{"id":2108,"date":"2026-09-13T18:51:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T22:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=2108"},"modified":"2026-09-13T18:51:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T22:51:51","slug":"finding-the-dry-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/13\/finding-the-dry-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Dry Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor \u00a92026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">16<sup>th<\/sup> Sunday After Pentecost\/A \u2022 Date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Exodus 14:19-31 \u2022 Matthew 18:21-35<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Finding-the-Dry-Ground.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cForgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.\u201d That\u2019s part of the Lord\u2019s Prayer, a prayer we offer every Sunday. How often have you prayed this prayer? How often have you said these words? Not all Christians say the prayer this way. Methodists inherited saying trespasses and trespassers from their Anglican roots. I worked in a Methodist church when I was in seminary and trying to keep straight whether to say debts or trespasses was one of the hardest part of leading worship for me. Luke\u2019s version of this prayer has the words \u2018sins\u2019 and lately I\u2019ve noticed more and more churches using that version. But Matthew gives us the prayer in 6:12 with a Greek word that literally means debts and that\u2019s what we use here. Debts are easy to understand; they have to do with what do I owe others, and what do others owe me? We have some agreed principles that govern things. My older daughter Amy announced one of these years ago regarding eating out: \u201cThe Dad pays\u201d. I never questioned this. But now I have coffee almost every day with May, who makes a lot more money than me. So May quietly modified this; three days a week, I pay for her coffee, Saturdays she buys me breakfast. The debts is satisfied on both ends.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But what happens when the issue isn\u2019t as simple as dinner or coffee? What about injury? We have this little proverb you may have said: \u201cFool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.\u201d In other words, if you injure me once and then I forgive you and let you do it again, that\u2019s my fault, not yours. So: forgive once. The Rabbis\u2019 of Jesus\u2019 time had settled on a more generous idea: forgive three times. That\u2019s part of the background to the story we read in the gospel today. Jesus has ben talking about how we should treat each other and Peter brings up the issue of forgiveness. \u201cLord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?\u201d [Matt .18:21] You see what he\u2019s doing? He\u2019s upping the count from three to seven. Jesus replies, \u201cNot seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.\u201d [Matt. 18:22] That\u2019s another way of saying, \u201cEndlessly!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then he tells a parable. What\u2019s it like when God reigns? Well, it\u2019s like a king who is owed 10,000 talents unbelievably forgiving it all. Do you know how much 10,000 talents is? It\u2019s more than all the taxes for the whole Roman Empire for a single year. Our country currently owes about 41 trillion dollars. I have no idea how much that is, do you? It\u2019s beyond counting. That\u2019s the amount Jesus has in mind: something beyond counting. And look what the king does, he simply casually says, \u201cForget it\u201d.&nbsp; The debtor says, \u201coh, I\u2019ll pay it\u201d, but honestly it can\u2019t be paid and the story says that out of pity for him, the king lets him go. But as he goes, he finds someone who owes him a hundred denarii; a denarius is a day\u2019s pay, figure a hundred day\u2019s pay. For me, that\u2019s about $10,000, a little less than a third of what you pay me. It\u2019s a lot of money but it\u2019s payable. The guy asks for more time but the same man who had just been forgiven 10,000 talents, refuses and has him locked up. I\u2019m guessing, just like the other slaves in the story you\u2019re thinking, \u201cthat\u2019s so unfair!\u201d And the king thinks the same thing so he has the first guy imprisoned and the story concludes with him being tortured. Wow: where\u2019 the gospel in this? Where\u2019s the happy ending?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For that, you have to go back to the beginning. Remember Peter\u2019s question? Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?\u201d [Matt .18:21] When Jesus replies, he\u2019s not really setting a new number: he\u2019s rejecting the whole notion of counting. In the parable itself, the King brings it back to just what we say in the Lord\u2019s Prayer. The king says, \u201cI forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should not you have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?\u201d [Matt. 18:32bf] The slave who was forgiven hasn\u2019t done anything to his fellow slave outside custom or law. It\u2019s the King who has moved outside those limits. The King forgave an unplayable debt so his slave could move forward. But the slave didn\u2019t move forward, he didn\u2019t see the new possibility of having his debt forgiven. In the same way, Jesus has been talking about God\u2019s forgiveness but Peter hasn\u2019t understood the point: just like the first slave in the parable, God forgives\u2014but there is s purpose and the purpose is to allow God\u2019s people to move forward, not to keep doing what they\u2019ve always done, not continuing to count the debts of others.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the key point about forgiving: it moves us forward. This is God\u2019s will for us. We see this in the story of the Exodus. God\u2019s people have been oppressed by the Egyptians and their cries come to God as the cries of the oppressed always do. God sends Moses to lead the people out of captivity but oppressors do what oppressors always do: they turn to violence. In the story of the Exodus, God\u2019s people are led out by an angelic figure seen as a pillar of fire. When the Egyptian army pursues them, the power of God moves between the Egyptians and the fleeing slaves. Meanwhile, the wind of God moves on the water barring their way, moving it, dividing it, creating a dry path for them to walk. And they escape, they move farther on the way to the promised land, to the fulfillment of God\u2019s promise, God\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We don\u2019t have to look far to see this. In April, 1963, the people of Birmingham, Alabama, rose up against the injustices of the system of segregation that prevented them from living the full lives God meant to give them. The campaign was led by children and it culminated in a march, meant to be a peaceful group of people going to their government to demand their rights. But just like the Egyptians, the powerful in that place responded with terrible violence. One of the leaders of that march was a young man named John Lewis. Lewis was beaten bloody that day but he never gave up. He became a leader and an example and served a long distinguished career in Congress. Lewis told this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few years ago, a man from Rock Hill, inspired by President Obama&#8217;s election, decided to come forward. He came to my office in Washington and said, &#8220;I am one of the people who beat you.I want to apologize. Will you forgive me?&#8221; I said, &#8220;I accept your apology.&#8221; He started crying. He gave me a hug. I hugged him back, and we both started crying. This man and I don&#8217;t want to go back; we want to move forward. &#8211; Rep. John Lewis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving forward is God\u2019s hope for all of us. And the way forward begins when we celebrate how God forgives us by forgiving others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a few minutes, we\u2019re going to have an opportunity to pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer again. In a few minutes, we\u2019re going to be invited to say again, \u201cForgive us out debts as we forgive the debts of others.\u201d In a few minutes, we are invited by these words to move forward. That\u2019s God\u2019s hope for us. That we will not be like the unforgiving servant and end up imprisoned by our past, by the endless counting of what others did to us, what others owe us. Instead, we are invited to find the dry ground the power of the resurrection is making for us. So today, I want to say, don\u2019t worry about the walls of the past that loom like the water the people of God walked through; walk on the dry ground. Don\u2019t worry about the walls of anger, walk on the dry ground of forgiveness. Don\u2019t worry about the walls of bitterness, leave them behind and walk on the dry ground to the kingdom. That way begins with forgiveness and leads toward a life lived knowing, as Paul said, \u201cWe do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord\u2019s.\u201d [Romans 14:7f]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moving forward is God\u2019s hope for all of us. And the way forward begins when we celebrate how God forgives us by forgiving others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,426,3,69],"tags":[432,24,237,433],"class_list":["post-2108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-pentecost","category-matthew-2","category-sermon","category-year-a","tag-exodus","tag-forgiveness","tag-grace","tag-parable-of-unjust-servant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2111,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2108\/revisions\/2111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}