Calculators and the Realm of Grace

The biblical character of Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, intrigues me, and not because I share his name, but because of who Joseph was and who he became.  

If you remember the story, Joseph as a child was a somewhat arrogant little snot and the favorite of his father Jacob.  One of Joseph’s gifts was that he was an interpreter of dreams, which came in handy in his later life in Egypt.  Joseph dreamed dreams that he interpreted as his brothers bowing down in subservience before him, and Joseph, on more than one occasion, rubbed his dreams in his brothers’ faces.  Joseph’s angry and jealous brothers gained revenge when they sold him into slavery, and then told their father Jacob that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.  Joseph’s sale into slavery eventually took him to Egypt, where through an implausible series of events he became the Secretary of Agriculture. During a severe drought, years later, the brothers came to Egypt looking for food. To make a long story short, his brothers did not recognized him, but Joseph eventually revealed his identity to his brothers, and after intense emotional wrestling and spiritual soul-searching, Joseph forgave his brothers.

However, the final moment of truth came when old Jacob, their father, died. Generous and forgiving as Joseph had been, his brothers couldn't avoid the fearful suspicion that now that the old man wasn't around to act as a buffer, feelings of revenge would well up within Joseph, and he might renege on his forgiveness and pay them back.  So the brothers went to see Joseph, and they fell down on their knees, and they groveled before him.  They made up a lie that their father had left death-bed-instructions that Joseph should guarantee his forgiveness was genuine.

With an attitude of grace and humility Joseph's answer plays like a magnificent symphony, "My brothers, don't be afraid!  Of course you are forgiven!  Do you think I am God to grovel before me?"  What a dramatic change from the old days of his arrogant youth when Joseph had rubbed his dreams in his brothers’ faces.

I like to think of Joseph’s journey from his early prideful days of arrogance to his later years of humility and grace as something far more than merely maturing with age.  I like to think of it as an awakening - an awakening to the Realm of Grace that resulted in a fuller humanity for Joseph.  It was a journey that didn’t come easy, and it wasn’t cheap.  It wasn't a polite excusing of his brothers' grievous offenses, or a casual look the other way. Joseph's forgiveness was the result of a wrestling; an intense inner struggle; a contending with two parts of himself, the part that resented and wanted sweet revenge, and the part that longed for reconciliation.  In the final analysis, Joseph laid aside his youthful arrogance, let go of his need to keep score, and in letting go he opened his heart and received his brothers back as his own flesh and blood.  Joseph’s awakening led him into to a fuller humanity characterized by the love and the forgiveness of his brothers. 

Today’s gospel (Matthew 18:21-35) functions for me, much like this story of Joseph also does, as an invitation into the Realm of Grace.  “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive - as many as seven times?” (Peter’s question of Jesus according to Matthew)   

Now I don’t know about you, but there are very few people in my life that I have had to forgive seven times, so it sounds pretty generous and sufficient to me.  “Not even close,” says Jesus, but “seventy-times seven.”  (an idiom for no limits) It’s an invitation into the Realm of Grace. 

“How often should I forgive,” asked Peter.  “Should” can also be translated, “must.”  “How often must I forgive?”  “Should” and “must” are calculator language, and we love our calculators, don’t we?  We love keeping score!  We are captivated by statistics. We measure the rain in hundredths of an inch. We talk about miles per gallon and bushels per acre.  We turn to the sports or financial pages to read the numbers on the winners and the losers. And, we also relish keeping score in our relationships. Who said what, or who did what, and how many times did they do it or say it?  We justify our words and actions before one another with our tactics of score-keeping.  How many times have you said something like, “Well, I know I have my faults, but I’m as bad as…”  (calculator language)

The invitation into the realm of grace is an invitation to throw away our calculators.**  That’s part of what the parable in our gospel for today is all about.  The servant went to the king and asked, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”   The parable tells us the servant owed the king ten thousand talents!  Ten thousand talents was the equivalent of the total revenue that Herod brought into his kingdom in a decade!   Now, that’s a lot of debt and that’s asking for a lot of patience.  The story gives us the shocking news that the king didn’t yield to the slave’s request, but rather threw away his calculator!*  “And out of concern for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave his debt.”  

But the point of the story also is, the forgiven servant did not throw away his calculator.  There was another man who owed the servant 100 denarii, which is about 3 months wages for a common worker.  The man begged the slave’s patience so he could pay him back.  But with a firm grip on his calculator in one hand, and grabbing him by the throat with the other hand, the forgiven slave demanded to be paid, and when his friend couldn’t pay, he had him thrown in jail – which is a metaphor for the illogicality that living by calculators finally leads us into.  It’s a little hard to pay someone back when one is languishing in prison with no income.    

When Joseph threw away his calculator*, his brothers were freed from any demands that might have stemmed from their offense against him. The door was now open to enter the Realm of Grace; the possibility of reconciliation was alive. When we are hurt, we often proceed with a calculator in one hand and a list of demands in the other hand that we be appeased and gratified. We feel that the other person should be made to suffer and atone in some way for the offense against us. But the whole time, what's really happening is that we are refusing to let go of our resentment, and in so refusing we keep the other person, and ourselves locked into the past -- locked into the living hell resentment!  Metaphorically that’s what the last two verses of the parable in Matthew are about.  It’s says that the unforgiving slave was handed over to be tortured.  It’s a metaphor for being locked in the miserable prison his own resentment – a place of his own choosing. 

I believe one of the things that captivated the disciples and the early followers of Jesus is that he lived and died without a calculator in his hand. Think for a moment about the portrait that the gospel writers paint of Jesus in those last days and hours of his life.  The Passover is prepared and eaten – the symbols of which came to represent his broken body and blood.  Jesus is arrested and left alone - abandoned.  He was betrayed, but he loved the betrayer.  He was forsaken, but he loved those who forsook him.  His arrest was challenged, but he demanded his defenders put away their swords.  He was falsely accused, but he remained silent in the face of his accusers.  There was nothing defensive in the least about this man.  Even when he was mocked and tormented, he loved his mockers and tormentors.   He was scourged, and he loved his scourgers.  He was denied, and he loved his denier.  He was crucified and loved his executioners.  Hostility, rejection, abuse and impending death were heaped upon him, yet none of these could diminish his humanity.  He would not yield to anything less than love.

This is a portrait of one who is fully and completely human living in the Realm of Grace.  Grace for me is not a doctrine I believe in my head, but grace is what my life can begin to look like when I follow the call of our Lord Jesus and trust it in my heart.   The early followers of Jesus experienced him and remembered him as one who possessed life so fully and so totally that he could give his life freely away in love even in the face of hatred and injustice unbridled.  Even as those around him were crushing him and taking his life away, he was giving life back and ministering to their broken humanity, for this is Luke’s point when he reports that Jesus said from his cross, “Father, forgive them.”  This is the portrait they paint!

The call of God through Jesus is a call into a fuller humanity, where we are challenged to do what may be the hardest thing we could ever be asked to do, yet it is the thing that can set us free and the thing that can lead us on the path to a fuller humanity – to lay down and throw away our calculators* and live in the Realm of Grace!

What does living in the Realm of Grace look like in real life?   On October 2, 2006 in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania a gunman named Charles burst into a Amish school and shot ten children, 5 of whom died. (Naomi, Marian, Mary Liz, Lena and Anna)   It was the most grievous and repulsive of offenses that shocked the sensibilities of the nation.  Within 48 hours the Amish families and community of the slain children not only offered public forgiveness to the murderer of their children, but embarked on an effort to raise money for the children of their children’s murderer.   I have many theological differences with the Amish, but you see this is not ultimately about theology.  This is about following and trusting the voice that calls us into the Realm of Grace and a fuller humanity even in the most grievous of life circumstances.

This morning we come forward and receive a morsel of bread and sip of wine.  There is a great deal of mystery surrounding this ancient practice, as well as a myriad of interpretations.  But for me, today, I embrace it as invitation to lay down my calculator and follow into the Realm of Grace the One whose life and death these elements represent.    

(I’m all out of calculators)*