We have now completed six weeks of a discipleship class with our church, Harvest Time Ministries in Mandela Park, Mthatha. Last week, we studied Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus’ parable of “a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves” (v. 23). As with the twin illustrations which we studied several weeks ago (Mt. 13:44-46), the parable of the king and his slaves is an illustration of what “the kingdom of heaven is like” (v. 23). And like the parable of the Good Samaritan which we also studied in recent weeks, so Jesus told the parable of the king and his slaves in response to a question; in the former, a lawyer, wishing “to justify himself”, had asked, “Who is my neighbor?” (Lk. 10:29); in the latter, Peter, one of the twelve, seeks to place limits on forgiveness: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” (v. 21). As the lawyer sought to limit the scope of love for neighbor—“to love those only who love you” (Mt. 5:46)—Peter here seemingly seeks a limit for the number of times a person may be forgiven. That this is Peter’s intention seems obvious from Jesus’ answer: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven”—a number so large, however one interprets it, so as to make forgiveness a perpetual state of mind throughout a person’s life, while rendering Peter’s “seven” paltry in comparison.
The story Jesus tells, then, to illustrate the forgiving spirit, or mercy (v. 33), hinges on the comparison between the action of the king who had a “will” to “settle accounts with his slaves” and one of his slaves who did not have a “will” (translated, NRSV, “But he refused”) to forgive his fellow slave (v. 30). Whereas the king forgave the debt of “the one who owed him ten thousand talents”, that very debtor will not forgive the debt of one who “owed him a hundred denarii”; forgiven much, he does not forgive, in reverse of the woman who showed Jesus hospitality in the home of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36-50). That the one forgiven much will not forgive is all the more scandalous in light of the identical pleas of both debtors in the story. The first debtor, the very slave forgiven who does not forgive, “falls on his knees before [the king]”, pleads for his lord’s “patience”, and promises to “pay” the debt. This very one forgiven, however, does not recognize himself in another, his fellow slave who owes him “five hundred denarii”. Indeed, though the forgiven’s debtor, like the forgiven, “falls down”, pleads for “patience” and promises to “pay”, he is not met with a “will” to forgive. The first debtor does not have the “compassion” (“pity”, NRSV) of his king (v. 27).
We, the readers/hearers of this story are rightly scandalized, for the king’s mercy has prepared us to expect a merciful response from the first debtor when he hears his own plea from one of his fellow slaves. Twice someone has “fallen down”, begged for “patience”, and pledged to “pay”; only once has someone received compassion. Something is wrong with this picture.
The other slaves in the story, the fellow slaves of both the first and second debtors, are, like us, unable to withhold their protest. When they see mercy not extended, they report to the king (v. 31). The king—perhaps like us, perhaps not—is unable to withhold action of his own. He summons the first slave, reminds him of the forgiveness that was his, and outlines what the debtor should have done in his own capacity as a lord (vv. 32-33). Yet until that one once forgiven much will live by the mercy he received, he will be “handed over” and “tortured”—“until he would pay his entire debt” (v. 34). Even here there is mercy. Not even now, as the first debtor did to his debtor, does the king “grab” the slave and “choke” him while demanding payment. The king even leaves open the possibility that the debt might somehow be paid and the unmerciful slave released from prison. But until that time—which also may never come—the slave must live with the prison he has built for himself. Once a debtor of “ten thousand talents”, the first slave, on account of his plea, “was released” and “forgiven”; his freedom was unconditional, on the basis of the king’s mercy, compassion in the face of human need—not on the basis of the debtor having to pay the original debt. Having been given the world, having moved from bad to good, the slave need now but walk in the mercy of his lord toward others—that is the only “payment” now required of him. If, however, he “refuses so great a salvation”, his latter condition will be worse than his first (Heb. 2:3; Mt. 12:43-45). Rejecting the life of mercy, he will have gone from bad through good to worse.
So it will be for us “if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our hearts” (v. 35).
-Joe
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