The law of forgiveness.
I. THE CONVERSATION WITH ST. PETER.
1. Peter's question. The Lord had intimated the duty of gentleness in dealing with offences. Every effort was to be used to reconcile the offending brother; he was to be approached with all gentleness, with all Christian tact, if so be that he might be won back to Christ and to the Church. Peter wished for a definite rule to guide him in carrying out the Lord's directions. According to the rabbis, an erring brother should be forgiven three times. Peter suggested a larger number, the sacred number seven, as the limit of Christian forgiveness.
2. The Lord's answer. "I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." There seems to be a reference to the words of Lamech (Genesis 4:24). Lamech desired a seventy and sevenfold vengeance. The Lord commands a seventy and sevenfold forgiveness. There is some doubt as to the numerical value of the words. But it is of little importance which rendering we adopt, "seventy times seven," or "seventy-seven times," for the Lord certainly means that acts of forgiveness are not to be counted. It is a question not to be settled by arithmetic, but by Christian love and by the grace of God. "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us."
II. THE PARABLE OF THE KING AND THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.
1. The account. The Lord illustrates the duty of forgiveness by the parable of a human king and his servants. The king would take account of his servants. God takes account from time to time. There are preliminary reckonings preparatory for the great day of account. In the visitations of his providence, in dangerous sickness, in the hour of deep and heartfelt penitence, the Lord brings home to our hearts the exceeding guilt of our sins, the greatness of our debt. A servant was brought who owed ten thousand talents. The reckoning had only just begun; there may have been other even greater debts to come. It was a terrible beginning. The servant was brought; he would not have come of his own will. The sinner shrinks in terror from the awful presence of the Judge. Adam and Eve hid themselves when first the King came to take account. But he was brought. We cannot escape, we must come, when he requires our presence. The debt was enormous, far more than we can even represent to our imagination. Such is the awful debt of sin; we may well say every day, and many times every day, "Forgive us our debts."
2. The mercy of the king. The servant was to be sold, he and his family, and all that he had. In his agony he fell down before his lord and worshipped him; "Lord," he said, "have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." He could not pay, he never could have paid, that vast debt. But in his presumption, or in his deceitfulness, or, it may be, in the frenzy of his abject terror, he promised the impossible. The king was moved with compassion; he loosed him, and forgave him the debt. It is a parable of the infinite compassion of the heavenly King; "he pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
3. The cruelty of the servant. He went out from the king's presence. We are only safe while we abide in union with the Lord. He is the Source and Fountain of love, and apart from him there is no true and holy love. When men go out from his presence, from the sphere of his influence, they cease to love; they become selfish, hard, unfeeling. That forgiven servant found a fellow servant who owed him a hundred pence, a trifling sum compared with his own enormous debt. He caught him by the throat; he would not listen to his prayer (though the prayer was that very same prayer which he himself had just before poured forth in the bitterness of his soul); he cast him into prison till he should pay the debt. So now men forget their own guilt, their own danger; they are hard and unforgiving to others, forgetting their own deep need of mercy and forgiveness.
4. The condemnation. His fellow servants were very sorry. The sins of others will cause real sorrow to the true Christian; he will grieve over the hard hearted and impenitent, as the Lord wept over Jerusalem. "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes," said the psalmist, "because men keep not thy Law." They told their lord. The all-seeing God needs no information from men or angels; yet in their prayers his saints lay before him the oppression and sufferings of his people, as Hezekiah laid the letter of Sennacherib before the Lord, as the disciples "went and told Jesus" of the death of the holy Baptist. The king was wroth: "O thou wicked servant," he said. He had not called him wicked because he owed the ten thousand talents; he pitied him then; now he upbraids him. His want of mercy showed the utter hardness and selfishness of his heart; it showed that his own cry for mercy implied no sense of the greatness of his debt, but only fear of punishment. The king was wroth; he delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was due to him. His cruelty cancelled the forgiveness which had been granted him. His last state was worse than the first. Those who, having been once enlightened, fall away from grace are in awful danger. "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." The unhappy man could never pay that tremendous debt; he could not had he remained free, how much less when he was in the hands of the tormentors! Those words are very awful; they represent awful possibilities; they sound in our ears in tones of awful warning. "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." The unloving cannot abide in Christ, who is Love; the hardhearted and unmerciful cannot continue in union with him who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor; the unforgiving cannot dare to use the prayer which the Lord himself hath taught us, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." There is no mercy for the merciless. We may repeat again and again the words of prayer, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" but countless repetitions will not win mercy for those who have not mercy in their hearts. And oh! we shall need mercy in the great day. Then let us be merciful now: "Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
LESSONS.
1. Let us always remember the great account; God has given us work to do, let us work out our own salvation in fear and trembling.
2. Our debt is immense; let the remembrance of our sins keep us humble.
3. God's mercy is infinite; let us trust in his forgiving love.
4. He is wroth with the unforgiving; let us learn mercy of the most Merciful.
5. We say the Lord's Prayer daily; let us ever strive by God's grace to translate that prayer into practice, to live as we pray, to forgive, as we hope for forgiveness.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY