The Gap

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Genesis 4:3-12; Luke 15:25-32

September 21, 2014 • Portage First UMC

Once upon a time, there were two brothers, one older than the other by just a little bit. For many years, the two were inseparable. In fact, for all they knew, they and their mom and dad were the only people in the world. And while they grew up together, they developed different interests. The oldest loved to get dirty, to get his hands in the soil and cause things to grow. He became a farmer by trade, and his whole family benefited from his abilities. The younger kept closer to home. He loved animals and would tend them and make sure they stayed together. He also was the one who would provide the meat for the lavish meals they sometimes shared. The partnership worked well, and the family was happy and content.

Then came the day when both brothers went before the Lord to offer some of what they had produced as an offering. Mom and Dad had told them it was a way to honor the God who had created them and given them everything they had. So the younger brought his offering first, and God smiled. Then the older brought his offering before God…and there was silence. There was no response from God. It was obvious God had rejected his offering. Why? He never knew. But something changed in his heart that day. Something was different. In fact, he went off by himself for a while, not even telling his brother where he was going. They didn’t talk for a week.

Then, the older brother came home and went straight to his sibling. “Hey,” he said, “let’s go for a walk.” That sounded good. It would be a time, away from Mom and Dad, to clear the air, to straighten things out, to restore their relationship. Or it could have been a time like that. But once they were out in the field, and the younger brother turned toward the older, he was met not with kindness but with a club. The older brother beat his younger brother to death. “There,” he said. “That’s done. Now, let’s see if God can accept your offering now.” And he buried his brother in the field, thinking the whole matter was settled. But there was still something burning in his heart, an ache that would not go away, a hole that would not be filled.

Once upon a time, there were two brothers, one older than the other by a few years, one wiser than the other by a million miles. Or so it seemed. The younger came to their father one day and asked for his inheritance. Inheritance. Before the father was dead. The younger boy couldn’t wait to shake the dust of this little dinky town off his feet and make it big in the big city. And so the father gave him what belonged to him, and the next day, the younger boy headed out without even saying goodbye to his brother. And while the older brother continued to work at home, the younger was living it up. He had lots of friends, at least as long as the money held out. When it was all gone, the friends vanished into thin air. He lost his car, his upscale apartment, and all of the expensive clothes except the ones he had on his back when he arrived in the city. His Visa was cancelled and the bank wouldn’t return his calls. What was he going to do?

Meanwhile, the older brother continued to work the farm. Every day, he worked. Every night, he slept soundly because he was so weary from the work. He never asked anything of his father; in fact, he barely spoke to his father. It was all about the work. He was going to prove to his father than he was the better son. One night, when he came back in from the field, he noticed that the butcher’s block had been used, and that the fattened calf, the one they had been saving for a special occasion, was gone. Then he heard the sound of dancing and music and laughter and glasses clinking. And something that had been simmering in his heart since his brother left began to overflow. He stood there, in the shadows cast by the lights of the party, and screamed in anger.

His father, who must have heard him but pretended not to, came out. “Son,” he said, “what’s the matter?” The older boy got right in his father’s face. “Who’s the party for, Dad?” But Dad could tell he already knew, so he didn’t say anything. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” the older brother went on. “I have worked and worked and slaved for you here, and I’ve never asked for anything, not even a scrawny young goat to celebrate with my friends. But when this—this—this ‘son of yours’ comes home, the one who spent all your money, you killed the prize calf.” And the father stood there, taking the jealous, irrational rage of his son on himself.

Two stories—one a history and the other a parable—two sets of brothers, both confronted and conquered by what, is perhaps, the most sneaky of all the enemies of our heart. For the last few weeks, we’ve been considering these emotions that threaten and attempt to control us. The first week, you may remember, we looked a guilt, which says, “I owe you.” Next was anger, which says, “You owe me.” And, then, last week, we looked at greed, which makes the claim, “I owe me.” And while that may, in fact, be the most personal enemy, the most deadly one is yet to come because this enemy tricks us, fools us as to whom we are actually angry and frustrated with. The final enemy of the heart we want to look at today is jealousy, and jealousy says, “God owes me” (Stanley, Enemies of the Heart, pg. 77).

Now, that may sound a bit strange, because our experiences of jealousy would tell us differently. When we think of jealousy, we think of wanting something someone else has. When we think of jealousy, it may look something like this. My neighbor just got a great new car. Has all the bells and whistles. I sure wish I had a car like that. In fact, I wish I had a better car than that. My sister is so skinny it makes me ill, and no matter what I do I can’t seem to look like her. That guy is a great basketball player; if I could do what he does, maybe more people would like me. If I were as smart as her, I would have done better on the SAT and gotten into the school I really wanted to get into. If only I could speak publicly like him, then I would be on the fast track for the promotions in this company instead of him. If I had made this choice rather than that choice, I might be part of the “haves” rather than the “have nots.” If I had a better upbringing, if my parents had made different choices…and we can go on and on and on. Jealousy causes us to focus on what we don’t have but think that we should. Jealousy says, “I want something but I didn’t get it or can’t have it.” And jealousy leads us into playing the “blame game.”

Blame is an interesting concept, because we tend to want to blame those whom we can see. It doesn't matter if they are actually responsible or not. In the first “brothers” story, taken from Genesis 4, Cain, the older brother, blamed Abel, his younger brother, for having his offering to God received. It was obviously Abel’s fault, thought Cain, that God rejected my offering. And in the second “brothers” story, the older blamed the younger for his hurt feelings. Why is that louse being celebrated when I’ve been so ignored? And we blame others just the same. It’s that guy’s fault I didn’t get the promotion. It’s my parents’ fault that I feel unloved. It’s my husband’s fault that I had to leave my friends and move here. It’s my wife’s fault that I have to work so hard. Blame is easy. You know what else blame is? Blame is an “admission that I can’t be happy without your cooperation. To blame is to acknowledge dependence: if you don’t act a certain way, I can’t be satisfied or content. If you take this to its logical extreme, you can never be happy until you're able to control the actions and reactions of everybody you come into contact with” (Stanley 165). When jealousy strikes, we’re looking for someone around us to blame, and we do that because we’re ignoring the one we are really frustrated with. Jealousy says, “God owes me.” I mean, let’s face it. Let’s be honest. All those things that are so-called “problems” in our life? God could have fixed that, if he wanted to. He could have made my life much better than it is now, much better than the lives of those other people. Or he could have made it at least as good as those other people. Cain is mad at God because he accepted Abel’s offering and not his (and we’re not told why). The older brother is mad at his father (who, in Jesus’ parable, stands in for God) because the father chose to lavish love and mercy on the younger. Jealousy is the belief that God owes us something, and God had better pay up.

Of course, we don’t phrase it that way. We may not even think of it that way, which is why we blame others. The problem is that the person we’re jealous of can’t do a single thing to remedy the situation. They cannot make our situation better. And beyond that, even if they could, there will always be someone else who is, in our thinking, skinnier, more talented or just plain luckier than we are. There will always be someone to be jealous of. And jealousy, because we’re aiming it at some other person, creates a gap in the relationship. It can sometimes even do irreparable harm to the relationship. But because at the root we’re upset that God treats that other person better than he treats us, it creates a gap in our relationship with God as well.

Jealousy comes from unsatisfied appetites, according to the Bible. James describes it this way: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight” (4:2). Unsatisfied appetites. Think of it this way: every evening, we sit down to dinner. And before us is a well-prepared meal. On good days, it’s balanced for our nutritional needs; on rushed days, it’s something out of the microwave, but nevertheless, you sit down and you eat. And you feel full, so you stop. Your appetite for food has been satisfied. For the moment. But if you’re like me, somewhere around 9:30 or so, my tummy starts telling me, “Hey, what about some food down here? No, forget healthy food. Let’s get some ice cream, or chips, or cookies, or something that’s just not good for you.” And so I wander up into the kitchen, even without thinking about it much, and rummage around in the cabinet until I find something that will satisfy my appetite. For a while. Until the morning. Or the next meal. We have a teenage son, and he’s in the kitchen rummaging around about every hour. James says we have other appetites that are not so easy to satisfy. We long for things. You desire, but do not have, so you get jealous. You desire, but do not have, so you blame someone else. You desire, but do not have, so you blame God. James says you desire, but do not have, so you kill. I don’t know if he meant that word literally or not, but how many relationships have been killed because of jealousy, because of unsatisfied desires, because of the gap that develops when we fail to be fully satisfied by the right things? James says, most often, we’re asking for the wrong things and, even more, asking the wrong person. We’re expecting someone here to satisfy our longings when the only one who can is God. James puts it this way: “You do not have because you do not ask God” (4:2).

In the story of Cain and Abel, without even being asked, God tells Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” (4:7). The implication is, “Yes, you will be.” We don’t know what Cain did wrong, but that’s hardly the point, because, as God points out, “sin is crouching at your door.” There’s danger here as Cain’s jealousy of Abel begins to grow, because Cain is not really jealous of Abel. He’s really angry with God, that God did not accept his sacrifice. He desired, but he did not have, and so he killed. In the story of the prodigal son, the father tells the elder brother he could have anything he wanted. In fact, because the younger brother had already taken his inheritance, it was literally true that everything the father owned already belonged to the elder brother. “You never gave me,” the elder brother says. And though the father doesn’t say it, he could have: “You never asked.” That’s a story I wish had a better ending. I mean, yes, we love the ending of the story that says the younger son was welcomed home. But I want to know what happens to the older brother, because he is most of us. He is the one who has always been with the father. He is the one who works alongside the father every day, and yet he’s completely missed the point of their relationship. He's been near, but he’s been so far. There’s been a gap. He desired, but he did not think he had, so he killed a relationship or two along the way. The problem for both Cain and the elder brother is that they’ve been focused on the wrong things and asking the wrong questions. The first thing we need to do in order to conquer jealousy is to refocus.

James puts it this way: “Submit yourselves, then, to God…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (4:7, 10). Refocusing requires humility, but what is humility? We’ve often misunderstood or even misinterpreted humility. We think of it often as tearing yourself down, making yourself small somehow. Or, even worse, it’s thinking you’re not worth anything. Now, how do we square that with a Scripture that tells us we are made in the image of God, that we are worth dying for, that we are worth more to God, the creator of the universe, than we can even imagine? Humility is not tearing ourselves down. True humility is seeing ourselves rightly, seeing ourselves as who we really are in relation to God. The psalmist puts it this way: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands…” (8:4-6). We are made a little lower than the angels, but God has given us huge responsibility. Humility is seeing ourselves in right relationship with God. He is God and we are not. He knows what is best and we often do not. Humility is an aspect of trust. Do we trust God to work things out for the very best, even when it’s hard?

Of course, it's hard to trust someone we don’t know, so perhaps for some of us the first step in refocusing our lives is found through developing a personal relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. It’s only the relationship the prodigal son has with his father that allows him to come back home. He couldn’t have run up the lane of any other farm in the area and been as welcomed or accepted as he was at home. In the moment he began walking home, he was refocusing his life, re-establishing the relationship he should have had with his father all along. Maybe some of us need to begin that relationship by asking Jesus to be a part of our lives, by turning toward the Father. Jesus came to deal with all the sin that breaks our relationships to each other and to God the Father. “Sin” is a word we don’t use much anymore, but the basic understanding (in the Old Testament and in the New) is “missing the mark.” It's shooting for a target and missing. It’s a “willful shortcoming,” a choice not to walk with God or to live in the way he calls us to live (cf. Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone, Part One, pg. 68). Refocusing calls us to turn around, repent of our attitude, and allow Jesus to live in our lives. The Bible makes this promise: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” (James 4:8). Refocus, repent, whatever word you want to use here, the beginning of the end of jealousy is seeing ourselves in right relationship with God.

And that, then, should lead us to a practice that helps lessen the lure of jealous feelings in our lives. That practice is called “celebration.” Heard of it? It’s not just about throwing a big party. It’s about celebrating what God has given us—what God has given you, and given me. Rather than focusing all the time on what we don't have, why not celebrate the things God has given us? It's far too easy to center our thoughts and our hearts on the things we don’t have. The father of the prodigal tries to get his son to see this. To the elder brother, he says, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (15:31). In other words, why don’t you look around? Everything you see already belongs to you. I’ve provided you with everything I have. And yet, there’s some greed going on here, too, as the older brother realizes that whatever is being spent on the party inside is coming out of his inheritance, and he doesn’t want his brother to get any of it. That lousy no-good brother doesn’t deserve it (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 190). As one commentator points out, the older brother is not a fan of mercy. He hates grace (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 185). So the father quickly goes on. “But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (15:32). Jesus, through this father, says that not only should we celebrate the things we have, but part of bridging the gap—between us and others and between us and God—is to celebrate when good things happen to others, especially those of whom we are jealous.

I learned that in many ways, one of which had to do with a seminary classmate. He and I worked together a lot in our early days in ministry, and one year we got asked to write the curriculum for what was then Senior High Institute at Epworth Forest. The materials we wrote would be used by thousands of senior highers and youth leaders for four weeks during the summer. So we worked hard on it, sending files back and forth and sharpening each other’s ideas, and this was in the early days of the internet, so those files went slowly through email. And when it was done, we printed it and got good response to it. And then he was invited, out of that experience, to write curriculum that would be used all across the denomination. And I was rather frustrated. Neither one of us had identified who wrote what in the Institute curriculum, but he was asked and I never was. I found myself staring at the green-eyed monster of envy and jealousy. Why was his ministry being recognized and mine being ignored? Have you ever felt that way toward someone? It took me a while to get to the point where I was actually glad for him, where I could celebrate his accomplishments. I never told him how I felt but it put somewhat of a damper on our relationship until I got to the point where I could celebrate him and at the same time be thankful for what I had.

Ed Dobson was a pastor for many years in Grand Rapids, Michigan, having moved there from Northern Ireland. He earned his doctorate at the University of Virginia and was a consulting editor for the well-respected Leadership magazine. And then, he was diagnosed with ALS, the disease better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS progressively removes a person’s ability to function, and even as Ed stepped out of the active pastoral ministry, he declared, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” Lately, Ed has struggled with increasing debilitation, but he refuses to give up. Let’s take a glimpse into his life.

VIDEO: “Ed’s Story: Grateful” clip

Rejoice and celebrate even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. It would be natural for Ed to be jealous of so many others who do not have the challenges and the suffering he does. Why did God allow this to happen to him? Why didn’t God take this disease away? Why hasn’t he gotten better, despite the prayers of so many people? Ed’s situation would lead many to despair, anger and jealousy. But he refuses to give into that. Even as he contemplates the suffering Jesus, he continues to be grateful—for those who help him, for those who surround him with love, for those who carry on the ministry he began, and for God’s presence in the midst of suffering. Ed’s story reminds us that celebration is what we need, even in the worst of circumstances.

We won’t always “feel” like celebrating. Like our response to anger, the feelings will follow later—maybe much later. Still, we choose to celebrate, even if we don’t feel like it. Is that lying? No, it’s making a choice to be better than our inclinations want us to be. And it’s learning to be grateful for whatever comes our way rather than spending all of our time and energy focused on what we don’t have, or on someone who, we think, has more (and, usually in our thought, doesn’t deserve it). If we refuse to celebrate, jealousy can easily (and sometimes quickly) become resentment.

So, then, the question for us is this: who do you secretly (or maybe not so secretly) resent? Maybe it’s even someone sitting here with you this morning. Is it the boss? The executives who don’t seem to see you? The person who has less talent than you do but seems to always get noticed at work? The one who seems to have everything handed to them? Or maybe your resentment is aimed not at an individual but rather at a group of people. If you’re single, maybe you resent or are jealous of married people. (Maybe it’s vice versa!) Those who want children can become jealous of those who have children. Those whose financial situation won’t allow them to retire can be jealous of those who retired early (cf. Stanley 72). Those who want to be in charge are often jealous of those who are. And so on. Who gets you upset? Here’s the disturbing news: God is calling you to celebrate even for that person or those people. That’s the message at the end of Jesus’ parable. The elder brother does not want to have anything to do with his younger brother, and yet the father tells him, “We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (15:32). He was dead and is alive again; there has been resurrection happening here, and any time there is a resurrection, there must be a celebration (cf. Wright 190). Celebration is vital. As Andy Stanley puts it, “Celebrating the success of those you envy will allow you to conquer those emotions that have the potential to drive a wedge in the relationship” (176). Celebration brings hope out of a life struggling with jealousy. Celebration brings gratitude and helps bridge the gap that has grown.

So, coming at our heart from four different directions are four enemies that can cause long-lasting damage if we don’t confront and conquer them. Guilt says, “I owe you,” and is conquered with the practice of confession. Anger says, “You owe me,” and is conquered with the practice of forgiveness. Greed says, “I owe me,” and is conquered with the discipline of generosity. And jealousy says, “God owes me,” and is overcome through celebration. If we’re going to effectively serve Christ, to be able to do what he calls us to do, it’s important to be vigilant and check the health of our heart. We know it’s important to get regular check-ups on our physical heart and body. If we want to live long and feel good, we wouldn’t skip those check-ups. We need to do the same for our spiritual life as well, the heart we say we have given to Jesus. So how’s your heart? Are any of these enemies threatening you today? Talk to God about it and be sure to schedule regular check-ups with the Great Physician. Let’s pray.

Habit in Disguise

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Luke 12:13-21

September 14, 2014 • Portage First UMC

Little kids love to play dress up. They love to get into mom’s or dad’s closet and find clothes to try on. Or they love to wear old costumes and pretend they are someone else. Christopher never did too much of that, but Rachel loved to wear her princess dresses around the house. Of course, whether she had the dress on or not, she was (and is) always a princess! Part of the fun for kids is to be able to pretend they are someone else, someone other than who they are. Of course, when we grow up, we continue to wear disguises—maybe not princess dresses, but other sorts of disguises. We put on a face in public that is often different from who we are in private. We are nice to people when they are around and unkind to them when they aren’t. And one of the great American disguises is to pretend that we are better than we really are, that we are wealthier, more successful and more powerful than reality says we are. And it becomes to easy to believe our own press releases, so much so that we begin to believe we deserve all the best things in life. “I’m worth it!” we say. It’s in those moments we are most vulnerable to the third of our enemies of the heart, an enemy that is very often a habit disguised as something good, as a virtue.

Two weeks ago, we talked about guilt as an enemy of the heart, and guilt says “I owe you.” Last Sunday, we focused on anger, when says, “You owe me.” This morning, we narrow the focus even more as we zero in on greed, an enemy that says, “I owe me” (Stanley, Enemies of the Heart, pg. 69). But it whispers that phrase quietly, because, as I said, greed disguises itself. It often is made to look like a virtue. We wouldn’t probably picture ourselves as struggling with greed mot of the time. Rather, we say we are savers, and saving is a good thing. Or we’re planning for the future, and who can deny that you should make sure your family is taken care of? Or we are making responsible financial choices, and that’s a good thing as well, right (Stanley 70)? Greed is easy to hide because we convince ourselves we are doing the right thing by holding on to what we have. After all, we earned it. We deserve it. And more than that, we deserve even more than we currently have. I deserve every good thing that could possibly come my way.

Of course, it’s easy to identify greed in others. We shake our heads at the fact that the average American household has a credit card debt of $15,000, a debt they will probably never pay off. We say, “Those poor people. When will they ever learn?” But greed is not primarily a financial issue. Greed is a heart issue, a heart disease. It does, of course, manifest itself often in matters of money. For instance, greedy people talk a lot and worry a lot about money. Greedy people are not cheerful givers and are reluctant to share. Greedy people argue over small amounts of money and usually talk as if they have just enough to get by. If they had a little more, life would be better. Greedy people are reluctant to express gratitude and never let you forget if they’ve done something for you. Greedy people are poor losers and are never content with what they have. And most of all, greedy people attempt to control others with their money (Stanley 70-71). Does that sound like anyone you know? That’s usually an easy question to answer. The harder question is this: does that sound, in any way, like you?

I know that describes me from time to time. I’m aware of the greed that lurks in my heart. I don’t know why it is that every time I plan to preach on a topic like this, Apple decides to announce new products! I think Tim Cook somehow knows my preaching schedule! But as I watched the new gadgets being announced, I was thinking about my own life, and I got to thinking back to seminary, to the beginning days of our marriage. We basically had nothing. We lived in a little two-room apartment rented to us by the seminary and we used furniture that used to be on the deck at Cathy’s grandmother’s lake house. We clipped coupons, received government subsidy food, ate out about once every two weeks, and did dishes by hand every night. Cathy was our only income, and most of that went to pay for school. When we began in ministry, I made below Conference minimum salary because I wasn’t yet ordained, and even when I finally made it minimum, it wasn’t much. And as our income grew over the years, the heart disease called greed grew as well, and I still struggle with it. Those shiny new gadgets catch my eye every time. Last winter, when we had our flood in the lower level, we went through a lot of boxes full of stuff we haven’t unpacked since we moved here nine years ago, stuff we obviously didn’t and don’t need, and while some of it ended up here at the Rummage Sale, a lot of it also got put back in waterproof boxes and stored again, saving for “some day.” Stuff. Things. Greed is a habit I wrestle with and I don’t always win. It’s not a financial issue; it’s a heart issue.

Jesus knew the depths of sin in the human heart, and he knew how much greed can get ahold of us, and so one day he told a parable in response to a question he was asked. As Luke tells it, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem for the final week of his life. And while he and the disciples are traveling, someone (whose name apparently does not matter to Luke) calls out from the crowd with a question for Jesus: “Teacher,” he says, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (12:13). Rabbis, or teachers, in those days were often asked to arbitrate in matters of ethics or Jewish law (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 159; Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 961). And the man makes this request of Jesus, but we don’t know anything about the situation. We don’t know which brother is the oldest, though we can guess that the man asking the question is the younger of the two, because Jewish law said the younger would get less. Assuming two brothers, the oldest was to get 2/3 of the inheritance, and the younger would get 1/3. This man, it seems, wants it to be divided equally. Or maybe the other brother isn’t giving this man anything at all. And there’s an even more disturbing thing to consider: we don’t even know if the parents were dead yet. It’s possible these brothers are arguing about an inheritance they might get someday. (Sure glad families don’t do that today!) But we’re not told any of that. Rather, this man shouts a question out, trying to drag Jesus into the middle of their family dispute, and Jesus refuses. In fact, he turns away from the man and uses the situation to teach his disciples. He’s been telling them things to watch out for, and now he adds another one: “Watch out!” he says. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (12:15). And then, as he so often does, he tells a story.

There was once a rich man, Jesus says, who had a bumper crop one year. It was better than he expected, better perhaps than he’d ever had before. The rains came at just the right time, the sun shone at just the right time, the seed was good—all of the conditions came together to have a good crop. And so he has all this extra stuff—what will he do with it? That’s the question he asks himself. In Luke’s Gospel, anyone who talks to themselves or thinks to themselves is bad—it results in a bad end. So that’s Luke telling us that things are not going to go well here (Card 160). He says, “What shall I do?” And then, without consulting anyone, least of all God, he makes up his mind. “This is what I’ll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself—” (again, talking to himself) “—You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (12:18-19). Bigger barns. That will solve his awful problem of having too much. Just build a bigger barn. Today, he would go rent a storage facility. Andy Stanley calls this BBS—Bigger Barn Syndrome. I need more and more and more and more, and even when I have what I think I need today, I’ll still need more (cf. Stanley 140). BBS threatens us all from time to time. But it’s not like the common cold; it won’t just pass. This heart disease is deadly, and Jesus demonstrates that in the rest of the story.

What the man did not factor into his plans was an encounter with God. God shows up and calls the man a “fool.” With a single word, this man’s world is shattered. He’s thought of himself as wealthy, independent, important, successful. But from God’s viewpoint, he is foolish. That’s the way the Bible defines someone who is far from God, who chooses their own way and tries to leave God out of the equation. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” writes the psalmist (14:1). In another place, the psalmist says, “People who have wealth but lack understanding are like the beasts that perish” (49:20). That’s what this man is. He is a fool; he is wealthy but lacks understanding. In the end, it’s not what the world thinks of him but what God thinks, and that is made clear by what God says next: “This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (12:20). The word translated “demanded” there really has the meaning of a loan being called in. In other words, this man’s life—and our lives—are only on loan from God. We are not independent and self-important. We are stewards of a life given to us by God.

And then there’s that question that rings out at every funeral, over every casket and gravesite: in the end, what difference will all your stuff, the things your have greedily hoarded, make? Who will get what you think you own? Because everything we have, everything we possess, all that we think makes us successful and important will eventually either be tossed on the trash heap or belong to someone else. “It’s not a matter of if somebody else will get it; it’s just a matter of when and how” (Stanley 144). Because we are only stewards for a brief time.

So Jesus challenges his disciples—and us—with these words: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God” (12:20). The first part of that verse is the essence of a greedy person: someone who stores up things for themselves and seeks to leave God out of the picture. And that can include those of us who come to church every Sunday. Coming to church doesn’t make us less greedy. We may feel uncomfortable on a day, like today, when the preacher talks about money and stuff and things, but that discomfort will be gone by this afternoon and we’ll be free to live the way we always have—God-less. That doesn’t mean we won’t give lip service to God, but Jesus is calling to more than that. He is calling us beyond being rich toward things, which is easy in our culture, to being rich toward God. What does he mean by that phrase? And what is it in that kind of life that can combat the greed that threatens us?

As Apple was announcing those new products this week, I was looking into this word Jesus uses in verse 15 that is translated as “greed.” What I found fascinating is that this word not only means a desire for financial gain, it’s also translated as “covet” and “lust” in other places. Basically, it means having a strong desire for something that is not yours, that does not belong to you and that you probably shouldn’t have. Greed is about much more than just money. It’s about stuff. It’s about wanting what your neighbors have. It’s about desiring someone you’re not married to. It’s a heart disease that strikes at the root of who we are, what we have, and what we want. And all the while, we forget that, every week here, we pray that prayer Jesus taught us. Do you remember what’s in that prayer? “Give us this day our daily bread.” Not our “weekly” bread. Not “enough bread for the year, or next year, or for retirement.” Daily bread. That’s a hard prayer for us to really pray, even though the words are easy enough to repeat, because when we really pray that, we have to ask why we have so much stuff. Why have we let greed have such a strong hold on us?

It’s easy to blame our culture. After all, we live in a consumer-driven culture, and fairly soon, all of the retailers will be telling us how we need things and how we ought to purchase big ticket items for Christmas for each other. That, they say, will make us happy and content. It’s a lie. It may make us content for a few moments, until the next big ticket item comes along. The only person we make happy is the retailer, on his or her way to the bank. And yes, the culture is “stuff-happy,” but it’s the culture we have created. Greed is not ultimately a culture issue. It’s a heart issue.

So how do we confront and combat this enemy called “greed”? Winning the war against greed requires us to have a changed attitude and a faithful practice. The attitude is called “stewardship.” Now, I’m not talking about giving—that’ll come in a few moments! Stewardship is about more than giving. Stewardship is a lifestyle, an attitude, a recognition that it all belongs to God and we are only the stewards, the keepers of what we have. We don’t own it. Even if our name is on the title or the contract, we don’t own it. It is God’s world, and he owns it all. In fact, in the very first pages of the Bible, that is clear. The command given to the first man and woman was to take care of the Garden God gave them (Genesis 2:15). Jesus says, “Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (12:15), but for the greedy person, life is all about stuff. The stuff is an extension of who they are (cf. Stanley 72). For the steward, the stuff is just that—stuff. The real question for the steward is this: “Why does God give me more than I need?”

The answer, for the steward, is: so that we can engage in the practice of generosity. That’s one of the values we have here at this church: extravagant generosity. Unlike the man in Jesus’ parable, the steward asks, “Lord, what do you want me to do with the extra you have given me? How can I bless others with the blessings you have given me?” Greed is conquered by generosity. The practice of generosity calls us to trust God more than we trust our things, our bank accounts, our equity statements and the stock market. The practice of generosity reminds us that we have what we have so that we can bless the lives of others. Generosity is the practice of giving unselfishly so that we can make a difference in the lives of others for the cause of Jesus Christ. Extravagant generosity is taking that to the next level, sharing what we have and giving of our resources in unexpected and lavish ways, sacrificing what we have for the sake of others and for the sake of the kingdom of God. Research has shown that not only do Christians find more joy in their faith when they practice generosity, but congregations grow to the extent they are willing to be generous (Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, pg. 112).

The practical way we talk in this church about carrying that out is through the Biblical practice of tithing—giving the first ten percent of what we have to Jesus through his church. We have had a long-term goal of becoming a tithing church where all of us understand and are practicing at least that as a witness of our generosity. After all, the local church—Portage First—leads the way by tithing to the general church, to make camps and missionaries and works of mercy and kindness possible all over the world. But it’s hard for us to think about tithing, and yet I know that practice is the one that most challenges the greed in my heart. Cathy and I have not always gotten it right, and so I’m not setting us up as some sort of saints, but my experience is all I know, so that’s why I share it. Early on in our marriage, we justified not giving anything to the church we were a part of because we didn’t have much. We had very little income. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what it was exactly that turned my heart around, because I’m the one who manages our finances. But somewhere along the way, we were challenged to begin tithing, even on what little we had. In one of my Old Testament classes, I read about the only way we’re allowed to test God. In the prophet Malachi, God says directly we can test him in this: in tithing. He says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse…test me in this…and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it” (Malachi 3:10). Now, this is not a “health and wealth,” prosperity message. It’s not about being blessed so we can have more. The message of the Bible is constantly this: when God blesses you, it’s so that you can be a blessing to others. God promised to pour out more on Israel so that they could bless their neighbors more. And he still does that. Test me in this, he says, and so we did. Cathy and I began making sure that the first check we wrote every week was ten percent to the church. And we always had enough. Always. God has been faithful to provide.

So then, we found ourselves, still in seminary, at a free concert at a local church where the call was made to sponsor children in a third world nation. And there was this undeniable tug at my heart, saying, “You’re blessed to be a blessing.” We still didn’t have much, but we began sponsoring a child. And we had enough. And then a friend went to Africa as a missionary, and asked if we could support him. So we did. And we had enough. And then another friend went to be a missionary in east Asia. Could we support her? So we did. And we had enough. We’ve always been blessed and we have sought to be a blessing. Now, our practice of generosity has been that the first ten percent goes to whatever church we are a part of. Other things and persons that we support come after that. One Advent, I had this crazy idea that I would say “yes” to every organization that asked for help by sending a little bit to them. And I felt good about that—until I realized that just put me on their mailing list to ask for more! But we’ve always had enough.

Now, greed still lurks around. The greed in my heart has not been completely defeated yet; the battles rages on. But when that shiny thing beckons, I remember I have made these commitments first. And I am always seeking to be ever more generous because only generosity can defeat greed.

Bishop Robert Schnase points out that church folks 150 years ago faithfully tithed, even though they had very little. Today, most folks give about 1 1/2% rather than the ten we’re called to start with in the Bible. Schnase says that’s because “our society’s values shape our perceptions more than our faith’s values do” (115). He wonders why the other practices of the faith are helpful but tithing is not considered to be? Do we really believe greed doesn’t have that big a hold on us? If we do, we’re deceiving ourselves. He asks, “Is the avoidance of tithing a fruit of faithfulness, or the result of submission to the values of a consumerist culture?” In our heart of hearts, we know the answer to that question. And then, he reminds us that we are reaping the benefits, even now, of someone’s extravagant generosity. I’m going to share his words here because he says it better than I can. “Every sanctuary and chapel in which we have worshiped, every church organ that has lifted our spirits, every pew where we have sat, every communion rail where we have knelt, every hymnal from which we have sung, every praise band that has touched our hearts, every church classroom where we have gathered with our friends, every church kitchen that has prepared our meals, every church van that has taken us to camp, every church camp cabin where we have slept—all are the fruit of someone’s Extravagant Generosity. We have been the recipients of grace upon grace. We are the heirs, the beneficiaries of those who came before us who were touched by the generosity of Christ enough to give graciously so that we could experience the truth of Christ for ourselves. We owe the same to generations to come” (116). The first step in conquering greed is practicing the tithe, so that others may come to know Jesus as we have.

But because greed is a heart issue, simply writing a check will not conquer it completely. There is also a need to put our feet into action and give ourselves away as much as our money. In just a couple of weeks, you have a small opportunity to do that during our Faith in Action Sunday. September 28 is the day; we’ll gather here at 10:00 for a short worship service and then send you out to work on projects for our community. You see, we can get just as greedy with our time and our energy as we do with our money. So there are projects of all sorts you can sign up for and get involved with. There will be a group writing words of encouragement to soldiers serving our country. The choir will be going to sing to those who are in long-term care facilities, and anyone who wants to sing is welcome to go with them. Mission Possible Kids will be taking DVDs and games to ministries that reach out to children in need, to share some of what they have with others. There will be a group giving of their time in praying for our community and our world, and it’s no secret that there is a huge need for that! Others are invited to make gift tags for the Christmas gift lift, presents that will go to those who might otherwise not have a Christmas to celebrate. And there will be a huge group setting up for this fall’s Rummage Sale in the fellowship hall, unloading the shed and setting up tables.

And then there is one other project that we will want everyone’s help with, and that’s our annual “Stepping Out, Stopping Hunger” campaign. We’ve done this for several years now, and while it may seem “old hat,” the need is still real. There are still hungry people in our own community. You may not see them, but they are there. And so we set out to, in a single week, collect enough food to fill the food pantry for a whole month. That’s somewhere around 10,000 pounds of food, give or take. Next Sunday, you will receive bags to fill, and you can fill them yourselves, or you can give your neighbors a chance to participate as well, to practice generosity. Our youth groups are going out next Sunday afternoon and making food collection into a scavenger hunt. We just ask that you fill the bags and bring them back in on Faith in Action Sunday. Now, again, here is an area where I struggle with greed. I remember very distinctly on one of these collections, I was standing in the aisle at the grocery store and picking out some food to put in the bags, some canned goods. My arm reached for the cheapest stuff on the shelf, and I felt a voice speak to my heart asking, “Is that what you serve your family, Dennis?” Well, no, I get the good stuff right next to it. “Why, then,” the voice asked, “are you getting the cheaper stuff for the other folks?” Well, to be honest, it’s because of the greed in my heart. Giving—generosity—extends to the way we meet the needs of others.

But, again, it’s more than writing a check. We’re called to community, to relationships, to investing in lives rather that just meeting needs. Meeting needs is important, but if we only are generous toward the faceless, nameless masses, have we truly made a difference for Christ? Generosity calls us to give of our time and our energy to serving others, actual persons. Here’s a question for us: do you know your neighbors? Do you know them well enough to know if there is a need in their family? And would you be willing to help meet a need? We have to invest in people’s lives to make a real difference, and that sort of investment also combats the greed and selfishness that surrounds us. The Triads that will be starting up this Tuesday will help us do better at that, as we invest in each others’ lives and invest in the life of our community.

There’s one other area, very quickly, where greed often settles in, and that’s when we get to retirement. The world tells us to do exactly what the foolish man in the parable did: eat, drink and be merry, take life easy. Sit on your porch, play golf, take care of yourself. You’ve earned it. You owe you this. But that’s not the call of the Bible. Billy Graham is famous for reminding us there is no such thing as retirement in the Bible. We may quit doing our paying job, but that just frees up time to be able to give of ourselves to others. I’ve watched my folks do this, as they’ve become involved in children’s ministry and Habitat for Humanity. Another man I know has been leading mission trips for his church; in fact, he’s rarely in town because he’s usually off somewhere making a difference. In this church, many of our retirees give of themselves. It’s not unusual to come in the building and see Bob Kellams or Jim Smith or Ron Cutler working on something that has broken or needs fixing up. Some of you volunteer at the Food Pantry or in other service areas. And of course, we’ve all benefitted from Connie and Tom Ellefson’s retirement, as they dove right into helping make the Education Wing the best it could be. Many, many others I could name, folks who aren’t content to be greedy but rather want to give of themselves to make a real difference. 

What about you? Where does greed most threaten to control your life? Do you find yourself being rich toward yourself rather than being rich toward God? God is calling you to give of what you have—time, talents, energy—to build his kingdom rather than your own. And when we do that, the world will think we are the foolish ones. Greed is the way to go, the world says. To do anything else, to live any other way, is crazy. That’s why I smiled when I ran across, on Facebook of all places, a Franciscan benediction, and I knew right away these were the words I wanted to close with this morning. The benediction says this: “May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world.” Amen.

Debt Collection

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Ephesians 4:29-32; Matthew 18:21-35

September 7, 2014 • Portage First UMC

My Uncle Gene would always go with Aunt Helen when she went shopping at the mall, but he never went into the stores. He hated shopping, so when they got to the mall, he would find a bench and tell her he’d be there whenever she got done. And I remember, as a kid, asking what he would do while he sat there. “People watching,” he would tell me, and I couldn’t help but think there couldn’t possibly be anything more boring than people watching. You know what I find myself doing as I get older? I do a lot of people watching. I find it fascinating to watch people, to notice their expressions, to try to figure out what might be going through their minds and in their lives as I watch. Last Monday, we went to Chicago for the day and ate at a Giordano’s, and I found I was almost as excited about where we sat in the restaurant as I was about the pizza we were about to enjoy. They sat us along the window, where I could not only talk with my family but watch people as they walked by outside. (I also had a great view of the self-proclaimed homeless man as he scammed people when they came out of the restaurant.)

But, anyway, do you know what I notice most about people these days, aside from the many, many people who rarely look up from their gadgets as they walk? If you look at people’s faces and watch the way they interact with others, it’s easy to assume that we live in a very angry world. I watch people when they walk, I watch them as they talk on their cell phones, as they interact with people who are serving them at their table or at a counter, as they shop, even as we come to church. We live in a angry world, or rather we are angry people who live in God’s world. And anger sneaks up on you rather quickly, especially if there are other people around who share your sense of wrong or injustice. On Monday, we went to Willis Tower. Rachel had never been up to the top, and she wanted to do that before summer was over, so just under the wire, we took her to the top. And while we were waiting in line, mostly patiently, to walk out on “The Ledge,” the enclosure that makes it feel like you’re walking on air, a family that was from another country pushed people out of the way to get to the front. They literally moved others so they could get on the “The Ledge” first. And there was this anger that rose up in me and in others, that wanted someone to drag them to the back of the line. I don’t know why they did what they did. I do know that, as they were leaving, the guy behind me angrily said to them, “I sure hope you enjoyed that!” I think they missed his sarcasm!

Anger sneaks up on us in so many ways, and it carries over into many places in our lives. “Road rage” is a form of anger that can be deadly when we are behind the wheel. Employment issues can result in anger that, sometimes, leads to shootings or other violence. I worry about the anger that is simmering (or maybe boiling) in the Middle East, in places like Gaza and Syria and Iraq, and the angry ways we might respond as well. Anger generally shows up any time we think we are entitled to something and we don’t get it. Or it may even be just something we want and don’t get (Stanley, Enemies of the Heart, pg. 55). We get angry. And we want to take it out on someone. Anger is an enemy of the heart, just as much as guilt (which we talked about last week) is, but whereas guilt assumes “I owe you,” anger says, “You owe me.” Now, contrary to what we often think, the Bible does not condemn anger. What the writers of Scripture are concerned about is what we do with our anger. There is such a thing as “righteous anger,” because there are times when we honestly are owed something (though not as many as we think). Jesus himself was angry when, probably on two occasions, he came to the Temple, God’s House, and found it full of people who were ripping off the poor (cf. Matthew 21:12-17; John 2:13-22). That is something to be angry about. So it’s not really anger itself that is the problem; it’s what we do with it. Paul, quoting the psalms, says it this way: “In your anger do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). He doesn’t say, “Don’t get angry.” He says we’re to make sure anger doesn’t lead us to sin. In other words, make sure we’re angry about the right things. And then he goes on and gives us, what for many of us is, an even harder expectation: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:26-27).

At the root of anger is this idea that you owe me something. Andy Stanley puts it this way: “Show me an angry person and I’ll show you a hurt person” (Stanley 57). We get angry because we feel something has been taken from us and someone owes us something—at least an apology. They took our reputation. They took the best years of our life. They took our purity. They took our raise. They owe us a second chance. They owe us an explanation, or affection, or a fresh start. We could go on and on. Behind every angry person is a hurt person—and hurt people hurt people. Jesus makes this clear in a little parable he told to his disciples one afternoon after Peter asked a question he thought would get a positive response. Instead, he got a picture of what anger and “you owe me” looks like.

Jesus has been talking to his followers about ways to deal with conflict, especially among brothers and sisters in the faith. And Peter’s been listening and thinking. Jesus has been talking about how to get along, but this whole thing of what to do when someone upsets you or offends you or hurts you is really bothering Peter. So he speaks up. And, you know, we really need to be thankful that Peter didn’t do much thinking before he spoke. If he had, we might not have half the stories we do in the Gospels (cf. Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, pg. 193)! Peter is never afraid to speak his mind, and that’s what he does here: “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (18:21). Now, as I’ve mentioned before, Peter thinks he’s being generous here. The rabbis generally taught that you should forgive someone who hurt you up to three times, but not four. They drew that idea from the prophet Amos, who talked about God forgiving three offenses and they believed God punished the sinner on the fourth time (Barclay 193). So, you see, Peter is doubling the rabbi’s expectation and adding one. He’s being more than generous. He’s willing to forgive seven times. And Jesus shoots him down. It’s not about counting to seven, Peter. Forgive the other person—some of your translations say “seventy-seven times” and others say “seventy times seven.” But the point is not the number. The point is you don’t keep track. There’s no limit to forgiveness. In other words, there’s nothing someone else can do to us that can’t be forgiven.

And to illustrate that, Jesus tells this story. A servant owed the king “ten thousand bags of gold” (18:24), or as it is in the original text, “ten thousand talents.” That’s the equivalent of sixty million days’ wages (or over 164,000 years’ wages—before taxes!); do that calculation in your head! It’s more than the entire budget of the province of Palestine at that time. It was probably more than the entire amount of coins in circulation in Egypt, one of the most powerful empires of the time. This is an exorbitant amount of money, and how this man could have ever gotten into this much debt is beyond imagining. And yet, he is, and the king calls him in to repay it. Now, we know he can’t. There’s no way he could ever come up with that kind of money, and so the king orders him and his family to be sold into slavery, which was the normal punishment for such an offense. The king would get nowhere near what he was owed back, but at least he would get something in exchange for this man’s life (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 166; Barclay 194; Keener, Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, pg. 95).

The servant, knowing what is to come and feeling the weight of his debt, falls to his knees and begs for more time. “I will pay back everything,” he says, even though both he and the king know that won’t happen. It can’t happen. It’s not possible. And so the king, in a rare moment of pity, forgave the debt. In an instant, what started as a time for debt collection becomes a time of debt forgiveness.

Now, I’ve tried to imagine what I would feel if I were this man. The relief that I think I would experience is hard to put into words. Just about a month ago, we paid off Cathy’s car and it felt great to be out from under that debt. Of course, the next day the college tuition bill arrived and the good feeling was gone! But nevertheless, that debt we had was small potatoes compared to this man’s debt. I would expect him to go out of the king’s presence dancing and singing and hugging people. And, I suppose, you could say he does hug someone, though not in a loving way. What this debt forgiveness does to him is make him mad. He’s embarrassed. He’s frustrated. He’s angry—especially when, as soon as he comes out of the king’s palace, he sees a fellow servant who owes him “a hundred silver coins” (18:28). The second man owed the first about a day’s wage. Now, let’s put that in a little better perspective. The second man’s debt could be carried in your pocket. The first man’s debt would require over 8,000 people each carrying a bag about sixty pounds in weight, all in a line about five miles long (Barclay 194). The second man’s debt is so very small. And yet, the first man is angry—murderously angry—about the teeny tiny debt owed to him. He’s so angry—irrationally angry—that he grabs his friend and starts choking him. “Pay back what you owe me!” he shouts. And when the second man, using the same words, asks for more time, the first man refuses and has him thrown into prison.

Anger blinded the first man to the inequity of the debts. Anger does that. It can blind us to reality, which is at least one reason Paul is so clear about not going to bed angry, not letting the sun go down on your anger. You see, for the Jewish people, the day begins at sundown. So, in effect, Paul is saying, don’t carry today’s anger over into tomorrow because anger is a heart disease. It’s an enemy of your heart and it must be defeated each and every day. But we have to choose if we want to defeat it or not. When you’re angry, you can stay the way you are, you can stay angry, but what will that do to your heart, to your soul? Just like eating a steady diet of high cholesterol foods will damage your physical heart, continuing to harbor anger and resentment without dealing with it will kill your soul. Remember, it’s not the anger that is sinful, but it’s often what we do with our anger that causes us to sin. So, for the rest of our time this morning, we want to focus on how we move from debt collection to debt cancellation, and the simple answer is found in a very distinctly Christian practice: forgiveness. If we continue using “debt” terminology, we can define forgiveness as “giving up the right to be paid back.” That’s what the king in Jesus’ parable did at first. Even though he was owed an incredible debt, he gave up the right to demand repayment. He forgave the debt. That’s a choice that is also within our power to make every time we feel as if someone owes us something, every time we confront anger. We can choose to give up being repaid.

Paul talks about those kinds of choices in his letter to the Ephesians. First of all, he says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up…that it may benefit those who listen” (4:29). What’s the first thing we want to do when we’re angry with someone? We want to talk to others about them, or we want to trash them, or we at least want someone else to understand why we are so angry. We might yell, we might talk quietly, we might take to Facebook or Twitter to try to get others on our side, and Paul says all such “talk” (whether it comes from our lips or our fingertips) grieves the Spirit of God (4:30). When we do that, and I know that’s my first temptation, first inclination, but when we do that, we’re trashing someone who is made in God’s image. We’re speaking ill of someone who is a dearly loved child of God. Now, maybe I’m just preaching to myself here, but if your first impulse is like mine, to speak to someone other than than the person you are angry with, and to speak ill of them, Paul’s word is this: don’t. All that does is make you into a victim, someone who simply wants to make the other person pay and it does not help soothe the anger or move us toward forgiveness. In fact, Paul goes to list what we might call “relational wedges” (Stanley 117): “bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, malice.” And what does he say to do with such things, such behaviors? “Get rid of them” (4:31). They are not helpful and they grieve the Spirit of God. Have you grieved God? Have you hurt God by the way you treat your fellow human being, that person you’re so angry with, that person who owes you something?

We do that when we take God’s forgiveness for granted, when we forget that forgiveness is a gift, not something we can earn or even something we deserve. Between human beings, forgiveness is a gift from one undeserving soul to another (Stanley 129). None of us are deserving of forgiveness, least of all God’s forgiveness. The story of the Bible is the story of we humans pushing God away, refusing to live in the way he calls us to live, blatantly thumbing our noses at God. And yet, to borrow words from Paul, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Not after we had cleaned ourselves up. Not after we had gotten it all together. Not after we made ourselves perfect. While we were still sinners, while we were still broken, while we were still running away from God—that’s when Jesus came and died for us to forgive our sins. While we were undeserving. We don’t deserve it, and yet God gives forgiveness, so here’s the twenty-five thousand dollar question that I have to ask myself: is what that other person has done to me really worse than the way I have rebelled against God? Is what they did worth grieving the Spirit of God? If God can forgive us, why can’t we forgive each other? Why do we stay angry with each other? Why do we insist on trying to collect the debt rather than seeking to cancel it? Jesus said, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Now, I’m not trying to say it’s easy. It’s not a “snap decision” or a momentary change. And forgiveness doesn’t depend on our feelings. Our feelings may follow, but not right away. Forgiveness is a choice, and it’s a process we have to work through. The first step in that process is to identify who you’re angry with. Name them. That may sound silly or unnecessary, but the truth is often we’re not sure who we’re angry with. Sometimes the anger has been around so long that it’s become almost a living thing, bigger than the original situation that brought it on. So who would you like to pay back if you thought you could get away with it? Who do you secretly desire to see fail? Who do you find yourself talking about behind their backs? This is a chance to name the situation, name the anger, recall the situations that are hindering your relationships. Make a list, if necessary.

Then, second, determine what it is they owe you. What is the debt? So often we forgive generally but we’re not really able to get beyond the anger because we haven’t forgiven the specific debt. Like the king in the parable, determine what it is they owe you. What are the “ten thousand talents” they owe you? You know what they did to you, but what is it they took? What did they “steal,” in your estimation? Your reputation? The best years of your life? Your job? What is it? And what would they need to return to you in order to pay off the debt? An apology? Money? Time? A job? “You cannot cancel a debt you haven’t clearly identified” (Stanley 133).

Third, and perhaps hardest, is canceling the debt. That means we decide that the other person doesn’t owe us anything anymore. This is what Jesus did for you and me when he gave his life on the cross at Calvary. He cancelled our debt. That’s exactly the wording and the image Paul uses in his letter to the Colossians: “When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross” (2:13-14). Jesus, by giving his life in our place, took away our sin and took the punishment for our sin so that we no longer have to pay the debt. He paid it for us and we don’t have to pay him back—as if we could! And just as he has done for us, he calls us to do to each other. In fact, he calls us not just to grudgingly forgive, but to extend kindness and compassion even to the person who hurt us. Again, hear the words of Paul: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:32). So we pray, “God, this person hurt me, and I have held onto this debt a long time. Today, I choose to cancel it and forgive them just as you have forgiven me.” This is between you and God; there’s often not a need to go to the other person to tell them you’ve forgiven them. But they will be able to tell by the change in attitude, the change in heart, that is evident by the way Jesus will work in and through you when you forgive. Be kind and compassionate and forgiving.

And so, finally, we dismiss the case. This is a daily decision we have to make to not hold onto the grudge, to not re-open the case we’ve had against that person whose actions caused us to be so angry. It’s true that nothing can make up for the past. No apology or restitution will change what happened. And that’s why forgiveness is a choice we have to make. It is our choice, just as it was God’s choice to forgive us.

Jesus, of course, demonstrated that in the parable we read today. The king chose to forgive, but did you notice at the end of the parable what happened to the unforgiving servant? After he tried to choke his fellow servant and threw the man into prison, the king called his servant back in. He calls him “wicked” and tells him he should have had mercy on the other man just as the king had on him. And without another word, the king throws the man in jail and submits him to torture “until he should pay back all he owed,” which, of course, we know will never happen. He will die in prison. And then Jesus says these haunting words: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart” (18:35). If we choose not to forgive, if we choose anger over mercy, we will block the flow of God’s mercy and forgiveness to our own lives. That’s what Jesus was saying earlier about our refusal to forgive resulting in God not forgiving us. It’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive us; it’s that we block him in forgiving us when we refuse to even try to forgive the other. And it’s not that God tortures us or imprisons us but that we choose that life for ourselves when we get so wrapped up in being angry that we cannot even see that other person as a fellow child of God. You’ve known people, I’m sure, who are so bitter and angry and eaten up by spite that they are in a constant prison of their own making, constant torture of their own creation. That, Jesus says, is what God allows to happen to us unless we deal head on with our anger and practice forgiveness.

We come to the table this morning in order to receive God’s forgiveness, to lay our anger at the foot of the cross, to begin to see all persons as children of the heavenly Father. On his last night with his closest friends, Jesus sat down at dinner, a very traditional dinner, and breathed new life and new meaning into an ages-old ritual. “This is my body…and this is my blood,” he said, “given for the forgiveness of your sin.” When we gather at his table, we are not just re-enacting some story from long ago. We are remembering and receiving all that Jesus did for us, all that this simple meal signifies.

Pastor Deb reminded us last week of one other teaching Jesus gave us on the subject of forgiveness. He tells his followers that if one of them is angry with a brother or sister, they are in danger of judgment. That’s pretty strong language, but it’s in that context that he also teaches them, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). You know, the more I read Jesus, the harder it gets to be a Christian! But that’s what he says. The communion table is no place for anger, because the communion table points us to the cross, the place where the most powerful forgiveness ever known was visited upon humankind. This table is a table of mercy, of grace, of love, of forgiveness, and all who love Christ and love their brothers and sisters are welcome here. That’s what Jesus says. And so, with that kind of heart, let us come and receive the bread and the cup, for these symbols remind us of the extent God went to in order to win our hearts and cancel our debts.