Forgiveness

Matthew18:21-35

Did you ever hear the story of Alvin Straight?  Alvin lived in Laurens, Iowa with his daughter who looked after him. When he was 73 years old he set out on a 240-mile journey to see his estranged brother, Henry, in Wisconsin. Henry had recently had a stroke, Alvin heard. They had not spoken to each other in 10 years. Now, with a clear-eyed view of their mortality, Alvin felt the need to reconcile with Henry.

The only problem was Alvin didn’t have a driver’s license. Poor health and failing vision had forced him to give it up. But Alvin did not let that stop him. He hopped on his John Deere lawn tractor and hit the road. People thought he had gone off his rocker, but Alvin was determined to make his way to his brother somehow. It took him six weeks.

There was a movie made about Alvin’s story, called The Straight Story. We ought to watch it together sometime.

In the film, as he gets near Henry’s home he has an encounter with a priest who, it turns out, knows Henry. The priest says, “Henry never mentioned he had a brother.” Alvin says, “Neither one of us has had a brother for some time.”

We might call this the parable of the lawn tractor. Because I imagine if we really look, we can see ourselves in Alvin and Henry. Who among us has not, on occasion, found it easier to withhold forgiveness that would take what Alvin describes as “A hard swallow to our pride” that is sometimes needed for reconciliation?

Who among us has not mulled it over and decided, maybe I will call her tomorrow to say I’m sorry, but I don’t really care to have that conversation today?

Who among us has not nursed hard feelings and, every now and then, trotted the story out again to tell someone new so they can experience the outrage all over again? These sorts of things are happening all around us all the time. It happens between friends, it happens in families. It happens in workplaces. It happens within churches, and it happens sometimes between a congregation and the presbytery. I just heard a story the other day about a congregation who has been holding some resentment against the presbytery for a perceived slight that happened years ago.

When we replay these things in our memories, we might make slight alterations to the stories, so that the ones who are wrong are more clearly and completely in the wrong. And any fault of our own is gently erased and forgotten. Who among us has never done that?

The parable of the lawn tractor is not a bad one. Hearing it, we might remember times in our own lives where we have had a falling out with someone and just let it go. And when we do remember, the parable might make us realize that life is finite. And resentment is long. And forgiveness is … mysterious.

Alvin feels suddenly compelled to seek forgiveness from his brother Henry. For ten years it has been easier to push this problem into the background, but now this news of Henry’s stroke has forced him to realize he will not have infinite time and opportunities to do the thing that, deep in his heart, he knows he must do.

Even hard-hearted people have a soft, human core inside.

Alvin is now turned around, or repented, so completely that he will make this alarmingly risky and terribly uncomfortable journey in order to do the right thing at last.

The parable of the lawn tractor, together with the parable of the unforgiving slave, provide a rich context in which to consider the problem of forgiveness.

And, just as we know that we are not Alvin and Henry, and none of us (I hope) is planning on taking a lawn tractor vacation, we also should know that in Jesus’ parable, the king is not God and the unforgiving slave is not us. Nonetheless, the story has much to teach us, if we would have ears to hear.

Remember how this conversation started. Jesus and his friends have been discussing the process for working through a disagreement in the church. When you have been hurt by someone, when there has been a dispute, how do you move forward? Jesus lays out a process we would do well to follow. And here, as the conversation continues, it becomes clear that forgiveness is an essential part of that process.

Even if the one you are in dispute with rejects your overtures, even if that one becomes as a Gentile or a tax collector to you, in Jesus’ words, forgiveness is still a part of the equation.

So let’s consider this story of the unforgiving slave.

There was a kingdom where the ruler decided one day that he would reconcile accounts with all his slaves, and he had many, many slaves. One by one, the slaves were presented to him. There was one man who approached him who, according to the ledgers, owed the king a ridiculously huge fortune. He owed him more than he would earn in 150,000 years. Not kidding; that’s how much it was. There was no way in heaven or in hell or on earth that this man could repay it.

But he falls on his knees and says, “Please, lord, give me time – I will pay you back, I promise!”

The ruler of the kingdom thinks: I could sell this man and all his family and at least get something out of it. But instead, he is moved with compassion, and he lets him go. He says, “The debt is forgiven.” The slave has a clean slate.

And, in a way, we see this as like the unfathomable forgiveness bestowed on us by God. We are forgiven, thanks be to God. Even though God could hold us accountable for every shortcoming, flaw, and plain act of evil we commit, God chooses forgiveness.

Now. This forgiven slave leaves, free of his burden. But on his way, he encounters a fellow slave who happens to owe him some money – a considerable sum, a few months wages. Frankly, in comparison to the debt he has just been forgiven, it is nothing. But it is something to this guy. It might mean the difference between being able to remodel his kitchen, or not.

Just like that, he has forgotten his own debt. He has forgotten the fate that he just narrowly escaped. He has forgotten, as he sends this poor man to debtor’s prison that “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

How easily we forget our own need for forgiveness. Especially when we have the opportunity to withhold forgiveness from someone else.

The parable reminds us that, in our own heads, we are always the victim of any circumstance. Maybe, though, when we are confronted with our own mortality, we can be jolted into seeing our own need to be forgiven and to offer forgiveness to others.

When Alvin Straight realized one day that his brother could die, he knew that he could die too. And that changed the way he looked at life. Why had he withheld forgiveness for all those years? What could he possibly have been thinking?

The fact is, the thought of death can scare us into doing the right thing. I have no doubt that the ending of this parable of the unforgiving servant is meant to give us a good scare. And, since we know God to be all-forgiving, I feel sure that God would be able to forgive the slave even this act of cruelty. But the real point of both these parables – the lawn tractor and the unforgiving servant – is this: why wait?

You are forgiven now. God does not withhold forgiveness. In God’s realm, forgiveness is free and abundant, and if we choose to live in God’s realm, we also will forgive freely, and abundantly.

It’s a choice we have. We always have this choice.