As with
last week’s parable, it is important to begin with the context in which Jesus
tells this story in order to fully appreciate the moral of the parable. In the verses immediately preceding this
parable, Jesus has been instructing his disciples on how to resolve conflicts
within the church. Jesus says, “If
another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when
the two of you are alone. If the member
listens to you, you have regained that brother.” (Mt. 18:15) If, on the contrary, the offending member rejects the
one-on-one overture, then the victim should take two or three other members of
the church to confront the offending member, again.
If that doesn’t work, then the entire congregation should be brought
into the discussion. If the sinful
member refuses to listen even to the entire congregation, then he or she should
be expelled from the community of faith.
Jesus’
explanation prompts Peter, his disciple, to ask: “Lord, if another member of the church sins
against me, how often should I forgive?
As many as seven times?” (v. 21)
Now, Peter’s willingness to forgive another person seven times would
seem to be very generous. However, Jesus
“ups the ante,” when he replies: “Not
seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.” (v. 22) Seventy times seven is 490. Yet, Jesus does not mean that we should literally
forgive someone up to 490 times and then stop forgiving them. Rather, Jesus is suggesting that we should be
willing to forgive someone, whenever they wrong us—without counting the
number of wrongs. That is, we should be
willing to forgive an infinite number of times.
Writing in The New Interpreter’s
Bible, M. Eugene Boring observes, “The difference between Peter’s proposal
and Jesus’ pronouncement is not a matter of math or linguistics, but of the
nature of forgiveness. Whoever counts
has not forgiven at all, but is only biding his or her time (1 Corinthians
13:5). The kind of forgiveness called
for is beyond all calculation, as the following story communicates.”
The
following story is our parable for this weekend. It begins with a king who wishes to settle up
accounts with his various deputies. One
of those deputies is a man who owes the king 10,000 talents, which is an
extraordinary amount of money. A talent
is the largest monetary unit in Jesus’ day.
It is the equivalent of six 100-ounce silver bars. One talent alone is equal to the wages of a
manual laborer for 15 years. In monetary
terms, 10,000 talents would be more than all of the taxes collected in Judea
over a 10 year period in Jesus' day! It is beyond all
calculation.
The person
who owes the king 10,000 talents did not borrow this much money for personal
expenditures. Instead, he was most likely
a civil servant, working on behalf of the king.
Through incompetence or mismanagement, he has lost 10,000 talents, as a
governmental official working for the king.
Clearly the debt is unpayable.
Both the civil servant and the king understand that the debt cannot be
repaid. So, the unjust servant begs for
mercy. Surprisingly, the king is
moved by the servant’s contrition. The
king decides to forgive the servant and wipe the accounting ledger clean.
As he was
leaving the king’s palace, by chance, the civil servant encountered another man
who in turn owed him a hundred denarii.
A denarius was roughly equivalent to a day’s wages. So, 100 denarii would represent 100 days’
wages. This amount of money is not an
inconsiderable sum, as it equals about a ⅓ of a year’s salary. Still, in comparison with the amount which
the civil servant owed the king, it is exceptionally small. In fact, 100 denarii is 1/600,000th
of the 10,000 talents owed by the civil servant.
Despite the
generosity of the king who has just forgiven him a debt which he could never
repay, the civil servant grabs the man owing a hundred denarii and demands that
he repay the debt immediately. When the
borrower cannot repay him, the civil servant has him thrown into prison until
the debt is repaid.
The civil
servant’s lack of empathy and generosity—after the king has been so generous
with him—distresses others in the town.
So, they report back to the king who had so generously forgiven the
civil servant. The king is angered when
he hears how uncharitable and unmerciful the civil servant has been. So, the king reverses himself and has the
civil servant arrested and thrown in to jail, where he is tortured.
Matthew,
the Gospel writer, makes it clear that the parable is an allegory for our
relationship with God. In the parable,
the king represents God, and debts refer to our sins. Therefore, the civil servant who owed 10,000
talents represents each of us, who have an enormous debt of sin for which we
are accountable to God. The other man
who owed the 100 denarii debt represents the normal, “ordinary” sins that occur
between various human persons. For
Jesus, the parable of the unjust servant becomes a negative example of how we
should treat others. Rather, than
holding others rigidly accountable when they wrong—or sin against—us, we
should be more willing to forgive. This
is because the wrongs that we suffer at the hands of others pales in comparison
with the amount of sinfulness which God forgives us.
Answering
Peter’s originating question from this perspective, we should be willing to
forgive our brother an infinite number of times for all of the wrongs that they
inflict upon us, in view of how much we depend upon God’s forgiveness and
generosity towards us.
Come, join us this Sunday, at Christ United Methodist Church. At our 8:30 am service, we explore the implications of what it means to forgive others in response to God’s
willingness to forgive us. At the 11 am service, will celebrate the accomplishments of our Vacation Bible School this past week. Christ United
Methodist Church is located at 4530 A Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our classic worship services are at 8:30 and
11:00 on Sunday mornings.
Everyone is welcome and accepted because
God loves us all.
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