Sermon - Trinity 22, 2020 - Matthew 18:21-35

There’s a lot of talk about debt in our lives. We talk about the $27 trillion US national debt, the student loan debt, credit card debt, mortgages and car loans. Politicians use debt as a means to get you to vote for them, promising to lower your debts. Men like Dave Ramsey are very popular because they give common sense advice to help people get out from under their debt. 

But Jesus today talks to us about a different kind of debt, a debt due to our sin. “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.” That debtor who owed the master 10,000 talents, that’s us!

It’s not an insignificant debt, either. One talent is the equivalent to 20 years’ wages. Thus, a debt of 10,000 talents is the equivalent to owing 200,000 year’s worth of wages. It’s an impossibly huge burden from which you could never hope to escape. No politician could make that kind of debt just disappear; this is a debt snowball that not even Dave Ramsey could help you conquer. No, we owe a ridiculously large debt due to sin, and only God through Christ mercifully forgives it all.

Though this doesn’t change the fact that many attempt to relieve their debt of sin by their own merits. Afterall, this is the Dave Ramsey way, you don’t just declare bankruptcy, but you strategically work to pay down the debts. “So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’”

But the problem with that is we underestimate the cost of paying back this debt due to sin. But that doesn’t stop us from trying. So we ask: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

So that’s exactly what we try to do! We try to pay off the sin of our souls with the fruit of our bodies. We work hard to make a name for ourselves, we invest money to increase our wealth, we do what we can to be successful. But none of that is good enough here because the debt we owe goes beyond silver and gold!

“Since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.” Since we cannot pay off this debt of sin, the only thing we could do to repay is be sold into slavery to two wicked masters, death and Satan. If we’ve made our bed and must now lie in it, the only option is hell and losing everything and everyone we’ve ever loved.

But thankfully, God doesn’t just have patience with us and send us to hell eternally to pay the debt. Rather, God has pity and compassion upon us servants, and releases us from our prison of death and forgives our debt of sin. But this expensive debt needed to be made right, God is just after all. So while we’ve been forgiven the debt, He paid it for us in our place.

Thus the humiliation of Christ is that Jesus, the God and creator of all things, became man. The almighty God who fills the universe with His presence, entered into the womb of the Virgin Mary as a miniscule blastocyst. He hungered and thirsted, was despised and rejected. He came as the Word of life enfleshed, and was ridiculed while people threw rocks at Him. He was unjustly tried in court and sentenced to an embarrassing death. He didn’t just spend some lousy silver and gold for you, but He shed His blood and innocently suffered the pains of hell on your behalf.

That is a debt paid and forgiven which ought to occupy our every thought and action in this life! There is no greater justice and kindness than what Christ has done for us. He is our one Redeemer who has bought us back from prison with His own blood. Perhaps if we spent even a fraction of the time we spend arguing about some politician or financier getting us out of temporal debt, we’d not have had the occasion to get into so many lousy messes to begin with.

Nevertheless, we’re so quick to forget God’s bountiful mercies He shows to us daily on account of Christ, that we fail to live out our lives in this faith with our fellow servants. “When that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.”

How quick we are to forget God’s abundant mercy towards us that we turn around and treat our fellow servants like dirt. When someone wrongs us, we hold onto that grudge and forget it never. We forever loathe their guts and wish them dead. Sure they owe us a debt, maybe even a significant debt! 100 denarii is 100 days’ wages, so not a small chunk of change, but still compared to our ridiculous debt towards God our Master it pales to nothing. Still, we forget about God’s love and wish to condemn our neighbor to hell.

So Christ admonishes us with these starck words of warning: “Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

If we don’t forgive one another, then we still harbor hatred in our hearts. Where hatred reigns and there is no love of neighbor, then there is no faith, for faith is active in love. Where there is no faith, Christ doesn’t dwell. Where there is no Christ, there is no grace of God. Where there is no grace of God, there is no forgiveness of sins.

Therefore, let us forever dwell upon the richness of God’s grace for us in Christ Jesus! Let the image of the cross be a daily reminder for our eyes that God loves us. Let the physical sign of the cross remind us that Jesus dwells within our hearts. Let us daily take up our cross, denying ourselves, and forgive one another as God forgives us. Above all things, let our eyes be ever fixed on Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, rejoicing in His gift of forgiveness for all of His servants.