Forgiving and Forgetting

 “Forgiving and Forgetting”

Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Nov 15, 2020

Hello, friends. My name is Brad and I’m part of the teaching and leadership team here at Jericho Ridge.  I want to welcome you into this space together as we launch into our teaching time together. 

We are in the middle of teaching series on the topic of forgiveness here at Jericho Ridge.  Our assumption is that now that you are not seeing people outside of your family bubble, you will likely be spending more time with a fixed group of people. This can often mean that things go well for a while but then you do something that ticks another person off and well, the need to say “I’m sorry” and to practice forgiveness kicks in. 

Forgiveness is a relational thing – we’ve been looking at the forgiveness God offers to us, last week we looked at the components of saying “sorry” to God (confession and repentance) and now today, we are going to explore the horizontal dimension of forgiveness: how it impacts Inter personal relationships.   

The questions here are ones like “how do I know someone is truly sorry?”  What if they do something over and over and over again? Do I have to keep forgiving them?  People talk about forgiving and forgetting – doesn’t that imply that justice is not done?” Jesus dives into these questions and more in Matthew 18.  Usually Christmas jump right into the “how to correct someone else” part of the chapter – verse 15.  But the context matters! 

At the start of this chapter, Jesus’ original disciples were arguing with each other.  Jostling for position in Jesus’ inner circle.  Let’s be frank, it was probably Peter, James and john.  So Jesus schools them.  He sets a child in the middle of the group and says “anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”

I can hear the disciples asking in their heads – “yeah, but what if people really hurt me? What if they repeatedly hurt me?  I can’t just overlook that kinda stuff, Jesus!  I might even forgive but I will never forget!”

So Jesus helps his followers understand how to relate to each other in the Family of faith.  Where there is a sin-oriented rupture in relationships (not just something that I don’t prefer).  Jesus here is laying down operational principles for life together in God’s family.  This is how to handle not all disagreements at work or other places.  This is how to handle it when another person who identifies Jesus as King and lord of their lives sins against you. 

Let’s read in Matthew 18:15-

“If another believer^[d] sins against you,^[e] go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

Jesus here has a long history of OT teaching on dispute resolution in mind stretching back to Leviticus 19:17 which states “Do not nurse hatred in your heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so you will not be held guilty for their sin.” 

But confronting someone is actually pretty easy.  Confronting someone in a deep spirit of humility is the hard part.  So Jesus says “start privately”.  The goal here, as at every step of this process, is constructive dialogue which leads to repentance and reconciliation.  You are to point out the area of sin, NOT from a place of seeking to score points over another but to win over your sister or brother.  Correction in the life of a follower of Jesus is  always redemptive in nature.  Rooted in deep humility. 

But Jesus is a realist – recognizes that this private conversation will not always have the result of that person falling down in confession and repentance.  So Jesus links back into another Old Testament teaching and practice from Deuteronomy 19:15 – “You must not convict anyone of a crime on the testimony of only one witness. The facts of the case must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

The first century synagogue and similarly the local ekklesia, the gathered community of the people of God in localized, family-like communities, was the hub of social and religious life.  It was a worshipping community but it was also a community centre, and functioned like an extended family.  So it also had a quasi-legal content when it came to arbitrating disputes amongst family members.

So Jesus is assuming that this sin that you are confronting in the life of another is an example of an ongoing, unrepentant sin against the community’s members.  That is why in places like I Peter, I Cor that discussions are happening in the church about sins happening in the lives of persons in the church.  This is not gossip or maliciously pouncing on others.  This is saying that each of us as an individual has a responsibility to the body / family as a whole.  And so when you engage in things like sexual sin outside of a marriage relationship between a husband and wife, your sin impacts this church. That’s how family works. The actions of one family member have impact the lives of others.     

That is also where we see the introduction of this 2-3 witness thing.  It is possible for us to read this as just ratcheting up the pressure or hammer.  But it is likely better seen as safeguard the accused so that the sister coming in to point out the offense, don’t come in with guns a blazing and blow them out of the water with false accusations.  Having other family members present ensures that you correct in a spirit of humility and not one of spite.  And again, if this doesn’t have the intended effect, which is restoration.  Then, you take the discussion to the whole-family level.

This is not so you can spread the details all over the place and shame them.  But it is to recognize that if you are habitually, unrepentantly sinning, has an impact on the family.  Unchallenged open sin spreads.  People begin to say “hummm… well, that person is in leadership and they have a horrible temper and no one says anything.  I guess its OK loose your cool on other people in unhealthy ways around here!”  

I can remember the day when 3 friends set up a breakfast with me and say me down and told me that I was not operating in my life from a place of humility.  They talked about me being nice but domineering.  Kind, but unrealistic in my expectations and resentful when people didn’t do exactly what I told them.  I felt shame.  I denied.  I was angry.  But upon further reflection, I know that I needed to seek the forgiveness of others around me and I needed to chance my behavior if I was going to maintain god-honouring relationships with people in my life over the long haul.    

The challenging part is that Jesus gives the church authority that she has often misused.  There are two equally dangerous ditches – high harmony (no challenge); high authority (keep people in line, excommunicate, ban, shun).  Jesus then continues with his discussion on how the family works:   

“I tell you the truth, whatever you forbid on earth will be forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit[g] on earth will be permitted in heaven. 19 “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. 20 For where two or three gather together as my followers,[h] I am there among them.” 

Intriguing that we often use this to talk about small group prayer. But Jesus is using this to talk about forgiveness.  In Deuteronomy 17:6-7. The 2-3 witness were to be the first to cast stones against the offender.  Here, they are to be the first 2-3 who care so deeply for their brother or sister who has left the way of Jesus, that they are to they are to be the first 2 or 3 to gather to pray and cry out to God for the person to come to a place of repentance and reconciliation.  But if the person does not, then, with the spiritual authority that God has given then, they have made a decision for the spiritual health and vitality of the body that is binding.

Friends, this is weighty stuff.  We have done this a few times in our 15 year history as a congregation and never lightly or quickly.  But when we come to this place, we are agreeing with God that sin is sin and that the sin impacts not only the persons relationship with God, but that a habitually sinning processing Christian is a contradictions in terms that needs to be dealt with.  This is why we have a code of conduct for worship team members – we can’t have you singing “Jesus, I surrender all” and then having them out publicly getting drunk or abusing a spouse.  There’s an incongruence there which needs to be protected. 

So Peter gets a sense of what Jesus is after and goes for an attaboy.  You see the rabbinical teaching was that you were to forgive a person who sinned against you or the community three times.  If that person sinned a fourth time, it meant they were not really getting this whole repentance thing including a chance of direction and so you could forget about forgiving them.  So Peter reaches high and says “what if I forgave a person 7 times”. That would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it Jesus? 

So Jesus tells Peter and us a story about scorekeeping and how antithetical that kind of approach is to live in the kingdom of heaven.  Look with me at Matthew 18:23-35.

Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. ²⁴ In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.^[k] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

²⁶ “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ ²⁷ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

²⁸ “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.^[l] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. ³⁰ But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

³¹ “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. ³² Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

This is the part that gets divorced from what evangelicals call the Matthew 18 principle. Three easy steps if your brother sins against you.  But Jesus subversively tells people.  Oh, you want to rush out and point out sin in others? Let me issue you a cautionary tale – a story of an Unforgiving Debtor. 

The guy owes like 150,000 years worth of salary to the king.  It is the biggest number imaginable in the ancient world.  More money than was in circulation in the entire country at the time.  Billions of dollars.  Jesus is shocking the system – the guy clearly can no repay this amount.  The man admits that the claim is just but then he goes out and makes an immediate and harsh demand on a person who owes him one millionth of what he owed the king! 

But the story is not about the money. .. It’s bout the heart.  That is how Jesus concludes: If you are going to go around excluding others from the family because of minor offenses against you, beware. God has a pretty strong sense not only of mercy, but also of justice.  And with the measure you use, it will be measured or dolled out to you.

“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.” 

So, what do we learn about forgiveness from Matthew 18 – the whole thing. 

• Forgiveness is about humility

You can’t step into the life of another without deep and sincere care for Even if the other person does not come to the place of repentance, your sincere desire for their flourishing and for them to be whole and well and restored to the community is what needs to bleed into every interaction with them. 

It may not always result in repentance, but it can’t coexist with pride. 

• Forgiveness is about not keeping score;

Some people hear this and think “oh, you mean “forgive and forget”.  Un, no, I do not.  That phrase never appears in the biblical discussion on interpersonal forgiveness.  Forgetting can lead to re-victimization.  It can lead to us placing ourselves or others in harms way. 

I love what my friend Kevin Koop who is a pastor in the prairies said in a conversation last month on Twitter.  “one of the things we miss is the role of genuine confession and repentance.  We often expect victims to offer forgiveness but don’t hold perpetuators to a similar emotional standard. We usually place almost all of the emotional burden on victims, instead of asking the individual who caused harm to do the hard work of repairing relationships… forgiveness quickly becomes an easy ticket back into power for someone who has caused harm… The cross, then, is not a convenient way around the truth, but rather a path to peace that acknowledges the fallenness of humans AND their divine worth’.

The cross is not a place of score keeping.  On it, Jesus chooses to bear our sin and shame and to do away with it by self-giving love.  And Jesus doesn’t then hold that over our heads and say ‘do you know how much you owe me?  I mean, it’s a LOT!  Like you have committed a lot of sins there, Brad!” 

The point of the parable is the lavish magnitude of god’s grace.  And it is an invitation for us to step into that place of agreement with God that if god has evidenced mercy to you and to me when we repent, then we are not to withhold mercy from others who repent. 

We are going to move into a time of communion.  Jesse and the team are going to lead us in a time of worship in song.  But before we move there, I want us to pause and ask “is there anyone in the family of faith against which I am keeping score?  Is there anyone that I am holding a grudge against?

In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus sets up a scenario where you are coming to worship and “and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.”  The same cane be said if you have someone against someone.  If God brings that to mind, any offense you caused or anyone who has offended you, pause the live stream right now and deal with it.  Getting that relationship right, offering forgiveness from your heart, is more important than singing a few songs or tracking with the communion meal. 

Think about this like a family meal.  The table is supposed to be a place of free flowing conversations and connection.  If there are actions r attuites that have created a block there, tend to them.  Ask God for the humility to repent.

Let’s pray together.  “Reconciling God, we would rather gossip about those who sin against us, than speak to them privately; we would rather parade our wounds for all to see, than quietly work toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Help us choose the harder road, the road that opens possibilities for real healing, real forgiveness, and real growth in your Spirit. Help us place the best interests of our community of faith above our own need for public vindication. Amen.

Take, eat – the body of Christ, broken for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Take and eat knowing that God is merciful and God is just and has forgiven all who cry our for mercy and cleansing. 

Take, and drink.  The blood of Christ shed so that you can experience peace with God without the dread that score is being kept. You have freely receive received the forgiveness of God.  Freely offer it to others. 

Let’s worship together

Benediction:

Today’s benediction comes from the writings of Nathan Nattleton rooted in the text of Matthew 18 and Romans 13:

“Go out in love, reconciled to one another in Christ. Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. Live honourably, fulfilling the law through love for all. And may God mark you out for salvation; May Christ Jesus be present among you always, And may the Holy Spirit reconcile you to one another and fulfil the law of love among you. We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, ........In the name of Christ. Amen.