September 17, 2023 

Prelude
Lighting the Christ Candle 

Welcome and Announcement 

Called to Worship: 

We may be thirsty and parched, like an un-watered garden, so we come into God’s presence: 

The Divine One is a spring of water!  

We may be weary from worry and work  

The Holy One offers us Sabbath rest! 

We may be lost or confused  

The Wise One offers us welcome and guidance! 

We may be bent over with struggle or pain  

The Healing One empowers us to stand strong! 

 

Hymn:  433  All creatures of our God and King

Prayer of Adoration 

O God of all goodness, you welcome us, forgive us and heal us.   You seek us out from places where we have hidden from you.  You crown us with steadfast love and mercy. 

You are worthy of our praise, for you have always been steadfast and true, kind and merciful.  Your love fills our hearts and is the source of our praise.   

Reveal yourself to us in this moment. 

Let us know your presence so that we may bless you:  Bless you, O God!
Let us know your mercy that we may be merciful. 
Let us know your love that we may be your love in the world.
Let us know your forgiveness that we too may bless, give mercy, love and forgive in your name.  For that reason we join in confession saying,  

 

Prayer of Confession: 

O Lord we seek your mercy...yet we ourselves look for payback when we are wronged. 

We think it “only fair” and “what is right” when we retaliate and use harsh words and withdraw from relationships. 

The forgiveness you offer on our account is larger than we can comprehend, still we withhold forgiveness and carry the grudge over petty items. 

Forgive us Lord for the sins we know in our hearts. Save us Lord from the sins we hide from ourselves and teach us to live with renewed integrity.  Amen 

 

Assurance of Pardon 

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and has not dealt with us according to our sins.  Instead, God has chosen the sacrifice of God’s own son on our account.  It is because Jesus Christ pays the last full measure that our sins are forgiven. 

This gift of forgiveness makes us able, with the power of Holy Spirit, to choose to forgive, renew and live again in right relationship with each other and with our God.  In Jesus we are forgiven.  In the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Amen.  

 

The Peace
Passing the Peace 

Hymn: 498 Sing them over again to me

 

Scripture:

Psalm 103: 1-7 p 939
Matthew 18: 21-35 p 1527
 

Sermon:  Forgive our sins as we forgive 

Through the gospel of Matthew, we can trace the layers of knowledge that Jesus imparts as he teaches his disciples about prayer.   

It begins as they ask him to teach them how to pray, and he says when you pray, say…He introduces them to the Lord’s prayer, which in reality is an outline for prayer that helps us to focus on God and pray in his will. 

On expansion of that outline could use these words: 

Our Father in Heaven,
remind us constantly that you are parent to all your children,
whoever, or wherever they are or come from. 

Hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
establishing peace and justice, hope and life for all peoples. 

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Disturb us into awareness of the needs of others. 

Forgive us our sins,
our pride and our prejudices. 

as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
Especially keep our hearts and minds open
to see the good in others. 

Deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
just and true, 

the power,
gentle and fair, 

and the glory,
shot through with the colours of love, 

are yours for ever and ever. 

Prayers that focus on God’s relationship with us, his grace and the bounty of his blessings, his glory and the awareness that he is hallowed above all things, is a good place to start. 

That in turns causes us to focus on the world’s need for peace, justice, hope and the needs of all people that inhabit this planet. 

In the awareness of God’s love for all of his people, we then turn to our recognition of human sinfulness, our own need of forgiveness and our need to forgive others. 

Then we pray for ongoing teaching, guidance and blessing as we follow God’s way. 

A good outline for prayer to be sure. 

Jesus then goes on to focus on forgiveness, as Peter asks about forgiving others. 

How many times?  7 times 7, 70 times 7.  In this discussion, what becomes clear is that Jesus wants us to understand that forgiveness is limitless, yet in the gospel he also teaches that accountability is also crucial.  He says that if we forgive and the person does not change, we must carefully and prayerfully remove that person from our fellowship. 

One thing that is crucial for us to remember is that God’s desire is for us to live in peace.  When a person’s repeated sinfulness causes us to lose that peace, then we cannot continue to allow their disruptive behaviour in our lives or our congregations… With forgiveness, love and mercy, we set ourselves apart from that person. 

That is one of the things that we see often as Jesus speaks with those who are in need of forgiveness.  He reminds them to sin no more.  He gladly receives them and gives them his love, but there is no place for their continued sinfulness.   

Then if they cannot give Jesus that loyalty, Jesus lets them go.  What we know about him teaches us that his love does not end.  His desire to be in relationship does not end.  His mercy does not end.  But his holiness is overall.  And he will patiently wait until we are ready to enter into that whole, healthy relationship where we are willing to enter his holiness and live in his way.   

I think that this is a part of the hardest thing to understand about forgiveness.  It does not continually accept the behaviours that harm us personally, or even the congregation as a whole.  Grace is for the repentant who change the way they live their lives in response.  Bonhoeffer talks about the difference between cheap grace and accountable grace.  Cheap grace says that our behaviour's do not matter.  We don’t need to change. We can continue to sin so that grace can abound.  Paul’s reaction to that notion is, God forbid.   

On the flip side of that, forgiveness of those who continue to hurt, disrupt and pervert grace is never to be withdrawn.  When we let a person go, we do so with love, compassion, forgiveness and grief. 

That is the truth that we uncover in the passage we read today.   

This question about forgiveness comes directly after a discussion on how the community will be known for its willingness to stand by people who are repenting and in need of reconciliation.   

Peter, ever seeking the answers, and always seeking to know just how much accountability he has, asks about just how personal and how extensive this work of forgiveness will be.   

When we look at God we see that for him sin is sin.  There are no degrees of sin.  Murder, adultery, child abuse, and what we call harmless lies are all sin.  God has no degrees, yet we do.  That’s part of human nature. 

If a person, truly repenting, asks for forgiveness we give it.  If a person is not repenting and continues in harmful behaviour, we give it, and then, we let them go their own way. 

Understanding forgiveness is crucial for us.   God forgives us because he desires us to live in the security of his peace.  Our willingness to forgive is a crucial part of living in the peace that only God can give. 

Until each one of us personally become the forgiveness of God; we cannot hope that our congregation and our homes will become the embodiment of God’s grace and forgiveness. 

Clearly Peter knew how hard that would be to do.  Hence the question, how many times do we need to forgive? 

The answer came in the form of a parable. 

This parable is a hard one to hear.  I am reminded that the point of the parable in is what makes us angry and this one surely does that.  

God is the king who wants to settle accounts with his servants.  He calls them in and forgives them their debts.  This is a huge thing, especially for the servant who owed so much that a life-time of work could not pay what he owed. 

We are reminded that Jesus says that those who are forgiven of much have much expected of them.   

Clearly there is an expectation that those of us who have known grace and mercy will live to one another and to all of God’s people with grace and mercy.   

Which begs the question, “what happens when we fail to live up to that expectation?” 

We see the forgiven servant go forth with his considerable debt forgiven.  On his way he encounters someone who owes him a small debt, and immediately asks for payment.  When the other cannot repay him immediately he has the man thrown into prison. 

The king hears about this and is angry.  He calls the servant back to see him and says, 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 handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” 

In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” 

 

So is this the part of the parable that makes us angry?  It could but we are more likely to see this action as justice.  We might expect that a human king would respond this way.   

But what about our heavenly Father?  The part of the parable that causes us anger, or saddens us, or brings us up short, is what Jesus says next. 

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” 

“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” 

 

God can and will withdraw his forgiveness if we ourselves are unforgiving. 

Sit with that knowledge for a moment. 

……. 

How does this worry us?  Frighten us?  Anger us? 

What about that person we hold a grudge against?  Does that affect our forgiveness? 

How many other what if’s are disturbing our hearts at this moment? 

First of all, let us remember that forgiving people does not mean allowing them back into our lives.   

The truth is that the measure by which we forgive others, is an important matter for our own spiritual health, even if they are not aware that they have been forgiven.  Even if they don’t care that they have been forgiven. 

We no longer need to hold that grudge.
We no longer need to cross the street when we see the person coming.
We no longer need to ponder getting even.
And as a result, we will be able to continue to love them, pray for them and desire that they come to know the fullness of God’s grace. 

The commentators that I looked at this week were very clear that this parable is an extension of the phrase in the Lord’s prayer. 

One wrote:  When we think about the Lord’s prayer the most frightening word is AS. 

 

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Forgive us our sins,
our pride and our prejudices. 

as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
Especially keep our hearts and minds open
to see the good in others. 

The truth is, that when we fail to forgive others, that we leave ourselves open to the temptation to sin against others.   

When we use the word AS, we pray that the degree to which we forgive others be the degree to which God will forgive us.   

This is important because God can and will remove his forgiveness from us.   

This is important because when we live with God’s forgiveness in our hearts, we no longer dwell in resentment, hatred and the desire for revenge. 

This is important because it opens our eyes to see what God sees in others. 

And this is crucial because we cannot know God’s peace when we are outside of God’s grace. 

When we live up to the words that we pray, then we learn that forgiveness is something that we are called to live every day.  More than that we learn that forgiveness is something that we embody every moment. 

Forgiveness becomes who and what we are. 

Just as importantly, forgiveness is not a tool that we drag out from time to time as we see fit.   More importantly, we don’t withhold the promise of forgiveness as a weapon against another person. 

We can feel that way sometimes, can’t we, when our desire to NOT forgive overcomes the calling to be forgiving.  What we need to realize is that we can forgive a person and let them go their way.  I love that saying in AA, “Let go and let God”  I just wish that I had learned to live that much sooner and much better. 

I think that we all need to look at what it means to be forgiving people from a whole new perspective. 

Hoezee writes:  Forgiveness is more like the clothes on your back.  Forgiveness is on you, goes with you, and is needed by you everywhere you go.   

When forgiveness becomes the living expression of our lives, then we understand that we need to be forgiven by God every day.  We realize that we need to be forgiven by others every day.  More importantly, we need to forgive others every day. 

Forgiveness is a daily matter and as necessary to our lives as eating and drinking. 

We are called to know, understand and remember that the reason for the connection between God forgiving us and us forgiving others is because of the sheer power of God’s forgiveness.  It is so great it simply must and will change us.  

We are reminded that we are changed in order to become an agent of change in the world. 

We are forgiven in order to forgive others. 

We are given grace so that we become grace in the world.  

The way that we live with grace and forgiveness is incalculable.  There is no ending to it.   

There is no ending to it.   

We are called to live it daily and even minute by minute. 

Our prayer is always:  forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of others.   Always. 

Amen 

 

 

Hymn:  467 Praise my soul the God who crowns you

 

Offering and Offertory
Doxology 830

Offertory Prayer 

Lord, you have blessed our lives in so many ways. In gratitude for all these blessings and in confidence that our gifts will be used for ministries of peace and hope, we offer these gifts. AMEN. 

Gathering Prayer Requests 
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer 

Lord of steadfast love and mercy,
Through your Word, you have set promises before your people.
Promises for good and not for evil,
Promises for care and not for harm,
Promises fulfilled through life and death,
Promises realized through sorrow and joy.

You have washed us clean, and guided us in righteousness.
Eternal is your Word and life-altering your love. 

We give you thanks and praise, and trust in your Word and your Promise that you hear our prayers this day.
 

We bring you our thanksgiving and joys: 

 

Remind us of that love which knows no bounds and that encompasses all people.
 

Guide us in your desire for justice for a world that knows the pain of destruction and the chaos of injustice 

 

. 

And teach us to give, even as you are giving. 

Fill us with your peace and your love.  Fulfill our purpose when we take up our calling to share your peace, your love and your grace.  We pray in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying,   

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever.  Amen 

 

Hymn:  461  Be thou my vision

 

Charge and Benediction 

Benediction 

See, God makes all things new!
Go forth, in the strength of God’s love and God’s promise of peace.
Go forth in the mercy of the grace of Jesus, sharing it as you walk in the world
Go forth in the discernment of the Holy Spirit, allowing him to direct your footsteps. 

Grace, Peace and Mercy from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be with you now and forevermore.  

 

Sung Blessing  Go now in Peace.  Three Fold Amen