September 13th, 2026 – Deacon Ordination
Matthew 18:21-35, Romans 14: 1-3 & 7-12
In our Gospel lesson today, Peter clears his throat and asks “Um I’ve been meaning to ask just how many times should I forgive my neighbor?” He wants to make sure he’s doing it right. Makes you wonder what’s on his mind.
Is the neighbor yelling at Simon Peter’s kids to “get off his lawn”?
Borrowing his tools and never returning them?
Leaving bad reviews about his fishing business?
Peter offers an answer, “Seven times?”
It’s a generous suggestion because there is no mention that the neighbor has expressed any remorse or apologized. Jesus recognizes Peter’s intuition to be forgiving, but… Jesus says actually, try 70 times 7. In other words, if Peter is trying to keep score, so that when the magic number is reached he can let his neighbor have it, then maybe he hasn’t understood the lesson.
Under Moses’ law, the rule was eye for an eye. But not so with Jesus, the one who came to reinterpret the Law, there is no limit to love, mercy, and forgiveness.
So Jesus tells this parable to reorient Peter’s perspective. That’s what God is always doing, reorienting our perspective. A King decides to settle up his accounts. And one his servants owed his master a wild amount of money – Jesus deliberately exaggerated the amount – like saying “a billion” dollars. There is no way he will ever work it off, or be able to pay it back. Everyone listening to Jesus’ story understands this and we need to also. The King orders that the servant, his wife and children be auctioned off at the slave market. The poor fellow breaks out in a sweat, falls to his knees and begs the king to give him more time. He’ll pay every cent back! Well, the King was moved by the man’s desperate plea and he sent him on his way, canceling the debt completely.
The servant could have gone off rejoicing, but before the sweat on his brow has dried, he meets a fellow servant who owes him a debt. He grabs him by the throat and demands payment on the spot. This man begs for mercy -echoing the very words that have just come out of the servant’s mouth: With more time, he’ll pay it all back. But the servant whose entire enormous debt had just been forgiven, had no mercy on his fellow servant. He had him arrested and sent to prison until the debt could be paid.
The King is made aware of what has transpired. The servant made his compassion look foolish. The King summons the servant to say, I forgave all that you owed to me when you begged me for mercy. And you turn around and make a mockery of my compassion by treating your debtor with contempt? Exasperated, the King had the man taken away until he could pay his debt.
What if the story had gone in a different direction? What if the servant whose debt had been so graciously forgiven, had met his fellow servant with the good news? “The master has forgiven my debt, so I don’t have that hanging over my head anymore! Hallelujah! You don’t need to pay me back. Feed your own kids with what you owed me.” And that servant, in relief, would have made a little extra food when he fed his own children that evening. And maybe he would have taken it to the widow next door and she would have been so surprised and grateful. “What’s gotten into you, neighbor?”
“Relief has come to me today and I am passing some on to you,” he might have said. And the widow’s gratitude might have multiplied in her heart leading her to share some herbs with her other neighbors… and maybe they would have thought “these herbs would be perfect when we roast the goat.” And they would have invited the whole community including the widow and the servants and their families. You get the picture.
Showers of blessing
Showers of blessing we need
Mercy drops round us are falling
But for the showers we plead.[1]
When Jesus suggests we forgive 77 times, he’s not suggesting we scrape drops [of mercy] from a dry well. He’s saying, “God’s given you the whole ocean. Seventy-seven drops will hardly be missed.” You really can afford to be generous. When it comes to mercy, you are loaded.[2]
When it comes to mercy you are loaded.
The truth of the parables in Matthew 18 is that we are all like the servant who can’t pay his debt, and we will all be like the sheep who has gone astray. We all come to God in need of forgiveness.
Pastors and priests and deacons come to moments like these – where we stand in front of the congregation and make commitments that our hearts long to keep —– but that we also know we will fail at keeping sometimes.
Like Peter, we want to get it right. So, deacons ask about the expectations and how many times will we be asked to be the Deacon on Call? And how many times will we need to serve communion? And how many families will we have in our groups? And underneath all those questions are more questions like: Will I know what to say when someone is in the hospital, or will I know what to pray when someone asks, or when it’s my turn to give the Welcome on a Sunday morning, will I say the right thing? Because, like Peter and the other disciples, we want to get it right. And of course, under all those questions are more questions, like am I a strong enough Christian to be a deacon? Am I a good enough person to serve? If they knew everything about me would they really want me to be a deacon?
This is where I remind you of another thing Jesus said after a story about mercy and forgiveness. He said, Those who have been forgiven much, love much.[3] So, to all those who second-guess their qualifications to serve as deacon, believe this, the more forgiveness you have received, the more forgiveness you have to offer. When it comes to mercy, you’re loaded.
And this world, and all of us, are in desperate need of more compassion and mercy and far less intolerance and judgment.
In her book, Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor shared about her ordination to the priesthood. She stood before all those gathered making promises of how she would uphold her commitments to the church, to her family, and to God. And then she knelt at the front while all the clergy in the room gathered around her. Hands began to find a place on her head, her neck, her shoulders. She said at first the hands were comforting like “the weight of a winter quilt.” But the longer it went on the heavier the weight of those hands became, reminding her of the weight of the responsibility she was taking on. She recalled the words a beloved rector had told her in seminary, “Being ordained is not about serving God perfectly, but about serving God visibly allowing other people to learn whatever they can from watching you rise and fall.”[4]
You will rise and you will fall – just like all the rest of us. But in our fallen-ness, and in yours, help us to see God’s forgiveness overflows… Mercy drops ‘round us are falling…
When it comes to mercy, thanks be to God, we are loaded.
[1] Whittle, D. W. 1883, There Shall be Showers of Blessing
[2] Rothaus, Kyndall Rae, Sojourners Magazine, Living the Word, September 2026
[3] Luke 7:47
[4] Taylor, Barbara Brown, Leaving Church