"Called to More: Free to Give" (September 13, 2026 Sermon)
/Called to More: Free to Give
Exodus 14:19–31
The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the Lord, in the pillar of fire and cloud, looked down on the Egyptian army and threw the Egyptian army into a panic. He clogged their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.
Matthew 18:21–35
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
“For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
An Absurd Parable
All right, I had some fun reading this because it’s an absurd parable. When we try to interpret parables literally—or even just a little bit—we try to do the math and figure it out, and sometimes we forget that Jesus was deliberately trying to be absurd. This guy owed a lot of money—a comically large amount. Some people say it was as large as the GDP of an entire country at that time. It's hard to wrap your head around just how much. In fact, Tom Long, whose commentary I leaned on, says that if you want the specific number, it is a bazillion.
How this slave ran up that debt, who knows? It's a pretty foolish king who wouldn't notice one of his servants running up a bar tab like he's going to the Vegas Strip every single weekend, right? It's an absurd amount. And then the king does something equally absurd. He says, “You know what? I've been touched. You're right, you can never repay this—it's impossible. Go, be free, pay it forward.”
Is that what that slave does? No. He goes away whistling, so happy, and then he finds a second slave who owes him something pitiful by comparison. And of course, we all want the story to go the way it should, right—where slave number one forgives slave number two. But that doesn't happen because he forgets what just happened to him. And so he has that slave thrown into jail and denies him the grace that was first given to him.
And then—probably my favorite characters in this story—the other servants see what's going on. Normally I don't encourage people to be tattletales, but in this situation, that's exactly what they do: they go and tell their master what’s going on. And then the master doesn’t take kindly to it and does another absurd thing: he throws him into jail until he can pay off a bazillion dollars. How do you think that's going to go? I don't know how that's going to work. It's a bizarre story. It is absurd.
Tom Long says we need to loosen our grip a little bit and treat this sort of like a cartoon—kind of like, y'all remember the cartoon with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner? Some of us remember that. Where the coyote is trying to catch the Road Runner, and he's got this big bomb that he's waiting to drop over the cliff onto the Road Runner, and then what happens to the bomb? It blows up in his face, right? That's kind of what happens to this first slave. He has this bomb that he's going to drop on his fellow slave, and then it blows up in his face.
Now, just because we take these parables as cartoons, as absurd, does not mean they don't have something serious to tell us.
Two Distinct Worlds
And I think this is it: this parable presents us with two very distinct worlds. One in which mercy and grace are so common they are the very air we breathe. The other is one we are all too familiar with, where we are taught to be at each other's throats. And so the sin of this first slave was not necessarily stinginess—although he sounds pretty stingy. His sin was amnesia, because he forgot so quickly the grace that was given to him. Which is why, I think, the people who put together the lectionary paired us with that Exodus passage that Payne read for us today—the story of how God saved the Israelites from a ruthless economy into one governed by grace. And this slave, when he is given grace, immediately goes back to the other side of the Red Sea, for some reason. He goes back into that economy of ruthlessness, where we want to grab each other by the throat and say, “Pay what you owe.”
Today, I want us all to rest in this good news: God does not call us to be perfect. God calls us to remember.
What Our Giving Remembers
And when we invest our dollars, our time, and our talents in this congregation, we are trying—in our own imperfect but faithful way—to lean into that world where we aren't at each other's throats. There's enough of that going on around us right now. But when we come to this church, every pledge we give is an investment in remembering how much we have been given. Every time we volunteer our hours at committee meetings—even if it may not be the sexiest or most fun thing in the world—we are remembering what God has done for us. When we go downtown, as we did yesterday, and hand out more than three hundred care packages at the Pride Festival, we are remembering the grace that was first given to us.
So, friends, we have two worlds before us. I don't know about you, but there's one I've had enough of, and another I need more of. Together, let us remember what God has done, and let us give our time and our talents accordingly.
In the name of God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, and may all of us, God's beloved children, say: Amen.