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GETTING A FAVOR FROM THE DON

Have you ever found yourself adopting a ‘bean-counting’ approach toward forgiving someone in your life? ‘I’ll forgive that jerk ONE MORE TIME, and if they mess up again beyond that, forget it! Never again!’ Then we argue about how many beans. Seven? Forty-nine? Four-ninety?

It’s purported to be the easiest question in the Christian faith. Here it is: How do you get forgiveness? That’s it. How do you get God to forgive your sins? According to one of our favorite texts, I John 1:9, all you have to do is clear your throat and ask.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Well, that’s wonderful. Thank you very much. But all of a sudden, here in this rough-and-tumble parable by Jesus, God does a total U-turn and it sounds like forgiveness is an extremely conditional thing. You have to jump through a flaming hoop called “ForgivING” before you get to the reward called “ForgiveNESS.” “I won’t forgive YOU,” God says, “unless you forgive everyone around you.”

That’s hard to consider, isn’t it? From a point of view of fairness, it makes sense. But we kind of like it when the Gospel doesn’t make sense, when the deck is stacked our way. Like the Calvin in Calvin & Hobbes once asked, “Why can’t things ever be unfair in my favor?”

A recent Tom Hanks film suggested that all important world questions can be answered out of the pages of the old crime story, The Godfather. And maybe this theological issue is important enough where we should go to the mattresses too, so to speak, in addressing the question.

You may recall that Mario Puzo’s story opens with an undertaker named Bonaseri. His daughter has been assaulted by two New York City punks, and he comes to Don Corleone — on the wedding day of his daughter, when no true Sicilian can refuse a request — and asks Marlon Brando for vengeance. But the subtle thread underlying the exchange is very clear: he doesn’t want a relationship with the Godfather. He just wants this disconnected favor. “I’ll pay you anything you ask,” he pleads. But he’s afraid to swear loyalty; he doesn’t want to get involved in the Corleone empire’s shady dealings. He doesn’t want to risk friendship. In a spiritual sense, we would liken this to wanting forgiveness from God . . . but not a faith relationship with God.

In the story, the Godfather points this out. “If you were willing to be my friend,” he says, “then this problem would be gone. The men who did this would be weeping already. Your enemies would become my enemies, and then – believe me – they would fear you.”

Later in the story, the same scene plays out again. A film producer named Woltz refuses to be “in relationship” with Corleone, and give the Don’s godson, Johnny Fontaine, a part in his new war picture. Even when the Godfather, as an incentive, offers to have some studio labor problems cleared up, he says no. No deal. But then he asks: “How much would it cost me — in cash, right now — to just pay you to have my labor situation fixed?” He didn’t want the friendship, the relationship; he just wanted a noncommittal, no strings attached, transaction.

Well, friend, I apologize up front for borrowing an illustration from such a dark story . . . except that it so explicitly portrays the attitude of this servant in Jesus’ parable. You see, his problem is our problem too. This man was very excited about getting forgiveness from a good king. He was glad for the gift. But he did not want to be a part of this generous king’s kingDOM — which was a kingdom of grace, of forgiveness.

Let me illustrate this concept another way, but first let’s notice how the story begins in a very ticky-tack way. Peter asks Jesus a very plain question:

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”

The rabbis in Jesus’ day, interestingly, taught that you only had to forgive someone three times, so Peter was very proud of himself, offering up a seven to Jesus. The perfect number, he was thinking. Double what the rabbis teach, plus one for good measure. “What a good boy am I!” And he’s stunned by Jesus’ answer:

“I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven.”

Now, here’s the interesting thing. Some translations put “seventy times seven” here, which would be 490. And we seize on that as being the more impressive number. In the Tyndale New Testament Commentary for Matthew, Dr. R. T. France points out that, no, in both the Hebrew of Genesis 4:24, where Jesus gets this concept, and in the Greek right here, 77 is the correct number. But then he points out that if we get excited about 77 versus 490, we’re falling into the exact trap Jesus is warning about! Friend, if we’re “bean-counting” at all here, we’re completely missing the point.

“The defect in Peter’s inquiry [about three versus seven],” observes one commentator, “was that the kind of forgiveness referred to in it was not from the heart, but rather a legal, mechanical kind of ‘forgiveness’ based on the concept of obtaining righteousness by works. How difficult it was for Peter to grasp the new concept of obedience from the heart, prompted by love for God and his fellow men!”

In his terrific book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey confesses his own bean-counting tendencies. Listen to this:

“I grew up,” he writes, “with the image of a mathematical God who weighed my good and bad deeds on a set of scales and always found me wanting. Somehow I missed the God of the Gospels, a God of mercy and generosity who keeps finding ways to shatter the relentless laws of ungrace. God tears up the mathematical tables and introduces the new math of grace, the most surprising, twisting, unexpected-ending word in the English language.”

Here’s the point, friend — and it’s so enormous it’s hard to articulate. But forgiveness from God isn’t like a little stack of poker chips or Disneyland coupons (back in the old days), where you have a certain number you can cash in. Forgiveness is instead like a kingdom, a wonderful, beautiful, new, perfect universe that you move to. God’s grace is there: not like a few parceled-out drops, but like a mighty river. It washes endlessly over you. The fact that the king was willing to forgive this first man a debt of six million bucks illustrates that point. And you can only get forgiveness — ANY forgiveness, ALL forgiveness — by moving TO this kingdom. You can’t just go by a drive-through window and pay two dollars to get one sin forgiven. You have to move TO the kingdom, and allow all of Calvary to ceaselessly cover and envelop you.

And then this second point is there too. Others are also in that kingdom, in that mighty ocean of forgiveness. Not just you. God’s forgiveness extends to them as well. It washes you; it washes them. And when you and I forgive others their trespasses, all we’re really saying is that this is okay with us. “It’s all right if God’s grace extends to you too,” we say to that person who hurt us, who injured us, who lied about us. “I get grace, you get grace. All God’s children get grace.” Friend, I don’t think forgiveness is really anything more than letting other people get into the river that we’re in too. Giving their wickedness to God, allowing Him to deal with it any way He chooses to.

So Jesus tells this story. “My Father is willing to forgive you for HUGE things,” He kindly says. “For your lifetime of sins.” Then He adds this: “But that can only happen if you’re also willing to let that get passed along to YOUR peers, your friends and your enemies. You are forgiven AS YOU FORGIVE.”

This new kingdom, this swimming pool, or ocean of forgiveness, is found all through the Bible. Here’s I John 4:11:
“If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

Here’s Matthew 10:8:
“Freely ye have received, [Jesus says,] freely give.”

Maybe it sounds like rules or conditions. “God can’t forgive you unless you forgive others,” etc. Really, all this story is explaining is the reality of this incredible kingdom built on relationship. And Jesus tells us: “Your only hope is to join the Club, to get into the pool.”

Here’s an old soundbite from the much-loved book, Christ’s Object Lessons, and notice how this reminds us of that “ocean of forgiveness” imagery:

“We ourselves owe EVERYTHING,” the author writes, “to God’s free grace. Grace in the covenant ordained our adoption. Grace in the Savior effected our redemption, our regeneration, and our exaltation to heirship with Christ.” Then she adds: “Let this grace be revealed to others.”

Then, just a paragraph or two later, we find the same picture again. Listen to this:

“He who is unmerciful toward others shows that he himself is not a partaker of God’s pardoning grace.” He hasn’t joined the club, we might say, or gotten into the swimming pool. “In God’s forgiveness the heart of the erring one is drawn close to the great heart of Infinite Love. The TIDE of divine compassion flows into the sinner’s soul, AND from him to the souls of others. The tenderness and mercy that Christ has revealed in His own precious life will be seen in those who become sharers of His grace.”

Friend, wouldn’t you want to stand in the spray, the powerful current of that tide of divine compassion? And let others stand there too? I’ve got to tell you — it sure sounds like the kind of offer we can’t refuse.