St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 14, 2008
Matthew 18:21-35
The Rev. Dr. Joel Huffstetler

This gospel passage is one of the great scriptural teachings on forgiveness. This is one of those classic passages that addresses the subject of forgiveness head-on, and in a very persuasive and instructive way. There are scholars who suggest that this is the most crucial teaching of Jesus in the gospels. I’m not sure that’s the majority of scholars, but there are those who suggest that even though the Prodigal Son is more familiar and the Good Samaritan is more familiar, this radically open teaching about forgiveness is most foundational regarding Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness. I mean, think about the depth of the compassion that this landowner shows here. There are those who think this is the most instructive passage in the gospels about the depths of God’s forgiveness. Now the passage clearly is about forgiveness and there will be a Sunday when we look at it from that lens. But there’s something else going on in here too. There is another way to look at this passage and I’m going to suggest we do that today.

Let’s think about what happens here for just a moment. We see a picture of a landowner being confronted with a servant who owes him ten thousand talents. Now a talent was a denomination of money just like we have dollars and cents. Now ten thousand talents was an enormous sum of money. In the Greek text you actually read “murion talanton”. Murion is the Greek word from which we get the English word myriad . So ten thousand here is kind of a catchall. It’s like when we say, “I’ve done that thousands of times, or I’ve been there thousand of times.” Well, we may not really have been there thousands of times, but we know what we mean. I’ve been there. I know the way. It won’t be new. Well, that’s the kind of word murion is here in Greek.

Ten thousand means more money, more talents than any servant could possibly have come up with to be in debt. You couldn’t get yourself in this much debt in real terms. That’s the picture being painted here. This servant’s debt is incalculable. Some scholars suggest that in our monetary terms this would be the equivalent of a billion dollars. I kind of like sounding like Carl Sagan there for a moment. A billion dollars. “B”. A billion. That’s what’s being pictured here. This servant is in more debt than he could ever get out of, but the landowner has compassion and forgives him. And, of course, the landowner represents God.

And then what happens? This servant, who has just had all this debt cancelled completely and cleanly, will not forgive the debt of his fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii. A denarius was a day’s wage for a day laborer. It was the equivalent to a dollar for us. You would be paid a denarius for a hard day’s work on a job. So a hundred denarii in our terms is roughly a hundred bucks. Think about a debt of a billion dollars vis-à-vis a debt of a hundred dollars. A hundred bucks. Pocket change compared to the billion this servant had been forgiven, but he will not forgive his fellow servant who just owes him a hundred bucks. And, of course, what we have here is the classic setup for Jesus to teach about forgiveness. Look at the forgiveness this one man had received, and yet he wouldn’t forgive his fellow servant much, much less.

So, here’s my point. That’s all by way of introduction. Here’s the point I want to make today. In addition to forgiveness one can also look at this passage from the point of view of gratitude. What’s missing here? What’s missing in this first servant’s heart and mind that precludes him from forgiving his fellow servant who owes him so much less than he owned the landowner? I would submit to you that what’s missing is gratitude.

The first servant isn’t sufficiently grateful for what the landowner has done for him, and he doesn’t then pass on that gracious spirit to his fellow servant. What’s missing here is gratitude. That ‘s what I want us to think about this morning. I want us to think about the place of gratitude in our lives. I wonder if you can think with me for just a moment. If I were to ask you to list those things for which you are grateful, just think about that for a moment. How long would that list be? Think about those profoundly important things for which you’re grateful. Family. Friends. Life itself. Being here today is something for which to be profoundly grateful. This is a gift to be able to be here.

Then think about those things that aren’t quite so profound but nonetheless important. Things we could so easily take for granted everyday but we enjoy them whether we think about them consciously or not. If I just handed you a legal pad, gave you a pen, and said not for me, but for you. For your sake, write down everything for which you’re grateful. How long would that list be? It’s a profound question, isn’t it? What are those things for which we’re grateful? What are those things which we’ve fallen into the habit of taking for granted? That’s another challenging question.

I want us to think about this passage this morning from the perspective of gratitude. Yes, ultimately, this is about forgiveness clearly, but the step that’s missing in this first servant’s heart is that he’s not grateful. He’s not sufficiently thankful for what the landowner, representing God, has done for him - - this incredible gift of forgiving this enormous debt, because God is a God of love and a God of compassion.

For the next six weeks or so you are going to be hearing about stewardship here at St. Luke’s and here is my only point today. Everything we talk about the next month and a half or so when it comes to stewardship, I ask you to think about in terms of gratitude. I invite you to frame the discussion of stewardship, from start to finish, frame it in terms of gratitude. Because I think when we really stop to think about stewardship, what stewardship is is our way of saying thank you to God. Stewardship is about a way of life. Stewardship is what we do with what we’ve been given. It’s how we prioritize our time. It’s how we prioritize the giving of our gifts, of our abilities. Last year after we talked about stewardship a number of weeks, several people came to me and said, ‘You know, you’ve talked about using our talents and gifts. I’d like to do something for the church. This is something I could offer the church and I want to do that.’ That’s stewardship. Stewardship is the use we make of what we’ve been given. And I ask you this year to think about stewardship in terms of gratitude. What is our grateful response to God? What is our generous response to God? Because of what God has given us. Gratitude is such an important foundational aspect of the Christian life.

One way to look at spirituality is to see it as a life long process of learning how to be grateful. I wonder how many of us think about spirituality in that light. Spirituality as a life long process, never ending, of learning how to be grateful for everything that God has given us.

There is a catchy phrase out there in society. I didn’t invent it. I just use it from time to time. Most of you have heard it. The phrase is “an attitude of gratitude”. I know that’s catchy and it should be and it rhymes and it should but that doesn’t mean it’s not an accurate and important understanding. An attitude of gratitude is a foundation of the spiritual life. If you think about it for just a moment, this sermon will come to an end very quickly. If you think about it this morning, why are you here? Are you here out of habit? Are you here out of obligation? Are you here for community? Are you here for worship? All of those are part and parcel of part of why we make the decisions we make. One way to look at why each one of us is here today is to express our gratitude to God. To express our thanks.

We have the service of Eucharist Sunday after Sunday after Sunday in this church. Eucharist is an English translation of the Greek word that means, simply, thanksgiving. To say Holy Eucharist is to say we’re having a service of thanksgiving. That’s why we’re here. To be thankful. To express our gratitude to God.