A Reading From Ecclesiasticus 27:30— 28:7 A Reading From Psalms 103 or 103:1-14 A Reading From Romans 14:5-12 A Reading From The Gospel Matthew 18:21-35A Sermon by Rev Dr Pastor JimmyMercy. You know, my dad didn't do a lot of encouraging me to show mercy in my life. He used to say things like, the meek don't inherit anything. He would use other words that I can't necessarily or won't necessarily use right now, but that was his perspective before Christ. Mercy was not something that he had in large quantities. In fact, choking people about over money seems quite familiar as I read this story. I always paid my debts when it came to my dad for that reason. But once Christ got a hold of him, things changed a little bit and mercy is really something that only is capable in our lives if it reaches to the heart. And so there's a story that we read in the Desert Fathers about Abba Moses, or Moses the black. And he was a fourth century monk in Egypt and someone in their community, a brother, had committed an offense and the monks gathered to consider the matter and they summoned Moses, but he initially refused to come. But when they sent him for him again, he carried a basket of sand with him and there was a hole in this basket of sand and the sand was spilling out behind him as he walked. And so the brothers asked him what he was doing by having this basket that was pouring sand out of the back of him and he said that the spilling sand represented his own sins, which he did not see, which as he came to judge someone else's faults. And hearing him come to this realization that he was focused on someone else's faults while his faults were pouring out behind him that he didn't see, the community released the offending brother without further condemnation. I have to say it strikes me as fascinating how much our modern culture is drawn to desert mystics or desert fathers, those that retreated and detached from the world to draw closer to God, because they often do it as an attempt to escape the church. But what I love about the desert fathers is that they weren't escaping the church. They were escaping the cares of this world. And so this example of them asking Moses the Black to come and to offer counsel on this is not the only time that a desert father was praying and seeking God in the wilderness and they were like, please come and help. Anthony the Great, which is considered almost the father, one of the fathers of monasticism and the idea of living a life of asceticism towards honoring the Lord, was out in the woods as well and Athanasius actually requested, he wrote the book, The Life of Anthony. Athanasius actually requested for him to come and to speak on behalf of the validity of them creating a creed that came out of the Council of Nicaea. And I think that's fascinating because this is somebody that had detached from the world, who was praying out in the desert, who was seeking God and living a life of solitude, yet his counsel was so important to make a matter valid that he didn't say, no, that's too religious for me, all that church stuff. All I need is me and God over here, right? And so people would be drawn to that concept. I don't need anything else. I just need me and God. But the father of monasticism was called into the Council of Nicaea to offer credibility for what they were trying to do at the council. And he didn't say, well, much like Moses the Black, he refused at first because why would you want to leave and come? No one wants to get involved in all that stuff, but he was connected to it. And so he didn't consider himself detached from the church, nor did Moses the Black here. And so what I think is so powerful and why his actions were so important is because what we don't see in the history books is that Moses the Black considered the person that had committed this offense that he was innocent. That wasn't his concern. He was just reminding the others that they had also needed mercy in their lives. And in doing that, it changed everything, right? It teaches us that it's possible to see someone else's failure accurately, and yet it still approached that person wrongly. And I think if something is true and can be said of us, that it's easier for us to receive mercy than it is to extend mercy. We're so quick to receive it, and that same mercy that we receive from God must become the mercy that we extend to others. Today's gospel brings us face to face with that contradiction that we face in our lives. What happens when people who have received extraordinary mercy refuse to extend it? Now I'll say this right out the gate. A lot of times the people that have a hard time extending mercy to others are generally the ones who have also received a lot of mercy. That's a weird reality in our world, right? We've received mercy, and so it's hard for us at times to extend it. We know that these things happen in our lives and how this addresses us. And so what I think is fascinating is you may have noticed in us understanding this story and understanding our normal rhythms on a Sunday that we did not read our Old Testament passage. Well, we didn't have an Old Testament passage in the canon of Scripture today. The lectionary actually teaches us and walks through one of the apocryphal books called Ecclesiasticus or Syric. And so we didn't read that because that's considered a Jewish wisdom book before the coming of Christ, but it's not part of the canonical Old Testament as we receive it. And so we want to be careful and we always try to be diligent in that, but if we were to have read that, you would have heard a difference in what we say at the end of those readings. Instead of it saying the word of the Lord, we would say, here ends the reading. You might be saying, why would you even read something like that? We only want to hear the Word of God read in church. We have to understand what those books represented. They were historical books, right? So imagine if we took that same logic in everything else in life, right? I'm only going to read books that have been inspired by God, but you think every book that's ever been written isn't profitable for something, right? I'm not going to read that. No, other books have been written that are profitable for us, and the church also recognizes books that are profitable, but they're just not considered inspired canon of Scripture, right? But we learn things from them, right? We learn about culture, and we learn about what was going on around that time period. And so this book was written by Ben Sarah, and we have to understand what is being said here in some of this Jewish wisdom literature. Ben Sarah warns that anger and wrath are things a sinful person holds fast. And he describes the vengeful person as someone who keeps a record of wrongs. And then he asked a piercing question, how can someone harbor anger against another person and still ask the Lord for healing? Now again, this was written before Jesus' earthly ministry was even coming to fruition, and so you're hearing the same words in some of these historical writings that this culture was already establishing and already teaching, right? He tells the reader to forgive the neighbor's wrong, remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook the offense. And this happened before Jesus' ministry on earth. So if we were to take this historic writing in Ecclesiasticus or Sirach and hear the words of this man who is offering this same reality to us that we see in Scripture, we see that Sirach gives us the ledger. Psalm 103 shows us the God who refuses to treat us according to that ledger. And Paul tells us in Romans that every one of us will stand before God's judgment seat. And then as Reverend Jessica read for us today, Jesus brings them all together with his story, which is where we're particularly going to rest today as we focus on this idea of mercy reaching the heart. Because we see in Peter's life, Peter wanted a number to how much mercy he should show to somebody. And how much mercy is enough mercy? How much mercy is enough mercy? Right? Today is the Feast of St. John Chrysostom. It's also the Feast of the celebration of the start of the NFL football season, right? It's a holy sacred feast. And, you know, we know the patron saint of field goals comes at one o'clock today. So we're going to be aware of that. But it's also, it's also the Feast of St. John Chrysostom, who was considered, his title, his name was given his golden mouth because he preached such wonderful oracles. And one of the things that we often attribute to St. John Chrysostom is that idea that when we leave from this space, we say all the time that we're like roaring lions, right? After we've received the body and blood of our Lord, right? We think about this reality and how God pours out his mercy in our lives and then sends us out to do something. But I think in the middle of all of that wonderful reality, we find ourselves maybe like Peter, who is coming to Jesus with a situation and saying, Lord, how much do I need to do it? Should I forgive this person? Right? He wants a number. He wants there to be something, right? How often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times, right? It's a good number. He's connecting this reality and it sounds generous because seven is the number of completion. And so Peter thinks he's offered Jesus a spiritually impressive answer. You ever felt that way? Lord, I don't mean brag. I feel like that was a good answer. I feel like I did a good job there. And clinically, Jesus always takes us in those moments and goes, yeah, but. And kind of reorders us back to where we need to be. And so Jesus replies, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. Some translations will say 70 times seven. And while we don't want to focus too much on the precise numbering and the arithmetic, because if you're keeping count so that you know when you may stop forgiving, you probably missed what
