God Hates Math . . . but loves justice

If you are an accountant, I apologize to you right up front. Adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing are not among the favorite subjects in school. People frankly turn their noses up at calculus and geometry.

Of the three Rs…reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic, arithmetic is consistently at the bottom of favorite classes. Students try to avoid it at all costs.We simply do not like Math.Guess what?

We are not alone in our dislike.

God hates math, too.

Look.

Peter asks Jesus how many times we should forgive a person. Peter wants a recipe.

He wants a formula, a rule. Because that how society worked back then. That’s how he and everybody else had been raised. An action, resulted in a reaction, a tit for tat, a balance sheet.

Do the crime, do the time. Peter simply wants to know. And Jesus answers the question how many times should we forgive a person, with the answer: a whole lot.

Peter scratches his head. What does that mean? And so Jesus tells us a parable.

Remember parables are always about God.

They tell us about God’s nature. So Jesus starts: there was a king, who was reviewing his accounts, he was seeing if they balanced. And the king discovered that one of his slaves owed

him a kazillion dollars.

This particular slave was in charge of collecting taxes and had diverted the funds to his personal accounts: with a house on the Riviera, a private jet, and a sports car.

The king has this slave brought in. The king calls him on the carpet for his

mismanagement and embezzlement.

The sentence: sell all your possessions.

Liquidate all your assets and subtract it from the amount owed.

The rest you can work off in prison…good luck!

The slave, starts kissing the hem and feet of the king and begs “please, please, please…I’ll make the balance zero! I promise.” The king is moved with compassion, in his very core he feels mercy for this slave and changes his mind!

He says “Ok…Forget about it!

Your debt is totally whited out.

Your balance is zero!

You have a clean slate!”

The slave, as you can imagine is greatly relieved, says “whew!”

And he leaves the courtroom.

As he is going down the steps, a crowd has gathered, the paparazzi, the press, on-lookers.

Sure enough, the slave sees someone he knows!

It’s a man who owes him a hundred dollars.

The slave grabs this man by the throat and says “Pay me what you owe me. Now. Make your balance zero.”

The man says “please, please, I’ll get it, give me some time.”

And the slave says “NO!”

And throws the guy in prison until he can pay it off.

There were a bunch of slaves standing around who saw this whole event.

They are outraged.

After all, this was the slave who had his slate wiped clean..clean of zillions of dollars..clean of a debt he would never have been able to pay back.

And here was a guy who only owed him 3 months Worth of wages.

These slaves are angry.

They are going to speak up for justice on behalf of the poor guy in jail.

“We can’t have this!” they cry.

“It’s not right! We want justice!”

And they go and tell the king who shares their outrage.

The king calls the forgiven slave and says, “You wicked slave…I forgave you a debt of enormous proportion.

I balanced your account.

Not now.

I am taking back my forgiveness.

Your account stands in arrears.

Go to jail…and be tortured for ever!”

And that’s where Jesus finishes the story.

Peter gasps!

No wonder God hates math.

Math does not work.

If we are keeping track of wrongs, or hurts, or debts, then we can take back forgiveness.

If we do not have total final forgiveness anger, pain, wrath is unleashed.

Ledger sheets leads to violence.

Forgiveness must be free and clear, unequivocal, irrevocable.

No wonder God hates math.

Listen.

This parable is meant to shock us.

To provoke us.

To get us to side so much with the group of slaves who demanded justice, that we see how God is so totally opposite.

This parable is meant to show that justice is not God’s way.

It is not an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth.

God’s way is totally mercy and forgiveness.

For if we stay attached to simple accounting, anger is released into the world, terror is commonplace, and there is no peace.

God’s kingdom is the exact opposite for God hates

math.

Because, you see, the problem is, we love math.

We tally things and keep are running record of blunders and mistakes.

Road rage has become an every day experience.

Cars won’t let us merge, they cut us off…we curse at them..or use a hand signal…and we have entered the world of justice versus mercy and we share the same anger that the king does in the story.

When someone hurts us, it is like they took a permanent marker and wrote on our heart.

Instead of talking and working towards a reconciliation, we sabotage their work, or make mean comments, or gossip about them.

Again, we have fallen in to the trap of seeking justice for a debt…of seeking a zero balance in the accounting system.

And the ledger sheets we hold for our own actions, are often so long and heavy that we feel their weight in our lives.

We hear over and over in our head the words of the king directed to us…” Oh you wicked slave!”

“Off to prison and damnation for you!”

Indeed secretly we are math experts.

How do we break the cycle?

Perhaps this will help.

The German composer Mendelssohn gave us beautiful music, Like Hark the Herald Angels.

His grandfather Moses was not a handsome man.

He was quite short and had a hunched back.

When he met a young lady named Frume, Moses fell madly in love, but Frume was repulsed by his appearance.

Finally getting the courage to talk to her, Moses asked, "Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?"

When she said yes, Moses said, "In heaven at the birth of each boy, the Lord announces which girl he will marry. When I was born, my future bride was pointed out to

me.

Then the Lord said, 'But your wife will be

humpbacked.'

Right then and there I called out, 'Oh Lord, a humpbacked woman would be a tragedy.

Please, Lord, give me the hump and let her be

beautiful.'"

Frume and Moses were married a few months later.

And that’s what God has done for us.

In the form of Jesus Christ.

Our ugliness…our deformities..our debts were all nailed to a cross..long before we were born.

Our debt was paid once and for on Calvary, on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

As God’s own son died, our ledger sheets were torn up once and for all.

Wiped clean…before we ever were born.

Math annihilated once and for all.

It is amazing grace..that saved all of us.

Nothing we did.

Freely given.

Nothing to be earned.

Calculator thrown away.

Because God hates math.