Matthew 18:21-35
Introduction
“We exist no longer than mayflies.” Su Shih, a Chinese scholar and poet, wrote these words in the year 1082. He wrote them as a reminder that life is short—using the mayfly as his muse because certain species of mayflies live for just one day—some even for just hours—but yet they nonetheless have an important ecological impact on the world around us.
Mayflies are unique creatures, both ephemeral and ancient. And because they are, they have also been an inspiration to generations of artists and poets beyond Su Shih. Mayflies are mentioned in the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a poem from Mesopotamia that is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the world. An engraving was made during the Renaissance with the title, “The Holy Family with the Mayfly.” In this picture, the insect is sitting at the feet of the Virgin Mary. More recently, in a short comic play called Time Flies, American playwright David Ives presented what two mayflies might discuss during their one day of existence.
From all of this, we can say that even though mayflies have short lives, they have been around forever. A Harvard paleobiologist, after finding a fossilized mayfly impression from some 300 million years ago, writes, “Mayflies are the oldest surviving winged insects on the planet.” And where did he find this fossilized impression? In a rock, behind a Massachusetts strip mall. An important find, but a rather obtuse location.
But the takeaway from the mayfly has always been that if we are mindful of our limited existence, we are more inclined to live out our existence like the mayfly—aware that time is of no consequence when it comes to making a positive contribution to the world.
Move 1
In October 2006, a gunman took hostages in a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. In an act of horrifying violence, he shot 10 children, killing five, and then committed suicide. As shocking as this atrocity was, what happened next was perhaps just as shocking. The Amish community responded by offering forgiveness to the murderer and his family. Instead of lashing out in anger, they showed mercy and love. At the time, there were widespread calls for Americans to follow the lead of the Amish and become more forgiving. It wasn’t long, however, before that call faded away like a mayfly.
Four years after the shooting, a group of scholars wrote about the incident. One of their main conclusions was that our secular culture is not likely to produce people who can respond as the Amish community did. These scholars saw that the Amish ability to forgive was grounded in the fact that at the heart of their faith was a man dying for his enemies. They wrote, saying, “The Amish follow Jesus, a man who gave his life and forgave his tormentors in an act of love and spiritual strength. In the Amish world, this self-sacrificing figure is seen, sung, believed, rehearsed, and celebrated constantly. Forgiveness is understood to be the greatest gift and virtue. In modern American culture, on the other hand, this view of Christ is slipping more and more out of daily view.”
For the Amish, Jesus is always on center stage. They know the answer to the question that Peter asked Jesus: “Lord… how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Not “seven times,” said Jesus, “but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.”
Which, both then, and today, is a lot of forgiveness.
Move 2
In addition to naming the centrality of Jesus among the Amish, the scholars pointed out that forgiveness is a form of “self-renunciation,” giving up your right to payback the person who hurt you. This directly opposes how most Americans are taught to think and live. Nowadays, when we are mistreated, we are urged to get revenge to get payback. The authors writing about the wonders of the Amish ability to forgive wrote further about this mindset today, saying, “Most of us have been formed by a culture that nourishes revenge and payback while mocking grace and forgiveness.”
Look around, and we can see evidence of such everywhere. People are constantly criticizing each other online, often crossing over into cyberbullying. Consequently, individuals feel offended and quickly pursue payback, wanting to balance the scales. But often, people misunderstand the motives of others and jump to incorrect conclusions. “We live in unforgiving times,” says author Mark Matousek. “Public self-righteousness is on the rise and the taste for revenge and payback has never been greater.” But people fail to see how justice and payback are not the same.
Jesus understood the need for justice, but he also understands the power of forgiveness, and that understanding is made clear in the parable he tells. “For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves” (v. 23). While we no longer endorse economic systems based on kings and slave labor, this arrangement was quite common in the time of Jesus, and so Jesus uses this understanding to create a teaching moment for his audience.
First, a servant is brought to the king because he owes his lord 10,000 talents. One talent, in this case, is the equivalent of more than 15 years of a laborer’s wages, which means in today’s dollars, the debt would be over $4.5 billion. It is a completely overwhelming debt. The king decides to sell the servant, his wife, his children and all his possessions. In response, the servant falls on his knees before the king, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything” (v. 26). Then the king takes pity on him, releases him, and forgives the debt.
Now this could have been the end of the lesson Jesus gives. But he knows the feel-good ending will fade like the mayfly, so he keeps going, and we see the plot thicken.
Upon his release that same servant runs into a fellow servant who owes him 100 denarii— one denarius, in this case, is the equivalent of one day of pay for a laborer. In today’s dollars, the debt would be around $12,000. A significant debt, for sure, but not overwhelming.
The first servant, who is now free of $4.5 billion in debt, grabs the second servant by the throat and says, “Pay what you owe” (v. 28). The second servant falls down and pleads with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you” (v. 29). But the first servant refuses and takes action to throw the second servant into debtors’ prison.
The community of servants in the kingdom sees what is taking place, and they see the injustice. They then go to the king to report this news. The king summons the first servant and rebukes him for not having mercy on his fellow servant, in the same manner the king showed him mercy, and then hands the unforgiving servant over to be imprisoned until he pays his entire debt.
“So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you,” concludes Jesus, “if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart” (v. 35).
This story gives us a different perspective on the ideas around justice and payback.
Move 3
Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith. Like the mayfly supports life as we know it and makes life worth living, so can the same be said about forgiveness. But, just as deforestation, development and climate change are wiping out the mayfly, public self-righteousness, cyberbullying, payback and revenge are now making forgiveness an endangered species.
The message of the mayfly is that we need to create a hospitable environment for ancient, ephemeral, important, and necessary ways of living. So, what can we do to preserve an environment that supports forgiveness—that encourages forgiveness?
For starters, we need to keep Jesus at our center. In our church lives and personal lives, we are challenged to keep our focus on the one who gave his life and forgave his tormentors in an act of love and spiritual strength. This means that Jesus is the center of our songs, our beliefs and our celebrations. When we maintain this focus, forgiveness remains our greatest gift and virtue and we can make the decision to forgive others because Jesus has forgiven us.
In Christian life, the two are always connected, just as the king in the parable expected the forgiven servant to forgive his fellow servat. Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches his followers the Lord’s Prayer, which includes the line, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (6:12).
Do you want God to forgive you? Easy enough to answer, of course. But what we need to learn—maybe again and again—is that the key to finding and receiving the forgiveness we want and need is started by us first forgiving those who have hurt us, wronged us, brought injustice against us.
“We have to forgive,” said an Amish man whose farm was just a few miles away from the schoolhouse shooting. “Jesus forgave us of our sins. How can we expect forgiveness if we can’t give it?”
Conclusion
Unfortunately, after 300 million years, mayflies are now beginning to disappear from freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes around the world. The likely causes are deforestation, development, and climate change. An Indiana biologist says, “We are losing mayflies and other parts of nature that support life as we know it and make life worth living.” So not only does the mayfly exist for an incredibly short time, there are causes at work resulting in their very existence being in danger.
Add this understanding to the words of Su Shih, who, again, said, “We exist no longer than mayflies” and we set ourselves up for asking some important questions like… What else is ephemeral and ancient? What else is an inspiration to countless generations? What else is an important part of the history of the world but has been disappearing from human life? What else is able to bring forth new life? The answer is… Forgiveness.
“We exist no longer than mayflies.” And because we exist no longer than mayflies, when we choose to forgive, instead to payback, then the existence we have, no matter how long, will undoubtedly be better… because forgiveness has its own kind of payback. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, September 24, 2023
A kind word opens a closed flower. A soul-deep prayer lifts the clouds. A generous gift loosens hardened hearts. A quiet deed catches another’s attention. A heartfelt forgiveness releases new possibilities. Each act of love, each measure of care, weaves another strand in your kingdom O God, and causes the heart to sing.
We are living, Lord God, in troubling and difficult times. Our lives are often filled with confusion, and we are full of fear. But we know it is not just a few who are living with such heavy hearts. This is true for all your children—consequences of the world that has been created by the drive of greed, the drive for power through oppression, the drive for building ourselves up by putting others down.
But we know this way of life is not sustainable. We know it is not just or right. We know it is not even close to your vision for your children.
So we pray Holy God… guide us in these trying days to see clearly the life of Jesus and to know his ways. Help us learn, step-by-step, how to follow his teaching. Embolden us, each day, to live lives filled with love as did Jesus. Remind us of the power of your love and set before us compassion, gentleness, forgiveness and peacemaking. May we, too, feel a sense of calling as we live and serve in a world of need and injustice.
God of new and renewed life, as those who have been forgiven and reconciled to you, send us forth this day to be agents of reconciliation, grace, and forgiveness in the world. Send us from this place to restore hope, to bring peace, to live in joy, and to spread your love, keeping us ever aware that our creating, redeeming, reconciling Lord goes with us in the power of his Spirit.
Hear the prayers we lift to you now in this time of holy silence.
All this we pray in the name of our forgiving Savior, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”