Worship Helps for Pentecost 17
Title: Joseph
pardons his brothers
Artist: Bacchiacca,
1515
This painting
is one of a series of panels that decorated the bedchamber of the
Borgherini Palazzo in Florence
Worship Theme: The Church forgives
as God forgives. Anytime we try to imitate God, we quickly realize our
inadequacy. Yet today God tells us to model our forgiveness on his: a
boundless, free, and loving forgiveness based on the sacrifice of Christ.
Old Testament: Genesis 50:15-21
When Joseph's brothers
saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge
against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" 16
So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions
before he died: 17 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you
to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you
so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your
father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept. 18 His
brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your
slaves," they said. 19 But Joseph said to them, "Don't be
afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but
God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of
many lives. 21 So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and
your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
1. Why did Joseph weep when the message from his brothers
came to him? Why did the brothers appeal to their father’s request to Joseph
and not to what they themselves wanted?
2. Guilt dies
hard. Why dare we never let our guilt over past sins dominate our thinking?
3. We often hear people say, “Forgive and forget.” Is that
truly possible?
Epistle: Ephesians 4:29-5:2
Do not let any
unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed
for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and
anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be
kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ
God forgave you. 1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved
children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
4. What is the secret to being able to forgive?
5. Serving the
Lord is doing the right thing for the right reason. Whenever Paul encourages us
to serve the Lord, he always turns his exhortation into a gospel event. That
is, he weaves the gospel into his encouragement in a beautiful way. How does he
do this in verse 1?
6. Kindness and compassion are to be marks of a true
Christian. But what does Paul say is the primary mark for being a Christian?
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came to
Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he
sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I
tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle
accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who
owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 Since he was
not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and
all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 "The servant fell
on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back
everything.' 27 The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt
and let him go. 28 "But when that servant went out, he found
one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and
began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. 29
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me,
and I will pay you back.' 30 "But he refused. Instead, he went
off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31
When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and
went and told their master everything that had happened. 32
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I
canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33
Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'
34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured,
until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my
heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from
your heart."
7. How many times a Christian will forgive?
8. Why will the Lord not forgive us if we do not forgive
those who sin against us? I thought the Lord forgave every sin!
9. Why does God talk so much about forgiveness? Isn’t
forgiveness natural for a Christian?
10. In his parable, Jesus contrasts the forgiveness of God
and our own unforgiving nature. The servant’s debt—by any measure of
calculation—was impossibly high (perhaps 150,000 years’ wages). Who could have
accrued debt such as this? Who could ever hope to repay? Why would Jesus create
such a huge debt for the servant?
Answers:
1. Joseph had tried to persuade his brothers that his
intention was to take care of them and help them. They were his brothers. He
loved them. Perhaps they had gotten their father to make this request before he
died. In any case, they were sure that Joseph loved their father, Jacob, but
they were still not sure that he loved them.
2. We can perhaps understand why Joseph’s brothers were
afraid of Joseph after Jacob died. After all, Joseph was merely human, and he
could hold a grudge. God, however, is perfect. He has forgiven us through Jesus
and to doubt his love for us is to challenge his faithfulness and also to
challenge the complete nature of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Joseph wept at their
words as he remembered the sordid history and all the emotions that came with
it. He wept, but he was free from the prison of the past; he had forgiven his
brothers their terrible deeds. Through his tears, Joseph never wavered, but he
calmed his brothers’ fears, forgave them like God forgives, and set them free
from their prison of the past.
3. We may forgive someone who hurts us, but we never
forget. We harbor that hurt deep inside of us for years—never understanding
that we are locking ourselves in the prison of the past. Joseph’s brothers
feared that they would finally have to pay for what they did to Joseph. His
father was gone; he was still in charge in Egypt ;
and the brothers thought that they were going to face Joseph’s vengeance.
We cannot truly forget sins that were committed against
us. But God can. God says: “I am he who blots out your transgressions and
remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25). As repentant sinners, we often act
like the brothers and wait for God to get even with us for our past sins. Shame
on us! We are making God as shallow as we are! In God’s eyes our sins are
forgiven, forgotten, forever.
4. The secret is to see how much God has forgiven us.
5. Paul encourages us to imitate God because (1) we are
loved; (2) Christ loved us; (3) Christ gave himself up for us as a fragrant
offering and sacrifice.
6. Forgiveness is what sets Christians apart from
everybody else. The Church is comprised of people who have been sealed for
redemption, so let’s act like it! We forgive because God forgave us in Christ.
That makes us of God. Every Old Testament sacrificial victim pointed ahead to
the death of Christ, the fragrant offering and the atoning sacrifice that won
our forgiveness and inspires our forgiveness for others.
7. We are to forgive as many times as the person sins
against us.
8. If we do not forgive others, we betray a lack of
repentance and faith. If that is our attitude, we shut ourselves out from
receiving God’s forgiveness.
9. "The human animal is not…good at forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not some innate, natural human emotion. It is natural for the
human animal to defend itself, to snarl and crouch into a defensive position
when attacked, to howl when wronged, to bite back when bitten. Forgiveness is
not natural." (Willimon)
Forgiveness must be learned, and Peter thought he had
figured it out. From the elders of the Jews Peter had heard: “If a man
transgresses one time, forgive him. If a man transgresses two times, forgive
him. If a man transgresses three times, forgive him. If a man transgresses four
times, do not forgive him.” Three times, the elders said, was the limit of
forgiveness for a good Jew. Peter, however, was willing to go much further; not
three times, but seven times, Peter thought with a smile. Until Jesus said,
“Not seven times, Peter, seventy times seven—what the elders say doesn’t
matter. I say to you that your forgiveness should have no limit, but be like
God’s.”
10. Jesus emphasizes the great debt of the servant in
order to magnify the compassion of the king who wipes the debt away. This is a stunning
picture of our impossibly huge debt of sin before God. The point of Jesus’
parable is that no one can comprehend the forgiveness of our God. Certainly not
unmerciful servants like us, who refuse to forgive the small debts owed to us,
and instead, inflict on our fellow servants the punishments that God should
rightly have given us. Have mercy on us, Lord, and teach us to forgive like you!
The Scriptures cited by the adversaries do not speak of
canonical satisfactions. It is pure
slander when they distort Scripture to their own opinions. We say that good fruit, good works in every
kind of life, should follow repentance, that is, conversion or regeneration. Neither can there be true conversion or true
contrition where the putting to death of the flesh and bearing good fruit do
not follow. True terrors, true griefs of
mind, do not allow the body to satisfy itself in sensual pleasures, and true
faith is not ungrateful to God. Neither
does true faith hate God’s commandments. In a word, there is no inner repentance unless
it also produces the outward putting to death of the flesh. We say that this is John’s meaning when he
says, “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8). Likewise of Paul when he says, “Present your
members as slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:19 );
just as he likewise says elsewhere, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice”
(Rom. 12:1), and so forth. When Christ
says, “Repent” (Matt. 4:17 ), He
certainly speaks of repentance in its entirety, newness of life and its fruit.
These Scripture passages have nothing to do with
scholastic satisfactions. They imagine that satisfactions are works that are
not due. However, Scripture requires
works that are due. For this word of
Christ, “Repent,” is the word of a commandment. – Apology of the Augsburg
Confession, Article XIIB, Confession and Satisfaction (paragraphs 34-36)
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