"Forgiven and Free OR How to Forget the Duck"
Matthew 18:23-35
September 12, 1999
Rev. David Beckett

    A little boy was visiting his grandparents one summer and was given his first slingshot. He took that slingshot into the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he returned to Grandma's yard he spied her pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let a stone fly. He didn't really intend to hit the duck. He hadn't hit anything he aimed at all day. But this time the stone was on target and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked. He hid the dead duck in the wood pile only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all but said nothing.

    After lunch that day Grandma said, "Sally, let's wash the dishes." But Sally said, "Johnny told me that he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn't you, Johnny?" And she whispered to him, "Remember the duck!" So Johnny did the dishes.

    Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, "I'm sorry but I need Sally to help make supper." Sally smiled and said, "That's all taken care of, Grandma. Johnny wants to do it." Again she whispered, "Remember the duck." So Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.

    After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally's, finally he couldn't stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he had killed her duck. Grandma gave him a big hug and said, "I know, Johnny. I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you."

    I suspect that you and I are a lot like this little boy. We have acted on impulses and said something or did something that hurt someone. We have a past we'd like to forget. We have skeletons in our closet. And we know in our heads that God is ready to forgive, but in our hearts we are all too often NOT ready to be forgiven. One would think that it is harder to forgive than to receive forgiveness. But I am wondering if the reverse isn't true. Maybe it is harder to receive forgiveness than to forgive. What sin...what mistake...what failure lurks deep within your soul that has been forgiven by someone else, but not by yourself? Aren't we more willing to let someone who hurts us off the hook than ourselves? We have to ask the question, "Is this how God intends for us to live? To go around like Johnny, burdened by guilt, enslaved to a person who knows our secret, listening to demonic voices whispering in our ear, 'Remember the duck! Remember the duck!'" Is this the way God wants us to live? Of course not! God's desire for us is freedom! God's desire for us is wholeness! God's desire for us is love!

    How then can we live in this freedom and love in the midst of a broken and sinful world? How can we know deep down in our hearts that we are forgiven? I think two things happen when people are truly forgiven. First is that past hurts begin to be healed. Secondly, we are freed to forgive others.

    Let's look at the scriptures. Jesus told his disciples a parable about a king who wanted to settle his accounts with his servants. There was one man who owed his master $10 million. We are not surprised that the man did not have money to pay off the loan. So the servant fell on his knees and pleaded with his master, "Be patient with me and I will pay back everything." He really laid it on thick. Well it must have worked because the master felt sorry for him. In fact he felt so much compassion that he cancelled the $10 million debt. Can you believe this? Talk about compassion!

    Now you would think that this servant would jump for joy having such a large burden lifted from him. Not so. The first thing he did was to find one of his fellow servants who owed him $3000. He grabbed the poor man by the throat and choked him, "Pay back what you owe me!" His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged, "Be patient with me and I will pay you back." But the man refused. Instead he had the man thrown in prison.

    Now the master heard of this and called the unforgiving servant into his presence. "You've got your nerve! Where do you get off treating your fellow servant this way when I had mercy on you and totally cancelled your debt?" The master was so angry that he reinstated the $10 million debt and had him thrown in prison.

    Two ways we can know we are forgiven: past hurts can be healed...and we are freed to forgive others. If you and I are living without these two realities then the likely alternative is guilt, resentment, anxiety, stress, and conflict. I'm no psychologist but I would say that a failure to receive God's forgiveness and failure to forgive others are significant factors in many emotional problems today. So many of us are like the servant. He had asked his master for an extension of time on his debt. But what happened? He actually got more than he asked for. The master in his mercy forgave him all his debt. But the servant never heard what the master said to him. He only wanted an extension so he could pay back what he owed. Consequently he could never enjoy this good news. He thought he was still under the sentence as a debtor and he'd simply been given more time to work and save and pay back what he owed. Because he didn't realize the debt had been cancelled, guilt, resentment, and anxiety began to work in him.

    Many of us are like that. We believe in a good theology of grace, but we don't live it. We believe forgiveness in our heads but not in our gut level feelings or in our relationships. We fail to understand that God's grace cannot be earned and can never be repaid! And when we try to receive this grace into our lives we try to get rid of the guilt by ourselves.

    Such was the case of a young pastor who was having problems getting along with other people, especially his wife and children. The young man's wife was a warm, affectionate, loving person. But he was continually criticizing her and blaming her for things. Everything she did was wrong. He was sarcastic and demanding. Slowly it began to dawn on him that he was destroying their marriage. Then he realized that he was hurting people through sermons which were excessively harsh and judgemental. In short, he was working out his unhappiness on other people.

    In counseling sessions he met his trouble like some men do...he blamed it on his wife. But after awhile when he became honest, the painful root of the matter came to light. When he was in the service in Korea he had spent two weeks of R&R in Japan. During that leave, walking the streets of Tokyo, feeling empty, lonely, and terribly homesick, he fell into temptation with another woman. He had never been able to forgive himself. Oh, he believed in his head that God forgave him, but the guilt still plagued him and he hated himself. He had never shared this with anyone and the burden was becoming intolerable.

    When he returned home to marry his fiancee who had faithfully waited for him his emotional conflicts increased. He could not forgive himself for what he had done to himself and to her, so he couldn't accept her freely offered affection and love. He felt that he had no right to be happy. In effect he said to himself, "I've no right to enjoy my wife or my life. I've got to pay back the debt."

    Many people find themselves in the same boat. Burdened with a tremendous load of guilt from past deeds, they punish themselves and their loved ones by refusing to enjoy the present as they try to pay back their debt.

    The second cause of many emotional problems is a failure to give forgiveness. When we fail to accept God's forgiveness we also fail to give love and forgiveness to other people. And this results in a breakdown of our interpersonal relationships. The unforgiven are also the unforgiving and the unforgiving complete the vicious circle because they cannot be forgiven.

    The servant in the parable thought he still had to go around collecting money from people who owed him so he could pay his debt...a debt that had already been cancelled. Think of how we apply this to the important people in our lives: parents who hurt us when we were growing up, brothers and sisters who failed us when we needed help, a friend who betrayed us, a sweetheart who rejected us. They all owe us a debt, don't they? They owe us affection, love, security, and affirmation. But since we feel indebted and guilty, resentful and insecure...since we see ourselves as unforgiven and unacceptable, we in turn become unforgiving and unaccepting. We have not received grace so how can we give it to others? It becomes easy to be like this unforgiving servant and become a grievance collector.

    Is there someone you need to forgive? Has someone hurt you yesterday, last month, two years ago, 30 years ago? Have you truly forgiven yourself? To answer these questions I want to give you a little test. Are you ready? First of all there is the resentment test. Is there someone you resent...someone you've never let off the hook? A parent, brother, sister, marriage partner, friend, someone who wronged you in childhood, a teacher, or someone who abused you as you grew up? Secondly, there is the responsibility test. It goes something like this: "If only my parents, my wife, my children...if only God had given me what they owed me, I wouldn't be in this mess today. If they had paid me then I could have paid off my debts to the master." Do you take responsibility for your own faults and failures, or is there a recording that goes on every time: "They made me what I am. He did it. She did it!" In many instances, extending forgiveness to someone else and assuming responsibility for yourself are two sides of the same coin and can only be done together.

    The third test is the reminder and reaction test. Do you find yourself reacting to a person because he or she reminds you of someone else? Maybe you don't like the way your husband disciplines the children because he reminds you of your father who was too harsh. So that causes a conflict. You don't like your neighbor, or you respond to a co-worker with anger. Why? Perhaps because you have never really forgiven someone else. And your reaction to reminders of that unforgiven person from your past triggers resentment against another person.

    Are you part of a debt-free community of Christians? Is your marriage free of debt-collecting? Your family? In Christ we have the hope of a debt-free church where we love each other because we are loved...where we accept each other because we are accepted. This can only happen when we experience the joy of having seen the Master tear up the huge debt that we owe.

    There's a story told about a bazaar day in an Indian village. Everyone brought their wares to trade and sell. One farmer brought in a whole covey of quail. He had tied strings around one foot of each bird. The other ends were tied to a ring on a central stake. The quail were dolefully walking in a circle around and around like mules at a sorghum mill. Finally a man who believed in the Hindu idea of respect for all life wanted to buy all of the quail. The merchant was elated. After he received his money he was surprised to hear the man say, "Now I want you to set them free." The merchant couldn't believe what the man said. But with his knife he cut the strings and set them free. A curious thing happened. The quail simply continued marching around and around. Finally he had to shoo them off. But even when they landed some distance away they resumed their marching. They continued to act as if they were tied, when all the time they were free!

    In my life there are many times when I act like these quail, times when I allow my past to chain me and keep me from becoming all God wants me to be. Jesus Christ came to cut my strings. And God's grace keeps shooing me to freedom. But I just fly for a little while and then come down and act as if I am enslaved. Friends, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ has come to set us free! We can forgive each other. The challenge for us is to live in this freedom, to forget the dead ducks of our past, and to share this freedom with others.