"It's Personal" September 04, 2011

Exodus 12:1-14
Matthew 18:15-34

Part of the beauty of Scripture is that it applies on so many levels, both globally, Nationally & most
of all personally. While this is Historical record of what took place between Egypt and Israel, verifying
the building of the Pyramids, authenticating the freedom of Slaves and origin of the Hebrew Feast of
Passover, this is also the personal story of those involved, and of us as the recipients. Faith is Personal.

Would that faith was theoretical, limited to Law, or to Philosophical ideas, that could be proven
and accepted or refuted and dismissed. Would that Scripture were reported as News stories by FOX or
CNN, the BBC, or even John Stewart or Michael Colbert, as we would have the story told by a
disinterested third party, or at least according to their identifiable bias.
But Faith is personal, personal to each of us and personal to God. As such, we need to identify, both
the abstract and the personal. The story of the Passover is the story of a plague befalling Egypt that
every first-born died, but Passover is also the personal story of a Sacrifice to God, a sacrifice by God.
Forgiveness according to Jesus, requires not only a naming of the wrong committed against us, but
our claiming of the other person as more important, and a claiming of our power to forgive.

Passover is the story of sacrificing of all first-born human and adult in a single night. Not only the
infants, but all the First-born. If you are the first-born in your family, would you rise. And if you are
the child of a first-born. What kind of sacrifice is it to God, that all these would die?

To appreciate the events leading up to Exodus, we must remember Pharaoh attempted Genocide.
Pharaoh ordered that all “God's people” would no longer be human, but slave; not of the same worth as
an Egyptian; that race, that class, were as animals, as property, inhuman stuff, to be bought and sold.
This is the story of Moses, this is our story, yours and mine as the community of faith, the people of
God.
Discontent that Slavery, denying these people their humanity did not destroy them, Pharaoh attempted
to have all male babies killed.
Still unhappy with the results, Pharaoh ordered all Non-Egyptian babies to be put to death. All of which
makes this story personal, personal to the people and personal to God.
Pharaoh did not perceive himself to have offended Moses, he was above the Law, “they” were not
people to him. Pharaoh had in his own mind, dismissed the reality of God and made himself God.
Having sent Moses to make the complaint, and Pharaoh refused, God gave Pharaoh opportunity after
opportunity. According to Exodus, this is not the story of the killing of the first-born; this is the Faith
Story of a Sacrifice to God. Every household of the people of God, were to make a sacrifice, and to
wipe the blood of the sacrifice on the doorposts and lintels. Every household made a sacrifice, either
the blood of a sacrificial lamb, or of the one who would inherit.

Marking of doorposts and lintels is an ancient rite. When Anon, the mother of Sudanese, was reunited
with her children, she fashioned baskets full of rice and beans and bound these together, to hang
above our door, as a blessing that our lives would always be bound together in plenty. When this
Sanctuary was created, above the door to the outside world, was placed a symbol that those who
believe in God's Plan and those who believe in Human Will are united here as one.

This reading from the Gospel according to Matthew is not the institution of a Sacrament; not the
Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus explains “Blessed are the Poor, Blessed are you when Men revile
and persecute you;” or a miracle of healing, neither is this simply the story of interaction between
Jesus and his disciples. It is all of those, but more, Jesus takes the question from Peter about
forgiveness and makes the point personal and extravagant.

Peter's question seems legitimate. It is one we have all asked at different times. But it is not really about
forgiveness, because real forgiveness does not count how many times, even 490.

Oddly, we can compartmentalize disputes within our family, that we did not pick our family
members; he has always been like that; but as demonstrated in the Sacrament of Baptism, we have
chosen one another, voluntarily submitted to one another as our Church family of choice. So when
disputes arise among those we have chosen to be a part of, how do we forgive?

First, take time to take a step back to reflect and recognize, is this important enough to be concerned
about. Due to stress, lack of sleep, worry, fears, hormones, we all are prone at times to taking minor
debts and trespasses and making them into monumental sins against humanity, mountains that separate
us.
If so, go and share with the other how you feel. Counseling churches and mentoring pastors on how
to move forward, I have amazed not that there are problems, or by how small and petty an issue can get
blown up into a dispute, but over and over, of the simple need for one person to say to another, I am
sorry. I did not know you were in the hospital. I did not know, I was so busy I did not pay attention,
I should have and I am sorry.

If they listen, you have redeemed what was lost, you have saved your relation with your brother.
If not, you are no worse than before.

We said, personal and extravagant, because as Jesus told this parable everything is extreme. Matthew
has attempted to control the meaning of this story, as if an allegory, that the Master has to equal God,
the Debtor has to equal a Sinner, Debt equals sin, Forgiveness equals being made right with God. But a
Parable unlike an allegory, is not confined to mathematic equations, a parable like poetry can exist on
multiple levels.
A Talent was equal to several days work, exactly how many we do not know. A servant owed 10,000
Talents. So, if a Talent were worth even a Single day's work, then working 7 days a week, it would take
30 years for this one to repay his debt. It was impossible for him to ever make repayment. So as was his
due, the Master ordered the debtor and his spouse and children to be indentured servants to make
restitution. But the servant humbly asked for forgiveness, and just as absurd as the magnitude of debt,
the Master forgave everything. Imagine having a $500,000 debt cancelled as paid in full!
That is forgiveness. But forgiveness is not simply about saying what needs to be said to repay a debt,
forgiveness is a change of reality, a change of who we are.
The Forgiven Servant finds another who owed him a paltry sum, yet though this debtor recites exactly
the same words, he is grabbed by the neck and was put into prison.
Just as fast as he had been forgiven, the first servant is back before the Master, and rather than being
made an indentured servant, he is now made a prisoner of his debt.

The point is that the debt, the sin, the problem with our brother eats away at us. Like a secret, that
pain has a power over us. In all likelihood the brother is never going to offer an apology. The question
then becomes, whether to allow the debt to have power over you, or to forgive, naming the wrong
committed, naming the hurt and division, but intentionally claiming power over the division.

The piece of this I have always wondered about, is Jesus final charge regarding how to forgive. If your
scoundrel of a brother does not repent when you name the wrong, even when you do so before others
who can hold accountability, even the whole community of faith “Then let him be to you as a Gentile
or Tax Collector.” I think what this means, in the Gospels, is let them be as those you attempt to seek
out as needing forgiveness and needing faith.