“What does the Lord require?” the Prophet Micah asks. “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Shall I give Him pleasant conversation, a fake smile, and imaginary happiness? Will the Lord be pleased with a dazzling outward appearance and an unhealthy fear to disappoint others? What does God require?

Hear the words of King David: “For Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it. Thou delightest not burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” God requires your broken heart which has been crushed by sin against the Almighty God and your neighbor. Know your sin that you may more clearly need your Savior. Give Him your worst and he will give you His best.

But your worst is your sin. And the greatest commandment God has given to you, this one you have not kept: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. God has so intertwined the love given Himself and the bond of love for one’s neighbor that they cannot be torn apart. This is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.

Do not be surprised, Dearly Beloved, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love each other. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for each other. If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Dearly Beloved, let us not walk in work or talk, but in deed and in truth. As a Christian you live in faith toward God and in fervent love for one another.

“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Saint Peter asks. Perhaps Peter could forgive his brother who sinned against him seven times. Maybe he could have forgiven the bullies who constantly picked on him. Perhaps he could have forgiven his wife or co-workers who knew all his pet peeves and irritations and knew how to push his buttons. When relying on his own abilities, Peter could not have forgiven repeated assaults and annoyances. The man Peter was not strong enough: Put not your trust not in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.

Our Lord tells the parable of the unforgiving servant to show you a picture of yourself. “And when the King began to settle [accounts], one [servant] was brought to him who owed 10,000 talents.” This deeply indebted servant is the picture of all. For in many ways you are indebted to serve God as His people- God created you and all things. God Almighty delivered you from the devil’s prison and redeemed you by the Blood of His Son.

And yet you hold grudges and withhold forgiveness instead of clinging to the very forgiveness that is your life. We are useless servants and deeply in debt. God placed the entire earth and all the treasure there at the disposal of our first parents and dispose they did. We inherit the sin of Adam and Eve and we inherit the debt of them; indeed, we increase it with our own sin.

Adam and Eve stole and wasted creation even as you and I waste God’s creation. “O God, Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from Thee. Let not them that wait on Thee, O Lord God of Hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that seek Thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel.”

Our thoughts, words, and deeds are not hid from God, in fact, our sins crucify the Lord and our hatred leads to His death. “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away.” Our Lord paid for that which He did not steal. With His own life as a ransom, He paid for your life.

And when you forgive someone whose heart is made of stone, someone who is fiercer than demons, someone who causes great offence to you repeatedly, and we all can think of such a person in life in the present or past, but when you forgive this person who hurts you once, twice, or even three times a day, they will not likely be so empty of feeling that they should commit the offense against you again.

For the one who sins against you- likely, their heart of stone will be melted and they will no longer be fierce, but mild and temperate. When you continue in the habit of forgiveness, you may no longer troubled by those who sin against you. Fix your eyes on Jesus, for though He is injured, grieved, and crushed by your sins, yet He continues to forgive and repeats words of complete absolution to you over and over again.

Today and every day we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But is this what you really want? Do you want your Father in Heaven to forgive you just as you forgive? When you say, “I forgive,” but you secretly hold onto the wrong that was done to you, so that you can use it at a later time?

True forgiveness is in contrast to the hypocrisy of our Old Adam. We pretend to have forgiven, while in the depth of our heart lurks the serpent’s seed of hatred which remains suppressed and hidden. But when the time is ripe for revenge, then the fire breaks forth in full flame—just as people sometimes say they are willing to forgive, but not to forget.

One could easily take our prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against,” and believe that forgiveness begins with you, saying that your forgiveness necessitates God’s forgiveness toward you. This thinking is dead wrong. Forgiveness always begins with God. Confess your sins to Him where He is found for you. In your confession of sins and receiving Our Lord’s forgiveness, here you learn how to forgive. Here you call yourself, “poor, miserable … deserving temporal and eternal punishment … a poor, sinful being.”

We are beggars. Those who approach Christ crying for mercy always come away with His blessing. The servant in today’s Gospel gave the highest worship of his Master; he fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness and mercy. And if you are not a beggar of God’s mercy, Christ is not your Savior. Our Lord has given you release from the bonds of sin, which is even more certain: forgiveness in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Whoever does not forgive must remain silent when it comes to the Lord’s Prayer, or he will condemn himself. Forgive your neighbors completely and entirely flowing from the forgiveness you have received. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Man is always under God and we are infinitely less than the Lord our God. Even in this great difference, the Lord forgives you. Better than that, God forgives more and greater, why should not we forgive that which is less? How much reason do you have not to forgive? Being under God, if I do not forgive, I must fear God’s wrath will be on me instead of His forgiveness.

Quite naturally man numbers, tracks, and records faults and grievances until they are formed into full-blown grudges. Not so with God. “If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait and in His Word do I hope … Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy and with Him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

And brotherly forgiveness is for our good. Not only is forgiveness good for the neighbor who as wronged you, but you are freed as well. In wrongfully binding the sins of those who repent of them, you likewise bind yourself to these same sins by not releasing them.

But, our Lord does not deal with us this way: He does not bind our sins wrongfully. He deals only with love and unending forgiveness. He doesn’t forgive as we forgive; He is more willing to forgive than we are to repent. Lord, how many times will you forgive me, when I sin against you? Not seven times, not seventy times, but forever. Forever your trespasses are forgiven. Amen

The Peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

✠BJF✠