Trinity 22 October 23, 2016

Matthew 18:21-35
Trinity 22
October 23, 2016

“Debt Free”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

You and I aren’t always gracious to others.  That’s what the Gospel reading today teaches.  It teaches us to be gracious to others.  To be forgiving.  But we’re not always good at that.  Instead of forgiving others when they hurt us, we often stew about it and get angry.  We tell others about it.  We hold grudges and think of ways to get revenge.  We think of all the reasons why they just don’t deserve to be forgiven in this case.  So I hope you will see that this Gospel is for you today.  And for me.  I need it too.  We all need help being gracious.  You can think of a person or two right now that you’re holding a grudge against instead of forgiving them.  We need help forgiving others.  And that’s what Jesus gives us.  And He does it by talking about money.  So we’re going to talk about money a bit.

At last week’s Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the question came up about our national debt.  Our country owes a whole lot of money.  Around $19 trillion.  There was an article in TIME magazine in April of this year on the national debt.  The cover said that every man, woman, and child in American would need to pay $42,998.12 to erase the national debt.  Do any of you have any objection to paying that right now?  I have six in my family so I guess I owe $250,000. No problem, right?  I’ll just cut the government a check.  Ha.

At any rate, there are different ideas about how we might pay down that national debt, right?  That’s why we have Presidential candidates debating it.  But I’ll keep it really simply this morning.  Let’s say there are two basic ways we could pay off that debt—raise taxes (i.e. get more money) or cut the budget (i.e., spend less money).  That’s just basic finances there.  I don’t need to be a money guru to know that.  You either need more money to pay off the debt or you spend less money so the debt goes down.

Now go to the parable this morning.  “Cause this is exactly the problem.  We owe a massive debt to God.  A $19 trillion kind of debt.  He’s given us everything we have and we’ve wasted it and racked up massive sins against Him.  The debt is huge.  How are we going to pay off this debt to God? Well, let’s take the first approach.  Let’s get more money.  Raise taxes.  Then we’ll have more money to pay God off.  Aha, this is one of our favorite moves.

This is where we try to raise the good works to pay God off.  We raise taxes on ourselves and demand better from ourselves.  I’m going to be more compassionate, more forgiving, more loving, more patient, funnier, kinder, harder-working, and wiser.  I’m going to be everything God wants me to be, right?  And then He’ll be happy with me and I’ll pay off that debt of sin that I owe Him—little by little.  This is bound to work, right?

Except it doesn’t.  For one thing, we never seem to be able to actually be much better tomorrow than we are today.  We have all these ideas of being this and that and doing this and that but then we wake up tomorrow morning the same old sinners.  And even when we do manage to do a few good things we hadn’t done before, we’re so proud of ourselves that we cancel it out with sinful pride anyway.

So that’s probably not going to work.  Let’s try the second approach—cut the budget.  Spend less money.  This is another one of our favorite approaches with God.  We’ll sin less.  “I’m not going to do that anymore,” we say.  No more gossiping.  No more lying and embellishing stories.  No more going out at night and getting into trouble. No more skipping church and skipping my prayers.  “I’m going to do this.”  Cut the sins.  Lower my debt.

But alas, this doesn’t work either.  Because when we get rid of this sin or that sin, we only become more aware of other sins we hadn’t even thought of before.  Not to mention that cutting out sins is about as hard as our government actually cutting their spending.  It doesn’t happen easily.  Just ask our Governor, Bruce Rauner, how easy it is to cut spending.

So is there a third way?  You owe God a huge debt.  When He comes to settle accounts like the king in the parable, what are you going to do?  What will you say when God demands an answer for your foolishness?  What will you say when God sets down the record of all that you’ve sinned against Him?  What will you answer?

Well, in fact, there is a third way.  It’s called debt-forgiveness.  Jesus says that the King had pity for this man that owed billions of dollars—and He released him and forgave the debt.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Debt free.  Right there.  I doubt that it will work for our national debt of $19 trillion.  But it worked for this servant.  And it works for you.

You are debt free before God.  You don’t owe a penny.  Because out of pity for you, God paid off the debt Himself.  He sent His Son to raise taxes and cut spending—on Himself.  He lived the perfect life for you and died the perfect death for you.  All so that you would be debt free.  Forgiven.

I don’t know if you remember but about five years ago or so this congregation had paid off the loan to renovate the sanctuary.  And we tried to burn the loan papers at the end of church and it didn’t work out so well.  We kinda smoked everybody out.  But anyway, God does that exact thing here at this baptismal font and here at the Lord’s Supper.  He burns our debt papers.  We’re debt free.  When you come up to the rail and receive Jesus’ body and blood—that’s it!  You’re debt free.  Forgiven.  At peace with God.

Now that’s the only hope you and I have before God and it’s the only way of handling our debt to Him.  You can’t raise taxes on yourself to be a better person and pay Him off.  And you certainly can’t cut spending by sinning less to reduce your debt.  It won’t work.  What you and I do is fall before Him and ask, “Lord, have mercy.”  And He does.  He loves you and He is faithful to you.  You are debt free before Him.

Now, then, we’re ready to talk about being more gracious and forgiving to others.  You heard the parable.  How much do you like this servant who’s forgiven this huge billion dollar debt and then goes out and strangles his buddy who owes him a few thousand?  We hate that guy, right?  What a jerk!  How could he be so selfish?

But understand that’s exactly what you and I are doing when we act like everybody else owes us everything.  This is exactly what we’re doing when we refuse to forgive our friends and neighbors because we think that they owe us better.  God has forgiven your debt.  And would you and I demand that others pay us back for every little thing they do to us?

You know, a lot of people in our country think part of our national debt problem is because Americans all act like we’re all entitled.  We think the government owes us all these programs to pay for everything that goes wrong in life and pay for every bit of bad luck we think we have.

But we all need to look in the mirror.  We all act entitled.  All the time.  We think everybody else owes us their time, their kindness, their good attitude, their hard work, and whatever else.  We walk around thinking we’re entitled to get a warm smile from everyone, entitled to other people’s sympathy when we’re having a rough time, entitled to people’s help when we need it.  We think we’re entitled to our husband’s attention or entitled to our wife’s respect.  We think we’re entitled to our kids’ good behavior or entitled to Mom and Dad’s money.  Yes, we’ve gone and strangled our neighbor over the smallest things when God has wiped our debt all away.  Lord, have mercy on us!

So let’s look at this differently.  We’re not entitled to anything.  But there’s enough grace to cover everything.  You have enough grace to cover everyone that sins against you.  Your friend. Your spouse.  Your parents.  Your children.  Your government.  Whomever.  God has poured down this massive amount of grace and said, “Here, you’re debt free.  Go share it with others.”  Be gracious.  Not entitled.  Gracious.  Forgiving.

And we have a prayer to remind us of this parable and this truth every single day.  We’ll pray it again in just a short time.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  This is our prayer that God would wipe out our debt again and help us to be gracious to others.  “Lord, this morning again we’ve racked up debt against you.  I’ve lied.  I’ve gotten angry.  I haven’t forgiven others as I should.  I’ve carried grudges. I’ve watched and listened to things I shouldn’t.  I’ve been prideful.  Forgive me my trespasses today.  Wipe them clean.  Make me debt free.  Have mercy.  And Lord, forgive me as you also help me to forgive others.  Help me to forgive my spouse who has trespassed against me.  My sister.  My brother.  My neighbor.  All of them, Lord. Help me to be gracious.”

And God will answer your prayer.  He will help you to be gracious.  Because He is the good King who wipes away debt and makes you debt free.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.