A, Post-Pentecost 16 Proper 19 - Matthew 18:21-22 Romans 14:7-12 "Living and Dying to Forgive"
Peter questions
Jesus, “How often should I forgive?”
This question doesn’t occur out of the blue, in a vacuum!
Over the past four
weeks we’ve heard Jesus teach the disciples about his purpose on earth! He was leading and teaching them about life
and death, forgiveness, binding sin and loosing sinners. His life was the perfection of God’s vertical
and horizontal will; to be your forgiveness so you can forgive!
We heard some
weeks back, Peter confessing Jesus as, “the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
(Matthew 16:16) Jesus goes on to tell
Peter his confession, although coming from his lips, came from God. God was working through Peter, in his
confession! Similarly, Jesus, the Son of
God, was going to build his church on Peter, which means rock, and give him the
keys to bind and loose.
Yet it doesn’t go
well for Peter, as Jesus begins telling the disciples about his death and
resurrection. Peter takes Jesus aside to
give him a talking to, since he is now the newly confessed rock on which Jesus’
church will be built. But it is Peter
who is given a verbal dressing down, as Jesus says, “Get
behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to
me. For you are not setting your mind on
the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23 ESV)
It's here Jesus completely
puzzled the disciples. With what seems
like a riddle, he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24 ESV)
How can one choose
or prefer to reject oneself, take up one’s death and follow Jesus?
In Matthew’s
Gospel account, the transfiguration happens next. Coming down the mountain Jesus speaks again
about this strange phenomenon of “being woken from death”, commanding them, “Tell
no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” (Matthew
17:9 ESV)
After this, there’s
an incident where a son who suffers from seizures could not be healed by the
disciples. Jesus coins a name for them, calling them,
“you little-faiths” and tells them nothing will be impossible for them, even
with faith like a grain of mustard seed! (Matthew 17:20)
They gather
together in Galilee. Again, Jesus says
to them, “‘The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised
on the third day.’ And they were greatly distressed.” (Matthew 17:22–23 ESV) They were listening to Jesus as God commanded
them on the mountain. But they had no
idea and little faith on how or why Jesus needed to die!
The tension builds
for Jesus and the disciples! As they
move towards this deathly event, they did not understand this new kingdom of
the church, was to be built on Jesus’ death and resurrection. They had little faith in forgiveness! Little faith in how humanity would be set
free! Little faith in how Jesus could be
the sacrifice for sin! That it would come down to sin being bound to Jesus when
he was nailed to the cross to die. And
they had completely no idea that the life of the church would require their
daily death, which would propel most of them onto martyrdom!
Furthermore, they
had no concept of the resurrection from the dead! And why should they have? Death was the great leveller, no one could
get past it, and no one could be raised again to life. Atonement for sin came through the sacrifice
of animals under Levitical Law, and life after death was not an earthly
resurrection.
Peter again takes
centre stage as Jesus asked, “‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or
tax? From their sons or from
others?’ And when he said, ‘From
others,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are free’”. (Matthew 17:25–26 ESV)
Here Jesus speaks
about freedom of a king’s sons, they pay no tax, they are not bound, but are
loosed from paying tax. But the disciples with “little faith” ask Jesus,
“The Greatest” in the kingdom of heaven,
“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matthew 18:1 ESV) To which Jesus puts a little one in the midst
of the “little faith” disciples and tells a number of stories about receiving
little ones, temptations, and not despising the little ones, but rather seeking
them out like lost sheep.
Last week we heard
more about binding and loosing for forgiveness.
Jesus put a little child in front of the disciples with little faith, to
make his point about binding and loosing through receiving and not hindering the little ones from
perishing.
However, what Jesus
was showing the disciples, and what he seeks to teach in his word, is
forgiveness is what he and his church is about!
Without forgiveness won through the cross, and new life through the
resurrection, Jesus’ church does not exist, Peter cannot be the rock of Jesus’ church. And there is no calling humanity to
repentance and forgiveness at Pentecost, today, or until Jesus returns.
So, what does all
this mean for us today, as we look forward to the return of Jesus, when he
physically and visually returns again, or as we meet him in our death and
resurrection from the grave, just as many who have gone before us lie in the
grave in hope?
Peter asks Jesus
how many times to forgive?
Jesus gives a
parable about the King who forgives a servant a large debt who in his
wickedness does not do the same for his fellow servant’s small debt. This is a reminder of the vertical and horizontal
will of God, to forgive as you have been forgiven.
What does this
require of us? We find the answer in
Romans chapter fourteen…
“For
none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if
we die, we die to the Lord. So then,
whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again,
that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment
seat of God; for it is written, “As I
live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess
to God.” So then each of us will give an
account of himself to God.” (Romans
14:7–12 ESV)
If one is a child
of God, it requires a death within. It
required the death of the Greatest in the Kingdom of heaven on the cross. Now Jesus requires that, “If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.” (Matthew 16:24 ESV)
How can one choose
or prefer to reject oneself, take up one’s death and follow Jesus?
How does one not
live for themselves? How does one not die
to themselves? How do we live to the Lord?
And how do we die to the Lord?
What is this death?
These are
important questions since all will stand before the judgment seat of God. As Paul tells the Romans, he tells us, “Who
are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master
that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make
him stand.” (Romans 14:4 ESV)
When one sits down
and reads these pages from Matthew’s Gospel as a whole, one will begin to see
Jesus preparing the disciples, little by little, for his death and resurrection
for the forgiveness of sins.
When you daily
allow the drowning of the old sinful nature in your baptism into Jesus’ death
and resurrection and allow the Holy Spirit to open your heart to his word, you
too are being prepared!
This is the centre
of God’s will for humanity, for you! Beginning
at the cross, forgiveness was carried from it, by Peter and the apostles, to
Jesus’ church of Jews and gentiles! You
and me!
Jesus makes it
clear what happens to those who don’t forgive like the forgiven wicked servant,
“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive
your brother from your heart.”
(Matthew 18:35 ESV)
Paul also warns
those who pass judgment, putting stumbling blocks in the way of others, rather
than making judgments in love that seeks forgiveness, peace and the mutual
upbuilding that serves Jesus Christ.
Just as he has served us.
The Romans judged
and bound others over what one ate or drank.
But Paul corrects them, saying, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of
eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17 ESV)
For us to forgive
as we have been forgiven, the Holy Spirit is given to work remembrance. He returns us to the foot of the cross with
our sin to receive the great forgiveness of Jesus the Greatest in the Kingdom
of heaven. He became the least and allow
the Holy Spirit to lead him to the cross, of death and forgiveness. In the same way the Holy Spirit is leading us
all to a daily death of self, and a resurrection to take up one’s cross to
follow Jesus to eternal life!
We are the little
one’s of God. Like Peter and the
disciples, we struggle with little faith, and need the Holy Spirit to
continually deliver us from ourselves, into the death of Jesus Christ, for the
righteousness and peace, that forgiveness brings and gives.
In God the Holy
Spirit doing this, we can live as one church under the headship of Christ, with
joy in the Holy Spirit. Amen.
