A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. At that time, Peter, you'd have guessed it. He'd be the one to do it, came up to Jesus and said to him, Lord, often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to Peter, I do not tell you seven times, but 70 times seven times.
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven, our lord continued, may be compared to a king. He wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the reckoning, one of the servants was brought into him who owed him 10,000 talents. However much that is, it's an enormous sum. That's all the idea is, enormous.
And as the servant couldn't pay, his lord ordered him to be sold with his wife and his children and everything he had and payment to be made. That's pretty brutal. So the servant fell on his knees before his lord, imploring him, master, he says, have patience with me and I eventually will pay you everything. Well, out of pity for the man, the lord of that servant released him and forgave the debt. But that very same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a 100 denarii.
Think of it in terms of some very small pittance. And then this guy, seizing him by the throat, said to his fellow servant, pay me what you owe me. So his fellow servant fell down and besought him. Have patience with me, he said, and I'll pay you everything. But the man refused and went and put him into prison till he should pay the debt in its entirety.
Now when this man's fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed. They went back and reported everything that had happened to their lord. And then his lord summoned the man and said to him, you wicked servant. I forgave you all the debt because you besought me, because you entreated me. And should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
And then in anger, his lord delivered the man to the jailers till he should pay his debt in full. And remember, this is our lord speaking. So also, says our lord, my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And this is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit.
Amen. Well, this this remember, this is a parable. But please notice this, little item in there about being sold into slavery to to pay a debt. Our blessed lord accepts that. He's he he makes no, remonstrance about it.
That's not my point. I have one thought to leave with you this morning. And whenever I read this, this anecdote comes to my mind. Someone was being discussed, was being talked about as regards their willingness to forgive. And somebody's remark as regards this third person and they're very oh, they were always willing to forgive.
It was no problem. But somebody said about that person who was so willing to forgive, but when they buried a hatchet, they bury it in a well marked grave. For forgiveness is not an easy thing. Notice, we're not talking here about fictions. We're talking here about a reality that has to be forgiven.
We have been injured unjustly. And in a certain sense, forgiveness is relatively easy to say, I forgive you. But my friends, if you've had this experience, remembering is not so easy or forgetting is not so easy. That's the problem. We're willing to forgive alright, but how much of ourselves go with that forgiveness?
Now some of this we can't control. I would like to make that perfectly clear to you. You can't wash out memories. You can't automatically when you have been actually injured some way or other. I don't care how it is.
In other words, there is a just cause demanding your forgiveness. Alright. It's one thing to forgive and to say with god's help, I do forgive you, but it's a mighty hard thing to bury that hatchet in an unmarked grave because we can't wipe out memory. We can't wipe out the past. We can't wipe out the recollections.
We can't wipe out the influx of resentment that can rise up in us at times. These things to some extent are beyond our control. They are not in the level of will. In a sense, they are not. In the sense of being sensational part of our emotions, you cannot in every instance and in every way control them.
But what you can control is your determination. This is what counts. Whether or not you do bury the hatchet in a well marked grave, what counts is whether you have that willingness with God's grace to forgive and to forget. And I would say it takes more of God's grace to help us to forget than to forgive unless you say the two are the same. Now they're not the same.
They are not the same. And keep that in mind. So don't think that you're at the bottom of the barrel of forgiveness because you can't wipe out the past and free your imagination and your remembrance and your recollection. What counts is the act of the will in what you're doing. I forgive and I am forgetting, and with God's help, it will be actual.
But we need God's help. And so this story of our lords about forgiveness is terribly important. Let us take it to heart and realize it's much more of a problem than we may think it. We need god's grace to forgive and above all to forget. The name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, amen.
The lord