Matthew 18:21-35
Trinity 22
â In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit â
 An official announcement was made this past week by the White House about applying for student loan forgiveness.  Many people with federal student loans can get $10,000 of their debt cancelledâa few even $20,000. This has caused a significant amount of debate and controversy and court battles.  Many have asked, why should this benefit be given only to some and not to those who fulfilled their obligation and paid their loans off properly according to its terms?  That seems rather unjust.  Others have suggested that this is actually a Christian thing to do since the Bible talks about forgiving debt, and one translation of the Our Father even prays âForgive us our debts as we also forgive those who are indebted to us.â  Of course, itâs one thing for you to forgive a debt thatâs owed to you personally; itâs quite another thing for the government to do so forcibly on your behalf.
But my purpose here isnât to get into the politics of this, but to focus on one of the arguments that has come up in this debate which teaches us something about the Gospel and Christian forgiveness. Â The argument goes like this: the $10,000 in student loan debts isnât actually being forgiven, itâs just being transferred; someone else is going to have to pay that debt offâother taxpayers or whomever. Â And that is absolutely true. Â But what we sometimes miss is thatâs always the case with forgiveness. Â Someone always has to pay. Â To forgive is to say, âI donât hold this against you. Â Iâm willing to pay the price for what you did without me getting any payback. Â I release you from that.â
Someone always has to pay. Â Forgiveness simply means that the one who incurred the debt, who did the wrong, doesnât have to pay the price because someone else is willing to pay the price for them. Â This is true of money debt; itâs true of sin debt. Â One way or another, the debt gets paid.
Iâve been asked a couple of times by parishionersâand perhaps youâve wondered this yourselfâwhy was it necessary for Jesus to have to share in our flesh and suffer and die and shed His blood? Â Why couldnât God simply forgive everyoneâs sins simply with a wave of His hand? Â Couldnât God have just said of our sins, âDonât worry about itâ and leave it at that without all the blood and death? Â The answer is, âNo, not if His justice and mercy are real and true.â Â
To sin is to offend against the justice and righteousness of God. Â It is to rebel against His commands in favor of doing things your own way. Â Your sin is not just the equivalent of getting a few parking tickets, a few minor misdeeds. Â According to Scripture, your sin is treason against the King of the Universe. Â It is the act of a traitor who wants to take over the Lordâs throne. In the end someone has to pay the price for that. Â A just God and Lord doesnât simply say, âOh, whatever.â Â Such sin, such sinners cannot stand in His presence. Â His very nature requires that it be dealt with. Â It is written in Hebrews 9, âWithout the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.â Â So the question is, whoâs going to pay that price? Â Is it you, or is it someone else who is willing to pay it for you? Â Someoneâs got to pay.
In the Gospel reading, the first servant owed the King an enormous debt, 10,000 talents. Â Just one talent was worth about 6,000 denarii, and each denarius was about a dayâs wage for an ordinary laborer. Â So to pay off a debt of 10,000 talents would take the equivalent of 60 million days of work. Â How this servant got into such debt, I donât know. Â But his claim that he could pay it off if he was given enough time is just laughable. Â Thereâs no way he could ever climb his way out of that hole he had dug.

This first servant is a picture of each of us. Â We have run up such a tab against God with our thoughts and desires, words and deeds, that we canât even begin to grasp how big it is. Â Even if we spent the rest of our lives trying to make ourselves right with God again, even if we entered into a monastery or convent and devoted every possible moment to making up for our sin and trying to become righteous, it wouldnât be enough. Â All we can do is throw ourselves at the Kingâs feet and humbly beg for mercy.
And thanks be to God, He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Â Heâs not in the business of payback. Â The Lord has taken pity on you and canceled your debt. Â He didnât just reduce what you owed and put you on an interest-free payment plan. Â No, the debt is completely erased. Â Itâs gone. Â You are debt free. Â You are forgiven.
Now understand, the debt still had to be paid; just not by you. Â The debt is very real; and so the payment must be very real. Â Just like the king in the Gospel lost 10,000 talents by forgiving the servant, someone had to absorb your debt. Â And that person is the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. Â Our Lord became a human being in order stand in for us and pay what we humans owed. Â But since He is also God, the payment He earned was infinite, even as God Himself is infinite. Â Jesus took on Himself your debt, your sins, and they were crucified with Him. Â By dying in your place, Jesus settled your account with God foreverânot with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Â And by rising again to life, He earned eternal life for you and restored your relationship with the heavenly Father. Â All this He has done without any merit or worthiness in you but only because of His fatherly, divine, goodness and mercy. Â You are free from the power of sin, free from hell, free from being afraid of God. Â Overflowing forgiveness has been given to you. Â Like the servant, youâve been given a new life, a new start.
Since that is true, since God has answered for all sin at Calvaryâfor everyoneâsince itâs all covered by Jesusâ blood, who are we to act otherwise? Â Who are we to hold onto what God has let go of and dealt with and done away with, whether itâs our own sin or somebody elseâs?
The first servant in the Gospel failed to understand this. Â He didnât seem to see the connection between how his debt had been forgiven by the mercy of the king, and how therefore he was also to be forgiving toward others. Â And so he went out and grabbed his fellow servant by the throat and demanded, âPay me what you owe!â Â How could that servant behave the way he did? Â It seems to me the only way he could act like that was if he didnât really trust that his debt was truly forgiven. Â Still in the back of his mind he was thinking, âThis canât actually be true. Â Sooner or later, the kingâs going to be coming for me, and I better build up as much in the way of assets as I possibly can, so that maybe Iâll have a little bargaining power.â Â Do you see? Â If the servant truly believed that the debt was forgiven, he would have been like a renewed Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Day, a new man, giving away and passing on with cheer the same compassion he himself had received. Â Instead he didnât believe it; he didnât walk by faith. Â And so he put himself outside the kingâs mercy and ended up suffering the kingâs judgment. Â
Jesus issues a very clear warning to us here. Â To insist on payback with others is to invite God to get payback with you. Â To refuse to forgive others is to refuse to be forgiven by God. Â After all, you canât be on your knees before God and angrily at one anotherâs throats at the same time. Â The attitude of humility before God seeking His mercy is the same attitude we should have toward others in giving mercy.
Someoneâs got to pay. Â Either you can spend your life making sure other people pay for their sin-debts against you and be consumed by your anger and bitterness and efforts at making them pay for how wrong they were. Â Or you can pay using Jesusâ account. Â You have this limitless resource that Jesus has earned, that covers all sinâincluding those sometimes terrible sins that have been done against you. Â Jesus accounted and paid for all of it. Â With the abundant overflow of His mercy toward you, you are made able to forgive the debts owed to you by others. Â Because You have full access to Jesusâ account, you are given to say to others, âIâm going to treat you without a desire for revenge, without a desire for payback, without you having to make it up to me. Â Iâll take the hit, since the hit was already absorbed by Christ for both of us. Â I release you from your debt to me. Â I forgive you.â
Through Jesus God has forgiven the sins of every single human being, even those who wonât repent and believe and be saved. Â So also in Christ we forgive even those who wonât say theyâre sorry or be reconciled to us. Â Forgiveness is not dependent on the repentance of the person who committed the sin but on the actions and the attitude of the one who was sinned against. Â You can forgive someone even if the other person hasnât changed. Â Isnât that how it is with God? Â God has forgiven the whole worldâs sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Â Itâs all covered. Â People may still reject that and refuse to believe that and live outside of that forgiveness; but thatâs on them. Â If they are eternally condemned, itâs because of their own unbelief. Â But what we are given to do is to stand with Christ and offer His mercy. Â No sin is greater than Godâs forgiveness; and it is by His forgiveness that we forgive others. Â When someone does us harm, we remember, âJesus paid for that sin, too. And if He paid for their sin, itâs no use for me to behave as if He didnât.â
Real forgiveness like that will always be hard. Â But all the truly hard stuff was done by Jesus. Â All the sin-debt was transferred to Himâatoned for, punished, taken away, released and gone. Â Period. Â So when you find it difficult to forgive, or when you find yourself feeling unforgiving again toward a person youâve once forgiven, the way to deal with that is to return to the cross. Â You canât forgive someone from your heart when your heart is empty. Â Fill it with the merciful, debt-releasing words of Christ in Scripture. Â Fill it with the sanctifying flood that flows to you from your Baptism into Christ the crucified. Â And be filled once again with Jesusâ body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all sins.
â In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit â