The Office of the Keys: Who Can Forgive Sins?
The Office of the Keys: Who Can Forgive Sins?
The Limit of Forgiveness
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we're learning a parable from Jesus about forgiveness. Peter goes to Jesus and says, "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven."
That's a lot. That's a whole lot more than I can keep in my phone! I think, like most of you guys, what I do is put a checkbox every time I need to forgive you, and it's getting close for some of you—70 times seven, right? So pretty soon, no more forgiveness! Of course, that's not how it works. We know the point of the parable.
A couple of weeks ago, a member of this congregation was walking out of church and asked me a question, and I thought this was a good question to talk about today. He said, "Pastor, I would love to hear more about the Office of the Keys and how forgiveness is supposed to work. When do you go to the pastor, and when do we forgive each other?"
I thought this was a perfect question for this passage—a passage all about how we forgive each other, especially since it comes immediately following the passage where Jesus gives the power of forgiveness to the whole church. Immediately before this, Jesus says:
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
In other words, when you forgive sin, it's forgiven; when you bind sin, it is bound. Peter's question is: How many times do I have to do that? What's the limit of the forgiveness that You give us, Jesus?
What Is the Office of the Keys?
From this, our Small Catechism defines the Office of the Keys like this:
What is the Office of the Keys? The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.
That is, the whole church can forgive sins. You and me, everyone who is a believer in Jesus Christ has this power to bind and loose in Christ's name. As Jesus says, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them."
What an amazing gift that is! When you forgive, it is not just you doing it. It is not just a nice wish from your heart, or putting a hurt behind you into the past. It's not just getting over what other people have done to you. It is God's power. His power is at work by the cross of Jesus Christ in your relationships—not because you are extra special, but because Christ has attached His word and promise to the Holy Christian Church on earth. How cool is that?
Forgiveness in Our Everyday Relationships
So, when should we confess to one another? When should we confess to a pastor?
I'd like to imagine a situation: a husband and wife have been in conflict; they're fighting. Somebody did something to hurt one another. Now I know this is a totally strange experience for all of you—we in the church would never ever have that kind of conflict because we're just angels. So I want you to imagine what that might be like!
They hurt one another. The primary problem here is that there is a hurt in a relationship. Usually, when there's an argument like that, both sides are at least a little bit at fault. They're cranky. They hurt one another. Something is going wrong.
One says, "I'm sorry." The other says, "I'm sorry," and then they forgive each other. How beautiful, how wonderful! Because the relationship was hurt, that forgiveness is primarily a way to heal the rift between husband and wife. The power there is not just the forgiveness that happens—each person saying "our relationship is more important"—but the cross of Christ is there in the midst of that problem solving. As they put this behind them, when they forgive one another, Christ is healing those wounds.
That's not just in marriage; it's beautifully expressed when it happens between parents and children. Perhaps even most beautifully expressed when the parents apologize to the kids and the kids forgive their parents, showing a beautiful example of humility that Christians are supposed to do. Or when a friend forgives another friend and the power of Christ is at work, or when we forgive one another in this congregation.
How beautiful! How amazing it is that we have the power of Christ at work in our very words to bind us together in this congregation, in our families, in our relationships with our neighbors. How joyful that we have Christ at work among us!
God’s Rules for Forgiveness
Now here's the challenge for us: if it's God's forgiveness and not your forgiveness, do you get a choice when you wield it?
I don't think so. Because God is the one who sends it, because God is the power behind it, because God is the one who enacts it, we have to follow His rules, not our own. Whenever there is repentance, you have to forgive. That's what today's parable is all about.
When God gives you forgiveness for everything you have done—10,000 talents, 10 bajillion dollars—we must also forgive. If God forgives you every time you sin, you must also forgive every time someone does something against you.
Let's ask the question: What if God put conditions on forgiveness, the way sometimes we put conditions on the forgiveness that we give?
What would happen if we said, "I'll only forgive if you learned your lesson"? How much forgiveness would you have from God?
"I'll forgive you if you don't do it again." How much forgiveness would you have from God?
"I'll forgive you only if you are truly, truly sorry. You have to show it to me." How much forgiveness would we have from God?
Well, none of us, of course! Because no matter how hard we try, our hearts are always holding onto the sins that we like. No matter how sorry we are in the moment, we still continue to do things that are wrong.
That's the trouble with forgiveness in our relationships: we expect God to forgive us every time we sin, and we expect other people to forgive us every time we sin because our sin is understandable. But other people? Now they have to make up for it, don't they? And we hold onto these things.
The great example, the perfect example of forgiveness, is what we see in Jesus. Jesus was nailed to a cross, and the Pharisees were shouting insults at Him. And He says to His Father, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Shouldn't that be our forgiveness as well? Shouldn't that be the heart of Christ going out into our relationships with one another and our relationships with the whole world—forgiveness, no matter what?
"It's Okay" vs. "I Forgive You"
Now, sometimes that just seems too easy. Sometimes it seems like if someone has done something super serious—really relationship-changing—and they come to us and say, "I'm so sorry, I did something that was wrong," you just have to forgive them.
Many years ago, before I came here, a husband and wife came to me in the middle of a relationship crisis. I'll spare you some of the details, but the husband did something that he shouldn't have, and the wife was mad about it. The husband came in and said to the wife, "You have to forgive me" (which I suggest not doing if you did something wrong!). But he was right. He came to her and said, "I'm sorry. I know I did wrong." She did have to forgive him. But she said it just seems too easy—like he did something huge that damaged the relationship, and it's just, "I forgive you."
What she missed was that the cost of forgiveness is really high. When we share the words of forgiveness, the price that was paid is Christ dying on a cross. The Savior of the world, the Son of God Himself, died so that you can be forgiven. Every time we give forgiveness in our relationships, it's the cross of Christ that is the power behind that forgiveness. When someone hurts you in a small way or a big way, the cost has already been paid. The pain has been given. The Savior died for you and for that other person.
I think a way to approach this is to change the way we deal with conflict in our relationships, especially with one another—with other Christians.
One of the things that people often do when there's a conflict between two people is say, "I'm sorry, I did this," and the cultural response is to say, "It's okay" or "That's all right." Do you guys do that? Right, we do that.
That's not what you should say, because it is not okay and it is not all right. I think you should use the Christian words: "I forgive you."
Why is that the right way to deal with it? Because when you say "I forgive you," you acknowledge that something was wrong. The relationship has been damaged. Sin has been done. We need to do something about that. And when you say "I forgive you," it is saying something was wrong and now it's gone—paid for by the blood of Christ.
Imagine what would happen if you came in here and said, "I, a poor, miserable sinner," and then I said, "Ah, that's all right, no big deal," instead of, "I forgive your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." When we use the words "I forgive you," we're saying something real happened, and it was paid for by the forgiveness given to us in Jesus Christ.
When to Seek Private Confession
These are the instances where the forgiveness goes between one another, whether it's a friend, a neighbor, a husband, a wife, or parents and children. We focus primarily on the forgiveness shared in the hurt relationship.
So you might ask: When do you go to your pastor? When should you confess to your pastor in his office—private confession?
If we confess to one another when we've hurt one another, you confess to your pastor when you want to confess all the things—the whole part of your life, all the different things that you've done. Or maybe you've just sinned against God in your heart and you say, "I just need to confess," when your primary worry is not about your relationship with your friends, but about your relationship with God. The whole laundry list of sins.
What the pastor does then is use the power of forgiveness that Christ has given His church to exercise for everyone who wants to come to the church to be relieved of guilt, to have that weight taken off of them. I've done this many times with people who have been carrying something for decades, where they look back in their lives and say, "Pastor, you know I did this thing 10, 15, 20 years ago, and it's been weighing on me all this time." They've already made amends, they've already talked with one another, they've already solved the relationship problems, but they want something—they need a gift to get rid of that guilt. That's when you go to your pastor.
I encourage everyone to do this on a regular basis—like once a month is probably good—for this pastoral care, when you need the spiritual advice, when you need the guilt lifted. That's when you go to your pastor.
A Witness to the World
What a beautiful gift the power of forgiveness is. Whether it's here in this place, or in my office, or with one another, the power of forgiveness is just this beautiful thing that goes out into the world.
I have to say, I think this could be one of the greatest testimonies that the church has for an unbelieving world, because they don't believe in forgiveness. They don't believe in saying "Jesus died for you." They want to see punishment meted out on their enemies.
How many times have we seen Christians in television, in magazines, newspapers, or on the internet where murder has happened, and their family goes to the trial and says, "In Jesus' name, I forgive you"? How beautiful is that? How much like Jesus is that?
That could be you. Hopefully not in a trial setting, but with all the other things in the life of the people around you—with your friends and neighbors—giving the power of Jesus Christ in all your relationships.
In Jesus' name, Amen.