The Subject Is Forgiveness
Matthew 18:21-35
Sermon
by Steve Molin

Elisabeth Elliot was a missionary. She was a missionary to a tribe called the Aucas in a remote section of Ecuador, and that alone may not be very spectacular. What is amazing however is that in January of 1955, Elisabeth’s husband, Jim, and four other missionaries were mas- sacred by a handful of the Auca tribe. They demolished their airplane, they mutilated their bodies with spears, and scattered the corpses throughout the dense jungle. In November, 1957, Elisabeth Elliot wrote these words as an epilogue to her book, Through Gates of Splendor;

“Nearly three years have passed since that Sunday afternoon.

Today, I sit in a tiny leaf-thatched hut on the Tiwanu River, not many miles from where my husband died. In another leaf-house, just ten feet away, sit two of the seven men who killed …

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Others: sermons we should be preaching to ourselves Cycle A sermons for Proper 18-29 based on the Gospel texts, by Steve Molin