A Reflection for XVIII Pentecost (Proper 20) All Saints’, Southern
Shores, N.C.
September 22, 2014 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
As I was preparing for the Bible Study this week, I
was looking at the Gospel lesson and, while I have preached on this lesson at
least ten different times over my ordained ministry, I did not notice the word
“debtor” before. I guess I was all intent on trying to find out why the Master
commended the dishonest servant, and I passed right over the word. As I prayed
about it, it seemed as if the scales fell from my eyes and, for a couple of
hours, I had a wonderful time thinking I had cracked the code to the meaning of
this passage because I finally noticed that word, “Debtor”.
Let me explain; how many of you for your sins have
been to a Presbyterian church? My mother was a Presbyterian and my grandparents
took me to their Presbyterian church on their local college campus when my
brother and I were palmed off on them for part of the summer so that my parents
could regain some sanity. In their version of the Lord’s Prayer, the petition
is “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, while the Episcopalians
used “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” I had been
told that “sin” meant not necessarily something bad but something that misses
the mark and falls short of the target. I just figured that it was a
disagreement in translation since to be in debt is also to fall short I went back to my Greek concordance to back
myself up, but that didn’t happen. Because while the words are synonymous, it
is Matthew’s Gospel which uses the Greek word for debt and Luke’s Gospel that
uses the Greek word for “sin”.
However, I am not going to let an inconvenient
surface fact get in the way of the truth. I want you to know that my Greek
professor would disapprove of my playing fast and loose with the words of
scripture, and my New Testament Professor is probably rolling over in his grave
because the story of the “Dishonest Manager” is in Luke and not in Matthew, and
it is not found in any of the other Greek manuscripts. So I have not a shred of evidence to back me
up. But as Luther says in the 99th
letter to Melanchthon,
"If
you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace; if
grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save
people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe
and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death,
and the world. As long as we are here we have to sin. This life in not the
dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens
and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. . . . Pray boldly-you too are a
mighty sinner." (Weimar ed. vol. 2, p. 371; Letters I, "Luther's
Works," American Ed., Vol 48. p. 281- 282)
Suppose that I looked at this story not
as a recounting of fact, but as if it were a dream. Come on, admit it. You knew I was going to bring up dreams
again. So for those of you picked five minutes in the “How long into the sermon
will it take Tom to mention dreams?” pool, you can wait for a minute to collect
your winnings or you could just write down that the names of the people who are
in your debt. When we look at a dream, we understand it in symbols and that is
the way to understand this story - as a parable, as Jesus’ story told in dream
language to the right side of our brain.
So this is not a story about economics. In the parable the character of the Master is
a stand-in for God, and in the imagination of my prayers, I understood that the
word debtor meant sinners. The manager is you and me, we are the stewards of
God, and we have all squandered opportunities for God’s Kingdom to come and for
God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven. In my imagination I suppose that,
in God’s Kingdom, forgiveness is the norm and my job is to forgive. Suppose in
the books I keep in my heart I remember every sin that has been done against me,
and in that ledger each person’s sin is added to their debt: they owe me!
The image is like the ghost of Jacob
Marley in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, who
comes to Scrooge bound in chains, chained for all eternity, “clasped about his
middle. The chain was long, and wound about him like a tail; it was made, for
Scrooge observed it closely, of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers,
deeds,
and heavy purses wrought in steel."
Suppose that every sin that has been
done against me is also a sin against God and those offenders are in debt to,
and owe, God. Suppose I realize that God is calling for an accounting of my
internal books and ledgers, the ones I chain to my heart and memory. Suppose
that I do not want to go before God with all that red ink on my soul, so I go
to everyone who is in my books and forgive those parts of the sins I am able to
forgive at this time, not because I am a good person - I am not - but out of my
own self-interest, so I don’t have to go before God with all of my resentments.
Suppose that the Master (God) comes to you and me and says, “You were acting
shrewdly in your own self-interest just like all those other people who are not
members of churches act in their own self-interest. Thank you for doing that
for, as my servant John wrote in his Gospel, “the sins that you bind on earth
are bound in heaven and the sins that you loose on earth are loosed in heaven.”
Suppose that when I forgive, it is not
just me that forgives but the God within me and you that forgives, and the
sinner and I and you share the same sacred ground of our being. Just saying the
words is not enough, but I must ask God to cleanse me from my resentment and to
change my memory so that, the next time I remember the hurt that was inflicted,
the feelings of anger will be replaced by sadness for the pain that I allowed
to fester for so long, and I will delight that God gave me the strength to even
want to want to forgive. Suppose that is
what we are called to do when we are called by the Master to answer for the
ledgers that we have chained on ourselves. Suppose that is another way of
looking at this story of cooking the books, burning away all of our burdens in
the fire of God’s love.
Suppose instead of holding resentments
and holding on to enemies, we pray for them in thanksgiving, as the writer of 1st
Timothy for today urges: “First
of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high
positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
dignity.”
That is just supposing of course that Jesus taught
us to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors as the Presbyterians and
Matthew say it or sins as Episcopalians and Luke say it. Maybe it is just a
dream, but suppose we took it seriously?
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