“The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant”

Matthew 18:21-35

Broadway Christian Church

David Shirey

            First let’s get our numbers straight. Jesus told a parable about two debts: 10,000 talents and 100 denarii.  A talent, in biblical times, was a monetary unit that represented 6,000 days’ work. 1 talent = 16 years of labor.  10,000 talents = 160,000 years’ labor. The average annual salary in Boone County last year was just over $49,000. 160,000 x $49,000 = 7.84 billion dollars. 100 denarii represents 100 days’ wages. Using our Missouri standards = roughly $14,000.

            Now hear the parable.  The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who owed the king 7.84 billion dollars. Who ever heard of such a debt?  But he was forgiven it all. Wow! But another guy owed him 14 grand. Okay, that’s doable.  But get this: The guy who was forgiven 8 billion put a chokehold on the guy who owed him 14 grand, and when he couldn’t pay, he tossed him into debtor’s prison. What? No way!  That’s outrageous! Which is exactly the reaction in the parable. I quote, “When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed” (Matthew 18:31). Filled with righteous indignation. Distressed. 

            Go ahead and be “distressed” at that outrageous injustice while I introduce a biblical figure of speech: holy hyperbole. You know what hyperbole is – language that is intentionally exaggerated to make a point. “I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse.” He’s got an appetite! “My feet are killing me.” That’s our Don Harter after his walk across Missouri for CROP Walk. He’s gonna have some sore puppies!  “I’ve told you 10,000 times…”  Somebody’s not listening.  Hyperbole. Well, Jesus uses holy hyperbole to make points: “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:24).  “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:24) “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29).  None of the above are to be taken literally, but they’re to be taken seriously. They each make an important point as does this morning’s parable told in holy hyperbole. A guy is forgiven 7.84 billion by a king but then turns around and refuses to forgive – and punishes – someone who owed him a measly 14k. We and the fellow slaves in the parable are rightly “distressed.” That’s outrageous!  How can someone forgiven so much, be so unforgiving? Jesus’ holy hyperbole has made its point. 

             What did the “distressed” slaves do?  They “went and reported to their lord all that had taken place” (verse 31). We’re tellin’!  I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, those words struck terror in my heart when spoken by my brother and sister after I’d done something mean or hurtful to them. I’d hear We’re tellin’! and I knew I was in for an audience with the lords of the house: my parents. They’d summon me to their throne room, fix their eyes upon me in a way that meant business and speak in tones I could hear loud and clear. And after they called attention to what I had done, they’d ask, “How would you like it if Jill or Mike did that to you?” And I’d say, “I wouldn’t like it.” Lesson learned.  Been there, done that?      

            Well, the unforgiving servant got one of those sessions. “His lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you? And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” I think that exchange between Jesus and the unforgiving servant is holy hyperbole, too. Just as we don’t take 7.84 billion and 14,000 literally, neither ought we take literally Jesus threatening torture and jail for withholding forgiveness (the very things he criticized the unforgiving servant for doing). However, we must take seriously the point of Jesus’ dressing down of the unforgiving servant. I hear him using holy hyperbole to say, “God forgave you your debt and you won’t forgive another? How would you like it if God did the same to you – didn’t forgive you, called you wicked, and handed you over to be tortured in a debtor’s prison for 160,000 years?  How would you like that?” I think he would answer, “I wouldn’t like that.” Lesson learned.

            If we’re honest, we’ll admit we occasionally need a good talkin’ to, a “Come to Jesus meeting,” a little “attitude adjustment,” not by Hank Williams, Jr., but by the God who loves us enough to want to save us and others from our bad behavior. So, what does God in Christ do?  Like in this parable, God finds a way to confront us, convict us, evoke our contrition, remorse, and repentance, then sends us forth chastened, redeemed …and forgiven.  God loves us enough to hold us accountable so that ultimately, we not be punished, but redeemed. Saved.         

            I think one of our Lord’s primary teachings in this parable is “Do unto others as you would have God do unto you.”  Do you want God to be forgiving to you?  Well, of course.  (I for one am counting it!) Then be forgiving to others. As the king says to the unforgiving servant, “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’  It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is, “Of course.” Do unto others as you would have God do unto you. Or, as Jesus teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” To be forgiven 7.84 billion by God and then not to forgive another fallible human being 14 grand doesn’t add up mathematically, morally, biblically or theologically. The parable teaches us to forgive as we have been forgiven.   

            But that easier said than done. Forgiveness is hard.  Note where this teaching on forgiveness takes place in Matthew's gospel: chapter 18. There are 28 chapters, which means the disciples received this lesson on forgiveness well into their term of study with their Rabbi. “Forgiving seventy times seven times” is part of the curriculum in the Senior Seminar in Christian Living. Forgiveness is the calculus of Christianity, advanced-level stuff. Given the hurts human beings can inflict on each another – sharp words that pierce, blunt force actions that bruise, heartless neglect or caustic criticism – the practice of forgiveness is for mature Christians only. It’s hard.

            Someone said, “Forgiveness is not an easy thing, but it is a necessary thing.” Necessary, indeed! The truth of the matter is no relationship can survive without forgiveness. In his reflections on the Lord's Prayer, the late Presbyterian pastor Al Winn pointed out that "Give us this day our daily bread" is linked to "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." He says that’s because bread and forgiveness are both necessities for life – bread for physical life; forgiveness for life together.  He's right.  Without forgiveness, no relationship can stay alive.

            For instance, forgiveness is a necessity for couples and partners. Take it from one who knows! Shirey’s Law of Interpersonal Physics states, “No two bodies can live together in close proximity without generating friction.” It’s what couples and partners do when friction arises that makes or breaks a relationship. Left unaddressed, friction generates heat that can burst into a consuming flame. Or, a couple can address the friction with the balm of forgiveness. As Paul said to the Colossians, “Bear with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Col 3:13).

            Forgiveness is necessary to keep relationships alive in churches, too. At the end of his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote, “I urge Euodia and Syntyche to iron out their differences and make up.  God doesn’t want his children holding grudges.  And, oh, yes, Syzygus, since you’re right there to help them work things out, do your best with them.” (Phil 4:1-3, The Message).  I don’t know who Euodia and Syntyche and Syzygus were, but I know by name many brothers and sisters in Christ who got crossways with each other and it wasn’t pretty, but who found their way to apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation and it was beautiful.  Forgiveness is necessary to keep relationships in church alive.    

            In fact, forgiveness is a matter of life and death for our very souls. The person most hurt by forgiveness withheld is the person who withholds forgiveness.  In the parable, the unforgiving servant was “handed over to be tortured.” At first, I recoiled at that, but then I pondered the truth beneath the holy hyperbole: refuse to forgive, allow bitterness and resentment to take root, and they will fester and spew forth a toxic bile that poisons the soul. Unforgiving people torture themselves.  A woman who served as an elder in our AZ church said, “I couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive and it brought me down and kept me there.  I become an ugly, angry person and I didn't like it – that's not who I am and I knew I had to do something to change that.” There is nothing more destructive, more tortuous of the soul, than the ulcer of unforgiving. 

            Jesus told a parable about the need to forgive. At the Last Supper, he broke bread and poured out a cup and promised to forgive.  With his last breaths from the cross, he prayed, “Father, forgive.” I see the Collective is singing Twila Paris’ “How Beautiful”:

            How beautiful the tender eyes that chose to forgive and never despise.

            I wonder how many times I've been on the receiving end of forgiveness, human and divine. I don’t know. All I know is our Lord will keep speaking the word forgiveness into our ears until it seeps into our souls and proceeds forth into our lives. Maybe that’ll happen this morning. 

            Let all God’s forgiven and forgiving servants say AMEN