought to share that forgiveness with others?
Amen.
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