The unforgiving servant Matthew 18:21-35

Matthew 18:21-35 Gospel reading for Sunday 11th September 2011

Quite coincidental that this passage on forgiveness should be placed before Christian Churches in the Western World, through our lectionary reading rotation, as the reading for Sunday 11th September 2011, the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Centre twin towers destruction.

How's our forgiveness of the perpetrators progressing 10 years later? There are probably many of us who have had personal experiences in our lives where we have found it extremely difficult even impossible to forgive someone for their actions. (My wife and I belong to this group.) So for those of us in that situation, this is a troublesome passage. The temptation is to try to find a loophole, to try to find a way to wriggle out of the confronting threat that Jesus presents the disciples with in this passage. (I think that was what Peter was actually trying to do.) I'll come back to that ... but firstly some observations about the passage:

1. Context is important. This exchange is an in-house, inner-circle discussion with the disciples. Unlike the bulk of the gospel material, Jesus is not directly addressing the Jews.
2. Exaggeration is used in the extreme. To get an idea of proportions, the debt owing to the king by the first servant is obscene. Equating the quantities used, one talent (a weight of measurement - usually of silver of around 34 Kilograms) is equal approximately to 6000 denarii. One denarius coin was used as the amount of payment for a days wages. Therefore ten thousand talents is a massive debt of approximately 60 million denarii - or days of labour, a debt that would be impossible to even fractionally pay back in a life time. 
3. The debt that the second servant owed, by comparison is minuscule and within the reasonable realms of repayability.
4. The king has wiped the massive and unpayable debt seemingly for no reason and without logic and certainly not believing that it could ever possibly be repaid.

It seems that this is a reminder to all of us that God has inexplicably relieved us of a massive debt. We are challenged to respond in appreciation by treating our fellow human beings with that same unconditional love.

Well you can call me Peter if you like and accuse me of searching for a loophole in somehow making it OK not to be able to forgive some one ... but here goes ...

We have the privilege of standing on the other side of the cross. Jesus pronounced from the cross that "It is finished". The "once for all" forgiveness that was ushered in with the new covenant assures us that we have been set free. When we say with the thief on the cross, "Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom" we have been assured that Jesus also says to us ... "I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise". That's the real gospel message. That is what grace is all about. Unconditional, undeserved.

While some may see this as a licence to sin or remain unforgiving, once we fully GET the extent of the unpayable debt that God has discharged for us, the Spirit takes over. It just does not follow that we would therefore try to cheat the system by interpreting that as freedom to sin as much as we like. With the Spirit in control we are slowly moulded and shaped more into persons like God would want us to be. We try not to sin, we try hard to be forgiving and with the help of God's Spirit we can only get better at that.

For a final perspective, consider Paul's profound opening to Romans chapter 8.

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Nev