Forgiveness by Worthless Slaves

Luke  17:3-10

How important is forgiveness in our day? You'll probably watch the drama, so if you think about it, there aren't many good fantasies that understand and forgive like Woo Young-woo. Do you know Extraordinary Attorney Woo? I didn't expect you to know so much. I don't know if that's what the pastor is talking about, but I hope you don't just look at the Word too much and study the world a little bit. It was a very rare fairy tale drama recently, but it is a good drama that is hard to find enough to count. However, in most of the dramas that air, fantasy of revenge is more mainstream. It contains the content of punishing and scolding the wicked through the thrilling revenge of the good protagonist. A story that is hard and stuffy like a sweet potato, a story in which the main character goes through hardships with dedication, sacrifice, and eventually receives minimal recognition and ends up winning the battle is not popular. An epic that is cool, hot, and instantly punishes evil, gives words if received in return, and breaks the bones of the wicked is popular and can catch people's attention. Carlos Aire, a professor at Yale University, was expelled from Cuba as a child. Remembering those painful childhoods, he said he wanted to see those who did bad things to him convicted and "licking his tongue at Satan's butt, dotted with razor blades," and the drama caught our eyes. It shows hot. You seem to have analyzed popular culture, and watching the drama videos summarized on YouTube, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” seems to be getting more cheers than forgiveness. Unfortunately, forgiveness is very rare. Paul told us to throw away the vain and vain myths, but perhaps this exhilarating narrative of revenge is a false myth.

We usually justify this revenge in the name of justice. We take for granted the violence that justice is punishment. But when revenge puts on justice, the world is prone to staining with crime. Revenge begets revenge. Justice may remove evil, but there is a danger that it will not stop even if it destroys the world. If you seek justice and try to overcome evil, unfortunately, there is always the danger of being defeated by evil. When you repay evil with evil, what is left is evil, and it is evil that drives the whole process. If forgiveness is omitted while putting God's justice first, what is left is a vicious cycle of evil. This is because God disappears and evil becomes the beginning and end of all things. So, Paul's exhortation to overcome evil with good is not a simple, flat, or simply exhortation, but a fundamental and heavy teaching that needs to be taken seriously.

The short story of Hemingway's collection of short stories, 'The Capital of the World' begins like this. “In Madrid, it is common to see boys with the name Paco. The name Paco is a nickname for Francesco. In Madrid, a funny story about a father is being circulated. The father went to Madrid and published an advertisement in a private magazine called [El Liberal]. “See you at the Montana Hotel at noon on Paco Tuesday. He forgave everything. Dad.” 800 young men gathered after seeing the advertisement and had to call in the Guardian cavalry to disperse them.”

There were many pacos in Spain, waiting for forgiveness, and the police were so crowded that they had to disperse. What makes this story so compelling is that it reveals the longing of millions of people who want to be forgiven. We long for forgiveness, and we know that without forgiveness, relationships cannot improve. That is why the word forgiveness comes to us like a pricking thorn on the one hand and heartbreaking on the other. Forgiveness is good, but it is difficult to give.

To give to someone is called give, and to forgive is called forgive. If you look at the etymology, FOR means thoroughly, so forgiveness means to give thoroughly. By giving, we make others happy or fill in the gaps. As we forgive, we restore true joy to the other person and fill in the gaps in life's most important relationships.

The problem is that forgiveness is not easy. A broken heart inspires each of our cells to ask for revenge and to cry for justice based on revenge. “Why do I have to suffer often?” These words pop up out of nowhere. Then, forgiveness will not come easily. Will the other person understand my pain? Will the other person recognize his/her mistake? If not, what does it mean for me to forgive? Wake up and list the reasons you don't want to forgive. So forgiveness is not easy. But if God wants me to forgive, that is the path of a believer. Today's text still tells us the conditions that are easy for us to forgive. Because it tells us to forgive ‘when the other person repents’. It is easier to forgive when you repent than to forgive when you do not repent. But He tells us to forgive even if we sin seven times a day and repent seven times. It may seem like a joke to say that you come and repent seven times a day. Are you really repenting? You might think. But even so, Jesus tells us to forgive. Also, to forgive seven times a day means to forgive absolutely infinitely, not literally seven times.

There is a well-known expression about forgiveness. “Forgive, but let’s not forget!” Is this kind of forgiveness the forgiveness Jesus asked for? “Forgive, but let’s not forget,” that is, unforgivable forgiveness is far from the forgiveness Jesus asked for. If you forgive seven times a day, but if you don't forget things accumulate day by day, is it possible to forgive? Not forgetting is a declaration of the will not to be hurt any more. It means to keep the bitter root in mind. Then you have to remember the hurt, and it means that if the other person treats you in a bad way in the past, then you will not stand still. It ends up being half-forgiveness, incomplete forgiveness, and punitive forgiveness. Jesus does not ask us for this kind of forgiveness.

So theologian Wolf emphasizes that the key to forgiveness is forgetting. Forgetting what the other person has done to you is said to be the perfection of forgiveness. You may be outraged for saying that because you don't know the pain and hurt you have gone through. And that anger is understandable. The scars engraved on the heart are difficult to erase. If there is no God, ‘Forgive But Don’t Forgive’ can be good for your mental health. But our forgiveness is performed in the presence of God. When you go to the kingdom of God and meet, if something that you have not forgotten about the other person springs up, can that place become the kingdom of God? How could it be a place of eternal peace and rest? That's why Wolf called the completion of forgiveness as forgetting. To truly forgive, you must forget. Parents will probably agree. Parents, don't you feel very resentful when your children don't remember what they did well to their children and only remember what they didn't do? So do adult children. It would be unfair to remember that your elderly parents did not do well for you and only remembered what made you sad. Our brains are like that. It seems to have been designed with a wound in mind. I don't know if it's for survival because we need to remember the wounds well to ensure safety. But for us to truly forgive, we need forgetfulness. If Jesus had not forgiven his disciples so much, and had not put their deeds into oblivion, he would have smitten his public life a dozen more times. Forgiveness requires the depth and breadth of forgetting.

The amount of seven times a day, the quality that forgiveness requires, and Jesus' words were too heavy for the disciples. So the disciples ask Jesus' forgiveness request, "Give us faith." The premise the disciples have is that if they have great faith, they can do it. It is also an excuse for not having enough faith. The disciples judge forgiveness by the great or small of faith. The more you have faith, the more you can forgive, and the less you have faith, the less you forgive. And I think that faith must be filled by pouring from the outside.

But Jesus replies to the disciples' request, saying, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up and planted in the sea,' and it will be done for you." In other words, Jesus answers that faith the size of a mustard seed is enough. Faith the size of a mustard seed, what does it mean? You know the size of a mustard seed. It is small. nothing insignificant.

This phrase “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed” is often heard as a rebuke. Hey guys! Yes, there is no faith like a mustard seed! You've been following me so much, and I've taught you that, are you saying that you're not the same faith as a mustard seed? This verse is often interpreted like this. But today's text can be read differently. The disciples have faith the size of a mustard seed, and that faith alone is enough. Faith the size of a mustard seed is a very small amount of faith. But that is enough. It is not a matter of the amount of faith. He says that the age of faith or the depth of faith are not essential factors for complete forgiveness. Jesus is encouraging his disciples that it is possible with a little faith.

What is belief? The Heidelberg Catechism defines faith as follows: Faith is said to be "the total trust the Holy Spirit creates in me through the gospel" rather than any kind of knowledge. Faith is not the knowledge we need to accumulate, but the total trust in the Holy Spirit who works in us through the gospel. Faith is the channel of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works only by touch, regardless of the size of the passage. Also, forgiveness is the work of the Holy Spirit. When a mustard seed grows, it becomes a mustard tree. It cannot become a thorn tree. Faith is bound to make forgiveness bear fruit. Because faith is trust in the work of the forgiving Holy Spirit.

Calvin called it a critique of the “evil arrogance” in which all human beings believe in their own merits, that it can be done with little faith. A mustard seed of faith makes all of these things possible, regardless of whether the person has great faith, has little faith, has long faith, or is just starting out in faith. It's not what I do, it's this little faith in me that makes all forgiveness possible. It is not my merit, but the faith that God has given me as a gift, the size of a mustard seed in me.

So, like the last sentence of today's text, 'We are useless servants. We just did what we ought to do.' We have no choice but to confess. A useless servant is a confession of a worthless servant, a useless servant. You can think of it as a confession that does not fit into an era that values self-esteem and self-worth. But it is a confession we must make before God. Because the fruit we bear is not because of our merits. It is God's grace and God's work.

When we face ‘forgiveness’, we see deeper and more deeply how useless we are and how useless we are. As Augustine prickly put it, “Sometimes we forgive with our mouths, but we keep them with our hearts.” God forgives and forgives us. But it is very difficult for us to forgive. It is certainly not difficult when we consider the forgiveness God has given us. But we find it difficult to forgive. It is difficult to have faith the size of a mustard seed. Even with faith as small as a mustard seed, we can move mountains, but the reason we can't do it is that we are of no use or worth. When we look at Jesus Christ, who bore the cross to forgive and save us, and shed His blood and water, the cross we must bear is a light yoke. However, as we are struggling with that yoke, we have no choice but to confess that we are poor servants.

So Benedict called on the monks to cry out the Lord's prayer in a loud voice every morning and evening. “Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” They reminded themselves morning and evening of what they had to forgive. This is to remind us that we are forgiven by God and that we should forgive ourselves. Forgiveness is not a matter of faith. The problem of forgiveness is a problem of the “self” that has grown. Because we wrap ourselves up as useful humans, leaving no room for faith the size of a mustard seed. We can't forgive generously just because we've reached a place where people will appreciate it. It's not something we can forgive because we've achieved something that's not good. Confessing that we are little servants, forgiving with faith the size of a mustard seed is our duty.

We are all called to be disciples. The mission of a disciple is forgiveness. It is not forgiveness that is not forgotten, but forgiveness that is intentionally forgotten and embraced. I pray that we will all be able to live according to the will of God, not by our own power, but by confessing as a humble servant, in faith the size of a mustard seed, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.