Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 and Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
A couple of years ago there was an advert for KFC’s R1.95 ice cream - I noticed the ad because when I lived in Potchefstroom there was not much to do in the evenings besides pop out to KFC for one of there R1.95 ice creams, for an extra R1 I added a flake to mine.
In the advert a young girl is seen playing with her imaginary friend. She smiles and she laughs as she swings on the swing with her, she has a tea party with her, she plays hide and seek… but her smiling face turns to darkness when her father - not knowing where her imaginary friend is standing mows her over with the lawnmower.
The advert ends - as all adds to with happiness as father and daughter walk out of KFC with an ice cream and the caption reads: Forgiveness - R1.95.
* * *
We all know that forgiveness is not always so easy and cheap… when we have been wronged we often harbour a feeling of discontent, of resentment for a long time after the fact.
Even if we do ‘forgive’ people for the wrongs they do to us or have done to us. We often - in a moment of anger or distress find that we haven’t let the grudge go - we bear resentment in our hearts and it pours out at the most inconvenient times.
The relatively small wrongs that people have done to us often upset us deeply for years after they have happened.
Evidence I think, that people were created for good - to be good to each other and to experience only goodness from each other. Evidence that we all live in a world in which we don’t really belong - we just don’t have the necessary equipment to deal with evil, and so we answer evil with evil - and become people we don’t really like being.
* * *
In the reading from Habakkuk the prophet complains to God about evil in the land - people are suffering unfairly as a result of injustice and oppression.
God’s response is to tell the prophet that the wicked will be brought to justice… Habakkuk must be patient; he must have faith and trust in God. God speaks about what will happen to
Habakkuk ends his oracle with a rather depressed - yet hopeful poem…
17 Fig trees may no longer bloom,
or vineyards produce grapes;
olive trees may be fruitless,
and harvest time a failure;
sheep pens may be empty,
and cattle stalls vacant—
18 but I will still celebrate
because the Lord God
saves me.
- Habakkuk 3:17-18 (CEV)
Habakkuk resolves to trust God, in spite of the difficulties of the world around him - knowing that justice is in God’s hands, knowing (by faith) that he is loved by God and justice will somehow prevail.
* * *
In the gospel reading, Jesus talks to his disciples about forgiveness…
“If the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”
- Luke 17:4
In response to this difficult commandment from Jesus the disciples say to Jesus: “Increase our faith!” (you think walking on water, healing the sick is hard - forgiveness…. That’s impossible.)
Forgiveness for the disciples, as it always is for you and me is not just a R1.95 ice cream at KFC and everything’s OK. For the disciples the strength to forgive seven times a day is something that will require faith. (Like Habakkuk required faith when the world around him seemed to be going to hell.)
Yet we know that the disciples are a lot like us, not only do they struggle to forgive, but they also don’t have much faith, and Jesus is not afraid to tell them.
“Faith as big as a mustard seed and you could tell this mulberry tree to throw itself in the sea and it would obey you,” says Jesus.
- Luke 16:6 (My version)
(I have not come across any record of a disciple throwing a tree into the sea - and I am assured that Mustard seeds are quite small; I think Jesus was telling the disciples that they didn’t have much faith at all.)
Jesus then tells them a parable that doesn’t make much sense in this day and age where we care for people - and are properly conscious of worker’s rights.
* * *
Jesus parable goes something like this - he’s talking about his command to the disciples to keep forgiving:
If your slave worked in the field all day would you make him dinner in the evening?
No!
You would expect him to cook you dinner.
Would you thank him afterwards?
No - because even though he was working hard he was just doing his duty.
So you - when you have done all that you have to do - don’t expect to be honoured and commended for your hard work; say: We are worthless slaves - we have just done what we were supposed to do.
- Luke 17:7-10 (My version)
* * *
Jesus doesn’t tell stories to make the disciples think that forgiving is going to be easy. He seldom paints discipleship as, as easy as we would have it in our modern age where forgiveness costs R1.95 and food comes frozen and pre-packaged.
Instead Jesus tells them a story about how slaves simply have to do what is required of them and sometimes what is required is actually quite difficult (superhuman in fact).
In the Kingdom of God about which Jesus is teaching, A Kingdom in which we each belong to the household of God forgiving sins is just one of those things you’re going to have to do - even if the person sins against you seven times a day, and repents seven times a day!
* * *
Jesus is talking about this because he has just concluded a debate with the Pharisees and Experts in the law about why he is always spending time with (as Luke 15:1) puts it, “tax collectors and sinners.” (15:1-17:10 form a logical section of Luke’s gospel)
In his debate he has tried to show them what God is really like, giving them examples from life to say: If this is what people can do, think how much better God will do?
So from 15:1-17:10 he tells them stories about lost things: A lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son… what shepherd in his right mind wouldn’t rescue his sheep; woman in her right mind wouldn’t search for her coin; what father in his right mind wouldn’t welcome his estranged son home with rejoicing!
He tells some parables about being generous with money - one that begs the question: If people in business know how to be generous - how much more does God know how to be generous? (16:1-13)
The parable of the rich man and Lazarus tells a story of what might happen to people who aren’t generous… they end up in a place that looks like hell - when those who were in need of mercy all their lives, end up in a place that looks like heaven. (19-31)
* * *
Jesus tells all of these stories to the self righteous and reluctant to forgive in order to show them what God is really like.
God is better than people, more merciful and generous than people - and because of this; God is a God who offers unlimited forgiveness, and unlimited love - always calling people to himself.
* * *
And because God is a God who forgives; the disciples, the apostles (people sent to spread the good news about God to the world) are duty bound to being people who proclaim, and offer grace and forgiveness. People who are not stumbling blocks to other people being allowed to enter the
* * *
To offer faith they, like Habakkuk, need faith. Habakkuk was able to have peace in the midst of the violence that surrounded him because he put his trust in God. He was sure that God would be the one who did what was righteous and so he sings his Psalm - though everything is a disaster - I will rejoice, because God is still God.
* * *
In the New Testament, faith and belief most often talk about believing that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah - that what he teaches about God is true.
One of the most amazing things that Jesus teaches - and shows by his actions - about God (specifically in this section of Luke’s gospel), is that God forgives. God is constantly reaching out to the outcast, to those who have rejected him. God is constantly reminding them that they are loved.
Faith - in the New Testament - is about believing this message. Paul refers to it as “the word of God” which he goes out to the world to preach: Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
* * *
This New Testament faith reminds us that God is like Jesus. It reminds us that God loves us enough to die on the cross for us - breaking the door open - so that even the foulest, smelliest sinner knows that they are unconditionally welcomed into the household of God.
Jesus knows that that kind of love is what people were made for - not the violence of the world in which they live - violence that produces resentment and hatred, which ends in us becoming sinful and violent ourselves.
The kind of love that Jesus offers, and we are called to offer is the kind of love that transforms hearts - a bit like flowers opening to the summer sun. The kind of love that helps people to become the people God created them to be.
And as difficult as it may sometimes seem - we who wish to be disciples of Jesus have to be the people who constantly offer that love to people - even though -in our own sinful opinions - we don’t think they deserve it - and we believe strongly that forgiveness should cost more than R1.95 for an ice cream at KFC.
* * *
When we learn to offer, and receive this grace and forgiveness about which Jesus speaks - then I truly believe we will begin to see the
Amen.
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