Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (proper 19): September 11, 2005.

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:[1-7] 8-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

First Reading

The theme connecting the Genesis and Matthew readings is forgiveness. Matthew illustrates this theme with unforgiveness, in a story that is unique to this Gospel. The slave who is forgiven a large debt will not forgive his fellow slave. The value of the sums involved are about $10 million and about $20. In response the lord takes back his forgiveness and orders the unforgiving slave tortured. Forgiveness seems to be a fragile thing. Matthew concludes then with a threat, "so my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart." Forgiveness has led to judgment, because the large debtor has not allowed the grace of God to change him. Disciples are challenged to perfection. The same idea comes at the end of the Lord's Prayer in 6:14-15, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

The forgiveness scene with Joseph and his brothers is so much more interesting, because it comes at the end of a game of cat and mouse played out since chapter 42. In chapter 45 Joseph reveals himself with tears to his brothers and excuses their action (selling him) as the disguised will of God, "for God sent me before you to preserve life" (45:5). Yet here in chapter 50 the brothers are still uncertain about Joseph's true feelings for them. All kinds of issues are played out here. Joseph brings the whole family down to Egypt. In doing so, Joseph puts his family under his power and pharaoh's. More subtly, Joseph changes their sense of purpose. God had spoken to Jacob (chapter 35) recommitting the land of Canaan to Jacob and his heirs. So what are they doing settling in Egypt?

In Assimilation versus Separation: Joseph the Administrator and the Politics of Religion in Biblical Israel (New Brunswick N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002), Aaron Wildavsky calls Joseph the anti-Moses. The question of whether to assimilate or remain separate from local culture haunts Judaism to this day. Joseph is an example of the wrong choice. Joseph wears Egyptian clothes and marries an Egyptian woman, daughter of an Egyptian priest. Joseph works to empower pharaoh.

Does Joseph hide his own desires behind God-language and dreams (another kind of God-language)? Instead of asking for the will of God or praying for discernment, Joseph tells his family what God's will is and concludes, "So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones" (50:21). This is God's role usurped by Joseph. Is the forgiveness here only to keep his brothers under his control? Even if God sent Joseph on ahead to Egypt, it was to preserve Israel through the famine (by chapter 50 the famine is over), not for 400 years.

Romans 14 picks up the humility endorsed in Matthew 18. Look kindly on your brothers and sisters in Christ. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, for we are all accountable to God. We all have a perspective. Paul here is sensitive to the kinds of quarrels that can arise within the church. How do we feel about smoking, general health questions, alcoholic beverages? How do we discuss them in the church? Can we argue over liturgy, carpets, altar flowers? There is adiaphora and there is status confessionis; how can we tell the difference?

Pastoral Reflection

Forgiveness, justice, and mercy should be frequent topics for pastoral reflection with a congregation. Heads may nod with Matthew's parable. Certainly someone forgiven a debt of $10 million should be able to forgive a debt of a mere $20. If this was the only circumstance encountered in life, forgiveness would be a relatively easy lesson to learn. The Joseph story may raise a more difficult challenge to forgiveness. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. Shouldn't the brothers be made to pay? Doesn't justice cry out for a penalty?

The movie Dead Man Walking (1995) brings us to another level of discussing forgiveness. Sean Penn plays Matthew Poncelet, a death row inmate convicted of rape and murder. As we first meet him, Poncelet has not been reformed by the system. He is foul-mouthed and aggressive, and we feel no sympathy for him. He takes Sister Helen's (Susan Sarandon) concern as a sexual advance. Seen through Poncelet's eyes, life itself is degraded. We can easily see him as a poster boy for capital punishment, which will take him at the end of the movie. But from the beginning of the film to the end, we are taken on a roller coaster ride of emotion.

With Sister Helen's help, Poncelet obtains an attorney who will plead his case before the clemency board and the governor. The parents of his victims, Earl Delacroix and Clyde and Mary Beth Percy, attend the hearing, determined that Poncelet should get what is coming to him. Their hurt, rage, and determination are given full display on film. They are angry also with Sister Helen for taking Poncelet's part. Shouldn't she be weeping with the victimized families rather than supporting the monster? Is he a monster or a human being?

The film concludes with Sister Helen and Earl Delacroix praying together in church after the execution. Through the film we see forgiveness as a process.

What would it be like to forgive such a man for such a crime? Can we as Christians separate the act of the state from our own action? The parents forgive Poncelet, but the state still executes. Or does forgiveness imply that the State too must forgive? What is the role of repentance?

Questions about forgiveness arise in every parish. Pastors may too quickly move to push forgiveness without assisting people through the process. There are some wrongs that will haunt us through a lifetime. Sometimes pastors are put in the middle of an argument between parishioners with each asking that the pastor judge between them. Always the situations presented to the pastor are of such a nature as to be unique (so they will argue) and not so simply amenable to forgiveness.

In the Matthew text the motive for forgiveness is my being forgiven. Something has changed in me because of the grace I have received. In the parable both the lord and the large debtor have a right to demand what is owed them. Here, forgiveness is the action of letting go what is rightfully yours. What should strike us from Matthew is that God gives and then takes away what has been given. At least in the parable there has been no conditional promise that the large debtor must forgive his debtors or the debt will be restored. Matthew insists that grace must change us.

At the last, the question must be, What does God's grace mean to me? In the actions I take, I, like God, shape the world. Admittedly, my actions are of little consequence, but by them I place myself with God or against God. With forgiveness I stop the cycle of sin leading to sin and in my own small way point the world back to God. GH