21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked,
"Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to
seven times?" 22 Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times,
but seventy-seven times. 23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is
like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he
began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought
to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and
his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he
begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27 The servant's master took
pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 "But when that
servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred
silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe
me!' he demanded. 29 "His fellow servant fell to his knees and
begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' 30 "But he
refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could
pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they
were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had
happened. 32 "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked
servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on
you?' 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured,
until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my heavenly
Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your
heart."
This Sunday's gospel reading is a
direct continuation from last Sunday's. It continues the train of thought about
'conflict resolution.' The one thing that appears a bit different is the
DIRECTION. The previous reading had to do with how to APPROACH a brother or
sister who had sinned against you. This week's reading seems just the opposite;
how to behave WHEN APPROACHED by a brother or sister seeking reconciliation.
Again, last week's dealt with how to convince a person that they had committed a sin and should desire to be
forgiven, whereas this week's deals with the person who realizes they've committed a sin (again) and
seeks forgiveness.
Vss 21-22: Some commentators think
Peter is being generous with his offer to forgive seven times....pointing to
other traditions that talk about forgiving a person 3 times. Regardless, the
TNIV is a bit vauge with the use of the word "*someone who sins against
me" in vs 21. In the Greek it is 'adelphos,' a brother or sister--so
Peter's question has to do with a person INSIDE the faith community who's
committed multiple sins against him (hypothetically, one assumes, but who
knows!). Jesus response is thought not to be a fixed number greater than
Peter's 'seven,' but rather a number meaning limitless times.
Vss 23-34 are commonly called the
Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. This is a neat story. Jesus uses it more as
a sermon illustration than a parable. The "servants" within the
parable are decidedly **not the king's shoeshine boy & hair-cut steward.
These are HIGHLY placed managers and/or even client kings within his realm.
Vs 24-26: 10,000 bags of gold. This
is the TNIV's attempt to give the modern reader some sense of what "10,000
talents" (from the Greek) might equate to. It is an ASTRONOMICAL sum of
money. To attempt a context, commentators tell us that King Herod's yearly
tribute owed to Caesar was 900 talents. Doing some rounding, one could say that
this would be the equivalent of Herod's unpaid tax bill for ten years. It would
seem impossible, even for a person with Herod's resources, to come up with that
sum immediately. Within the story, one wonders about the honesty of the servant
who claims that given enough time, he can repay ALL (Greek, panta) of the debt.
Vs 27: Interestingly, the King has
compassion/pity on this undeserving servant. In the Greek the word is
splagchnizomai...a word that means to be moved to pity from deeply within, even
within one's bowels; it's how Jesus feels when he sees the people as sheep
without a shepherd; in Luke's gospel it's how the Good Samaritan felt when he
saw the beaten/robbed man; and it's how the father of the prodigal son felt
when he saw his son returning. The word is heavily freighted usually toward God's deep
mercy/compassion toward undeserving sinners. And so with this mercy/compassion
as the backdrop, the King releases (G. apaluo) and *forgives (G. aphiemi) the
servant.
Vss 28-30: Jesus' parables always
have great plot twists...and this is one in this parable. A *fellow servant (G.
syn-dulos) is now involved. The point here is that the original problem of
servant/debtor-->master was an unequal footing. The servant stood condemned
before his Lord. Here, now, is a different matter. The two servants are equals
(G. syn); compadres; in the same boat. The debt that servant B owes servant A
is a personal debt. The TNIV's 100 silver coins is their rendition of 100 denari
(1 denarius being the standard wage for a day's work for common day laborers).
Given the status of these "servants" as major managers/client kings
within the realm, 100 denari must be like chump change. Even if the rank of the
two servants is massively unequal, at most servant B owes servant A about 3
months wages. Regardless, the point of this section is that servant A does not
show the same compassion/pity toward his fellow (syn-dulos) as he received from
his master.
Vss 32-35: The story ends on a down
note for Servant A. Recalled to the King's presence, the "wicked"
servant has his mercy revoked and now stands condemned. One may IMMEDIATELY
wonder, what happened to the "77 times" forgiveness that Jesus just
got done preaching? In reality, the King only forgave his wicked servant
ONCE--though it was a massive dose of forgiveness, to be sure.
In answer to this question, one must
see that Jesus is teaching more than one
thing. The International Bible Commentary puts it well, saying:
The
social structure of the parable assumes that human beings are "fellow
servants' living in comparable relationship to God and having various amounts
of 'debt,' yet all of them 'indebted' to a degree. Acting in forgiveness is the
way of the kingdom. To refuse to forgive puts one OUTSIDE the kingdom,
and consequently OUTSIDE the realm of God's forgiving love. The parable
masterfully harmonizes TWO POINTS of Jesus' teaching that are easily taken as
contradictory: (a) the mercy of God is unlimited; nevertheless (b) there is
divine rejection and condemnation with appropriate punishment...[when the mercy of God is *rejected]
The way I often express this thought
is that there is no gospel behind door #2. Rejecting God's love/compassion
means embracing condemnation. In the story, that's what happened with the
unforgiving servant. Through his actions he proved that he was
"wicked," and that the love/mercy/compassion of the King had not
changed him one bit.
As a great food for thought item,
it's always worth contemplating the fact that the Bible word
"forgive," in Greek, is "aphiemi" which means to THROW
AWAY....even to HEAVE AWAY. What are we "throwing away" from us when
we forgive someone who's wronged us??
Cheers,
Cheers,
TM
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