SPEAKER_03: Blessed be God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Blessed be God with everything, now and forever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_03: Almighty God, to you all hearts are open.
SPEAKER_03: All desires know.
SPEAKER_03: And from you know the secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_03: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_03: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart and united to one another with pure affection through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: A College for Independence Day.
SPEAKER_03: Lord God Almighty, in whose name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us.
SPEAKER_03: And let the torture freedom for nations then unborn.
SPEAKER_03: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and in peace.
SPEAKER_03: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: As you're being seated, our children, grades five and below, are invited to godly play in the back of Emory.
SPEAKER_01: A reading from one Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Now Samuel was ministering in the presence of the Holy One of old, a boy dressed in a linen ether.
SPEAKER_01: A little robe would his mother make for him and bring up to him year by year.
SPEAKER_01: When she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And Eli would bless Al Cana and his wife and say, May the Holy One repay you, Ocana, proceed from this woman in place of the request she made to the fount of water.
SPEAKER_01: And then they would return to their home.
SPEAKER_01: And the faithful one attended Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to two daughters and three sons.
SPEAKER_01: And the boy Samuel grew up there in the presence of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: Now the boy Samuel went on and grew in goodness with the Most High and with humanity.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the living God.
SPEAKER_01: I will give thanks to the Holy God with my whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: Great are the works of the Creator of all.
SPEAKER_01: Glorious and majestic is her work.
SPEAKER_01: She has made a monument of her own wonder.
SPEAKER_01: She provides meat for those who revere her.
SPEAKER_01: Set up for all time.
SPEAKER_01: She sent redemption to her people.
SPEAKER_01: She has commanded her covenant for all time.
SPEAKER_01: The beginning of wisdom is the reverence of the ever living God, a good understanding of all those who do so.
SPEAKER_00: You yourselves know, sisters and brothers, our coming to you was not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, we had suffered previously and been mistreated and Philippi, as you know.
SPEAKER_00: We had coverage and courage in our God to declare to you all the gospel of God in spite of much opposition.
SPEAKER_00: For our exhortation is not from deceit or corruption or trickery.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so do we speak, not to please women or men, but to please God who tests our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Now we never came with a word of flattery, as you all know, or with a pretext for greed.
SPEAKER_00: God is our witness.
SPEAKER_00: Nor did we seek praise from women and men, rather from you all or from others, we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, we were childlike among you, even like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.
SPEAKER_00: Thus, so caring for you all, it is our pleasure to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also ourselves, because you have become beloved to us.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: For this reason, the realm of heaven may be compared to a human ruler who wished to settle matters with their enslaved debtors.
SPEAKER_03: When the settlement began, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought forward.
SPEAKER_03: Since that one could not pay, the ruler ordered that enslaved person to be sold, together with thousand children in every possession, and thus to pay.
SPEAKER_03: So falling and kneeling before the ruler, the enslaved debtor and children in every possession.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, sorry, falling before the ruler, the enslaved debtor said, Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.
SPEAKER_03: And out of compassion, the Lord of that enslaved person released that one and forgave the debt.
SPEAKER_03: That same enslaved person who was owned a hundred denarii by another enslaved person, upon going out, came upon the debtor, and seizing that one by the throat said, Pay what you owe.
SPEAKER_03: Then the indebted slave fell down and pled, Have patience with me, and I will pay you.
SPEAKER_03: But the other enslaved person was not willing, and went and threw the debtor into prison until the debt was paid.
SPEAKER_03: When those who were also enslaved saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their Lord all that had taken place.
SPEAKER_03: Then the Lord summoned the one whose debt was forgiven, saying, You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
SPEAKER_03: Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave as I had mercy on you?
SPEAKER_03: And in anger the Lord handed that one over to the tor to be tortured until the entire debt could be paid.
SPEAKER_03: So my heavenly Abba will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your sister or brother from your heart.
SPEAKER_03: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I hope you realize that we have to say, praise be to you, Lord Christ, every week, because man, at the end of that, I'm sure don't want to say that.
SPEAKER_03: I usually want to say something like, after this reading, God help us.
SPEAKER_03: And I want to suggest to you that there are a couple of things going on in this story that are at least worth unpacking.
SPEAKER_03: Before that, I want you to know that my Bible, my NIV translation, has like little subject headings that are not part of the Bible.
SPEAKER_03: Translators have put them in there to help me know what's coming next.
SPEAKER_03: And the frame for this story is the unmerciful servant.
SPEAKER_03: I almost guarantee you your Bible says that too.
SPEAKER_03: I want to tell you that's probably the worst title for this passage.
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to give you my title at the end.
SPEAKER_03: Okay?
SPEAKER_03: A couple things I want to tell you up front.
SPEAKER_03: The numbers matter.
SPEAKER_03: So seven is a very significant number biblically.
SPEAKER_03: Seven is the number of perfection.
SPEAKER_03: In Hebrew, it is the word Shabbat.
SPEAKER_03: Sound like any word you know?
SPEAKER_03: Sabbath, right?
SPEAKER_03: Peter says, if my brother or sister sin against me or trespass, if they owe me, how many times should I forgive them?
SPEAKER_03: Sabbath times?
SPEAKER_03: The perfect number?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus says something really interesting.
SPEAKER_03: And the translation could work a couple of ways.
SPEAKER_03: It could either say, not seven, but seventy-seven, or it could be rendered seven times seventy.
SPEAKER_03: Now, I'm a pretty meticulous keeper of records, particularly when people owe me stuff.
SPEAKER_03: But hopefully, if you're like me, any engineers in the room, hopefully you realize I could probably keep a debt of seven.
SPEAKER_03: I might even be able to keep 70, but when we're talking about seven times 70, 490?
SPEAKER_03: Well, I need more than one spreadsheet for that.
SPEAKER_03: Right?
SPEAKER_03: So, so this is a lot, but I want you to know that even this is doing something that happened in Genesis.
SPEAKER_03: If you if you go with me, I just want to say this quickly.
SPEAKER_03: You might remember that once upon a time there were these two brothers, and one of them was jealous of the other and killed him.
SPEAKER_03: That's Cain killed Abel.
SPEAKER_03: And Cain said to God, Wherever I go on the world, people will see me and kill me.
SPEAKER_03: The other only other people on the planet were his parents, so go figure.
SPEAKER_03: And God says, I'll put a mark on you, and if anybody harms you, I'll avenge you times seven.
SPEAKER_03: You know this one, right?
SPEAKER_03: Okay, then within a couple generations, it gets even worse because there's this guy called Lamech.
SPEAKER_03: Somebody insults him and he murders him for insulting him.
SPEAKER_03: And then he comes home, probably drunk, and he goes to his wife.
SPEAKER_03: If he is avenged times seven, Lamech is avenged 77.
SPEAKER_03: You know, if you keep reading Genesis, things get worse.
SPEAKER_03: The vengeance keeps getting higher.
SPEAKER_03: So it's likely that Jesus, who knew his scriptures, is suggesting we reverse the first later.
SPEAKER_03: I know it's the word flavor, but I hope you heard this is like this is a cow flavor.
SPEAKER_03: How much is it?
SPEAKER_03: You have to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_03: How interesting.
SPEAKER_03: Does this thing that's so sweet, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03: Be patient, I'll pay you back.
SPEAKER_03: There ain't enough money in the world to pay him back.
SPEAKER_03: There wasn't even enough money in the world to issue the debt to begin with.
SPEAKER_03: I'll pay you back.
SPEAKER_03: And and and the liege lord says, I'll forgive the debt.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, then you get the he wants a hundred denarii.
SPEAKER_03: What's a hundred denarii?
SPEAKER_03: That's a hundred days' wages.
SPEAKER_03: So think about what you earn every year.
SPEAKER_03: It's a third.
SPEAKER_03: It's a third of your annual salary.
SPEAKER_03: Still a significant amount of money, right?
SPEAKER_03: But you could pay that back.
SPEAKER_03: You really find that out if you have a kid who goes to college.
SPEAKER_03: Right?
SPEAKER_03: Or if you pay for a wedding, like you're figuring out what these things cost, right?
SPEAKER_03: So you can pay that back.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the second servant actually is living in the world of reason.
SPEAKER_03: By the way, where do you think the first servant got the hundred denarii to lend?
SPEAKER_03: Out of the thousand talents.
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_03: He wants to enforce a debt that was just forgiven him anyway.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's an interesting bit, right?
SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't want to ask you to raise your hands, I kind of want to ask you to raise your hands.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to ask you to actually do it.
SPEAKER_03: It's really clear what Jesus says, right?
SPEAKER_03: It's really clear.
SPEAKER_03: Seven times 70 or 77, right?
SPEAKER_03: By the time I get to the end of the story, I'm like, yeah, you unmerciful servant, you swine, you get tortured.
SPEAKER_03: That's what you deserve.
SPEAKER_03: Don't raise your hand.
SPEAKER_03: Does anybody else think that's how it ought to be?
SPEAKER_03: Maybe I'm just preaching to myself.
SPEAKER_03: I actually think Jesus tells the story to show how quickly we disregard basic instructions.
SPEAKER_03: I know the right answer is 77, and by the end, I won't even do it once.
SPEAKER_03: I think the parable should be called the unmerciful listener.
SPEAKER_03: Because I think it draws out from us this fundamental burden most of us carry about things being even.
SPEAKER_03: And I've already said this.
SPEAKER_03: So will my Abba treat you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.
SPEAKER_03: Well, if we didn't read that carefully, we sure could read that at the surface level and hear Jesus saying, forgive or else.
SPEAKER_03: God, that sounds like me.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, in the history of interpretation, that is the read.
SPEAKER_03: And if you want to hear the Lord's prayer doing that, you do it all the time.
SPEAKER_03: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive other people.
SPEAKER_03: God, judge me how I judge other people.
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to pray that prayer, friends.
SPEAKER_03: Do you want to pray like that?
SPEAKER_03: I mean, really, is that what you want?
SPEAKER_03: I want God to be more lenient on me than I am on other people.
SPEAKER_03: I actually want God to be more lenient on me than I am on myself.
SPEAKER_03: I'm usually the harshest judge on other people because I'm the harshest judge on me.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it makes me think about that African proverb: never accept a shirt from a naked man, which is that why forgiveness is so hard for us to give is because we don't do it to ourselves.
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if Jesus is saying, actually, the God of our imagination is the one with which we treat ourselves with.
SPEAKER_03: And that God is usually not worthy of worship.
SPEAKER_03: The ones we imagine.
SPEAKER_03: That God sure looks a lot like unfettered capitalism, if you don't mind me saying so.
SPEAKER_03: Beyond that.
SPEAKER_03: Did you notice that the liege lord forgives the debt and then reinstates it?
SPEAKER_03: Now, forgive me for bringing this up.
SPEAKER_03: I just thought once something was forgiven, it was.
SPEAKER_03: So actually, this is not even a story about conditional forgiveness.
SPEAKER_03: This is a story about arbitrary mercy.
SPEAKER_03: Is that God worthy of worship?
SPEAKER_03: Not for me.
SPEAKER_03: Because I treat my children better than that.
SPEAKER_03: So surely God treats us better than that.
SPEAKER_03: Now, okay, a couple of thoughts on what's going on here.
SPEAKER_03: I told you before, maybe I used to see this therapist who said, you know, in a moment, in any moment when we're upset, and this is true whether you've had kids or you've been a sibling or whether you've had parents or whether you're a spouse of specialty, there is this like feeling we get in a moment that my therapist calls the 90-10 rule.
SPEAKER_03: 90% of your consternation is from stuff that happened a long time ago or that you think could happen.
SPEAKER_03: Like, oh my gosh, my child's handwriting is bad, they're gonna be dead in the gutter in 15 years.
SPEAKER_03: And so 90% of our anxiety and anger is about something not even there.
SPEAKER_03: Only 10%, maybe, is about the actual thing.
SPEAKER_03: The 90-10 rule.
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's so descriptive and applicable, because we're just like this person.
SPEAKER_03: And actually, who's really good in the story, I don't even know.
SPEAKER_03: Nobody seems particularly great in the story to me, right?
SPEAKER_03: But I think because we're like that unmerciful servant.
SPEAKER_03: You know, if you ask me, and I'm your priest, and there's days where I don't really know if I should be the professional and Christian in front of you, I understand that we need God's forgiveness, and I'd love to have it.
SPEAKER_03: But if I'm really honest with you, I think I'm gonna pay God back.
SPEAKER_03: I know you can't.
SPEAKER_03: But I think I can.
SPEAKER_03: And I don't want God to give it to me.
SPEAKER_03: I'm too proud for that.
SPEAKER_03: I want to earn it.
SPEAKER_03: I don't want grace.
SPEAKER_03: I want wages.
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to relax.
SPEAKER_03: I want to get on the damn hamster wheel and run for my value in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_03: I probably wouldn't be a priest if I didn't want that.
SPEAKER_03: Jim, would you be a priest if you didn't want that?
SPEAKER_03: Let's just be honest here.
SPEAKER_03: I don't think Jesus is telling us how to be.
SPEAKER_03: I think he's telling us how we are.
SPEAKER_03: Now, maybe this touches you, maybe it doesn't.
SPEAKER_03: But you know, I used to talk about forgiveness as being a thing I give other people.
SPEAKER_03: And in that concept, I talk to kids about how forgiveness is really a lot like a measuring tape.
SPEAKER_03: Anytime somebody pokes me, well, now I've got to keep some distance from you.
SPEAKER_03: And the more you do it, right, the longer that gets, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that happens pretty fast, right?
SPEAKER_03: And and it makes me think that forgiveness and grace, as different from what you hear in this parable, is not when I say, Well, I'll forgive you and you need to keep this work far away from me.
SPEAKER_03: Forgiveness might actually require us to like it probably takes that long, by the way, to really do it, right?
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of wiggling.
SPEAKER_03: It takes us a while to reel the tape in, but I wonder if the opportunity isn't for us just to put the tape away.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, my question conceptually is does God hold down a tape for each one of us and say, don't come any closer, you don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_03: I know we say God isn't like that.
SPEAKER_03: Do you believe yourself when you say it?
SPEAKER_03: Do you hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_03: I trust that that's right.
SPEAKER_03: I just don't believe it.
SPEAKER_03: And so Jesus is talking to me.
SPEAKER_03: I wish I could give you three easy steps on how to put the tape away from your life.
SPEAKER_03: I wish.
SPEAKER_03: Even better.
SPEAKER_03: I wish I could sell you a pill.
SPEAKER_03: And if you just took it, you might have a rough night, but in the morning, you would be saturated with God's grace.
SPEAKER_03: I don't have that pill.
SPEAKER_03: I just want to suggest to you, quite honestly, that there is something to me valuable about that 90-10 rule.
SPEAKER_03: Because I'll tell you, I used to be a math teacher, and one of the most valuable things I could give my students was grading their test and returning it the next day.
SPEAKER_03: They never waited a week.
SPEAKER_03: They got it back the next day.
SPEAKER_03: That's because I believe in instant feedback, right?
SPEAKER_03: How are you gonna learn from your mistakes if you don't know what they are?
SPEAKER_03: And that puts me in the 90-10 rule because when I speak quickly, I speak from a legacy burden that says, you've got to earn grace, it's not given.
SPEAKER_03: I'm just talking about me.
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know about three easy steps.
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna tell you about one really difficult step.
SPEAKER_03: Slow down.
SPEAKER_03: Because I think 90-10 is right, and the faster I speak, the more I'm in the 90.
SPEAKER_03: The more I'm in.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus, this is the 15th time you've left your plate in the sink.
SPEAKER_03: How many times do I have to tell you?
SPEAKER_03: Oh, by the way, have you ever given your kid or spouse mercy and then they didn't do what you wanted with it, and you brought up how merciful you were?
SPEAKER_03: Again, the parable describes me, but it doesn't prescribe how we ought to be.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, Jesus is really great at telling us who we are.
SPEAKER_03: So that we'll realize we don't have to be this people.
SPEAKER_03: So, so what would it take to be in the 80-20 rule?
SPEAKER_03: It would take me saying, I know you want a response from me right now, and boy, I sure want to give you one.
SPEAKER_03: It'll be best for us if I just have a second.
SPEAKER_03: And then maybe I actually could pray that line from the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_03: Forgive us our trespasses as we are trying to forgive those who trespass against us.
SPEAKER_03: Instead of asking God to treat us the way we treat other people, which would be worshiping ourselves, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_03: Perhaps what we're doing in the Lord's Prayer is saying, I ah, help me to realize you're giving me grace so that that puts me on the road to give it to other people.
SPEAKER_03: I would suggest to you that if you have a hard time forgiving other people, like me, it is likely because you've got some work to do in forgiving yourself.
SPEAKER_03: You cannot give what you don't have.
SPEAKER_03: I don't that means, I don't think that means you're gonna go to hell and be tortured when you die.
SPEAKER_03: Actually, the story is telling us we're already living in hell.
SPEAKER_03: It is hell to earn something that God would like to give you.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm gonna leave today and I'm still gonna try to earn it.
SPEAKER_03: I'm just gonna be honest with you.
SPEAKER_03: So I don't know how I get into the 000 rule, but maybe slowing down and saying, God, I want to not just trust in grace, I want to believe it.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe that could get us into the 80-20.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, maybe.
SPEAKER_03: I would tell you if you're in the 50-50, you're in the 1% of the human population ever.
SPEAKER_03: So you don't gotta be in the 000.
SPEAKER_03: Let's just get a little bit better than 90-10.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think that's I think that's the suggestion here.
SPEAKER_03: You know why we had the Reformation?
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't about indulgences, it wasn't about clerical abuses.
SPEAKER_03: It was because Martin Luther was so neurotic that he wasn't sure he could ever be sorry enough for God to forgive him.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he would wake up the confessor in the middle of the night because he had a dream that could have been dirty.
SPEAKER_03: He would wake up the confessor in the night because he wanted to be sorry, but he wasn't sure he was sorry enough.
SPEAKER_03: The confessor said, Martin, go back to bed.
SPEAKER_03: We had the Reformation because Martin Luther said, Why am I trying to earn something God is giving me?
SPEAKER_03: That's the reason, Prince.
SPEAKER_03: That's the reason.
SPEAKER_03: And if you look at Luther's life and you look at the Reformation since then, that idea was a one-off instead of an invitation to be a true disciple.
SPEAKER_03: Luther went straight back to where he was.
SPEAKER_03: Like I will, like you will.
SPEAKER_03: But I just want to hold up that this parable is a mirror so we can see how ugly that life is.
SPEAKER_03: And so that we can say, Fine, God, I'll take it.
SPEAKER_03: I'd rather earn it, but I'll take it.
SPEAKER_03: We have good spiritual directors who can help you get there.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not one of them.
SPEAKER_03: I don't just trust what I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_03: I believe it.
SPEAKER_03: I believe that's where God wants us to be because God knows we'll enjoy our life more.
SPEAKER_03: I believe it than I trust it.
SPEAKER_03: You're teaching me how to do it some more.
SPEAKER_03: And we just got to teach each other to do this work.
SPEAKER_03: We have to teach each other because I don't think any one person knows it.
SPEAKER_03: So happy better than 9010 week to you.
SPEAKER_03: I hope you'll at least make it to 89.11.
SPEAKER_03: And if you go back to 95.5, I'll be here with you next week.