You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me

 Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?"  Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.  Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.  The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.  But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'  So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.  So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.  Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.  Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?'  And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.  So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

- Matthew 18:21-35

Yesterday we read that Jesus taught:  "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.  For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  What do you think?  If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?  And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.  Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.  Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.  If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.'  And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.  But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.  Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.  Again I say to you that if two or you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them."

Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?"  Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."   Seventy times seven, my study bible says, is symbolic of an unlimited amount.  The parable that follows illustrates the need for unlimited forgiveness.

"Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.  And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.  But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made."   Ten thousand talents is an extraordinary amount of money, and we should understand it as one impossible for a laborer to pay, even if he could earn money over several lifetimes.  A talent was a certain weight of mineral, gold or silver.  It was also a measure of wealth, about 57 pounds worth of pure silver.  A single talent could equal many years of one laborer's work.   There is a spiritual interpretation also offered by some patristic writers to the punishment described here.  My study bible describes it as follows:  the man represents the soul, the wife represents the body, and the children represent the deeds of a person.  In this sense of understanding, the body and the deeds are given over to slavery, that is to Satan, so that the soul might possibly be saved (see 1 Corinthians 5:5).

"The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.  But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'  So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.'  And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.  So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done.  Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.  Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?'  And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.  So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."   The hundred denarii owed to the wicked servant is a significant amount (about three months' wages, according to my study bible).  But it's tiny compared to the original debt of ten thousand talents that was forgiven buy the king  (one talent equaled about 6,000 denarii).   My study bible comments that God not only stays the punishment that we deserve, but forgives us the entire debt as well.  As God forgives us, we in turn are required to grant that gift to others (Matthew 6:12, 15).

It's interesting to note how Jesus rather subtly acknowledges the injustice of mammon in today's reading and especially in the parable that He gives.  Using figuratively the images of money owed by various servants, the parable teaches us something about the world in which Jesus lived.  But His real point here is not about the injustice of mammon.  It is rather about how we, as Christians, must live by a different set of rules in relation to our Creator and our brothers and sisters (as Jesus has been speaking to the disciples in the context of the community of the Church).  In a sense, He is using images of wealth and money in order to illustrate how those "rules" of mammon (including a reference to selling and a form of enslavement) do not apply to us as Christians; that is, we are to live by a different code of values.   Our values include something that doesn't make sense except in a rather more sophisticated idea about commerce -- the forgiveness of debt.  What is a debt?  It's something that someone owes us.  When we think about the ways in which others might owe us, due to offenses committed in some way, we might need to wrap our minds about what we think has been taken away from us through such offense.  When a very serious offense like child abuse is committed, we often say it has the effect of stealing a child's innocence (and by the way this may be true no matter what type of abuse we're talking about).  It may leave lasting psychic scars, in fact frequently becoming more potent as time goes on and into the latest stage of life.  I might add that I saw this happen to my own grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, whose traumatic early experiences really came to impact her after she was in her late 70s.  This is a spiritual debt caused by violence, another possible character trait of what we'll call mammon.  How was my grandmother to forgive those who had tortured her father to death while she was forced to watch, who caused her mother's child to be stillborn and mother to die of typhus, or those who systematically exterminated her people?  We might find it hard to imagine such trauma as forgivable and even survivable -- and yet it was so for her entire generation of children.  In this sense, we must take what Jesus says and understand forgiveness as something very simple:  by "giving up" a debt we give it up to God, especially in the prayer to Our Father, also known as the Lord's Prayer.  This is one reason why it is so important to pray this prayer daily.  To forgive a debt (or to "let go" as the original Greek word means) does not mean we deny that injustice has happened.  It is the furthest thing from denying the long lasting effects of such debts.  In fact, it is in the process of acknowledging and "giving up" the debt to God that we might find hope to come to terms with truly facing the effects of what has happened to us.  To give up harm and trauma to God is not to deny it, but rather it is just the opposite.  It is putting something nearly impossible for us to deal with on our own in a good and helpful way into the hands of God to heal, guide, and avenge, rather than ourselves.  It is asking God to guide us in our response to the debt owed to us, and to the best ways for us to heal and live "whole" lives, freed from what has in some way diminished us and taken something away from us.  It is a plea to be freed of the longterm cage of rage and grief.  This is the real power of forgiveness.  It is a response in the place of the limited prison of personal vengeance.  "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," says the Lord.  The violence of the wicked servant upon the one who owes him less money than he owed to the king is an illustration of the unjust thinking of sheer vengeance and its impact on the community overall.  In giving up our debts to God, we do not give up all recourse to justice.  We simply ask God to handle it, and to give us guidance for the best way to proceed in life.  That entails an extremely pragmatic way of looking at the world and our options, and also the possibilities God offers us in creating and shaping our lives in the face of injustice and long-lasting trauma.  It is liberation into the place of possibility, a realistic reckoning of what might be best for us and for those whom we love including in our community, and it is also a way to ask God for what it is we truly need.  It is a way to ask God to help us with the blindness of our own rage and anger, and to ask for constructive healthful solutions.  In short, forgiving a debt is liberation for our souls, and it is also something we work at daily.  In the Lord's Prayer, we are taught to pray daily for the daily bread of the life of God, and therefore the prayer to both forgive and to be forgiven is indicated as a daily activity, sometimes much more than once a day depending on our deepest need.  Let us not forget that Christ does not refuse our debts, nor does He refuse to acknowledge our hurts and injustice committed against us.  In fact, this parable declares the opposite.  He is simply giving us, yet again, a way through this world dominated by mammon, and a sense of what we ourselves can be when we participate instead in the life He offers us, and with His rules that defy mammon -- that even turned the injustice of the Cross into liberation and salvation for the whole world, and for all of us who would come to Him in faith.  Let us be aware of the daily help we need and where it might lead us; let us remember why we always need to pray.  It is easy to overlook how much we ourselves need to be forgiven, even for things we've done that we did not understand.  There are all kinds of ways in which we may hurt others without being aware of it.  Our prayer is for our own debts to be forgiven, as we forgive others.  The release from the hardship of mammon therefore is total.  Let us remember that even in business, debts that cannot be recouped are forgiven.  So much of what we go through cannot be restored to us in a material or worldly sense.  That is yet one other way we need to participate in the life of Christ to recognize our true potential, and where it lives.