Genesis 50:15-21 Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13 Romans 14:1-12 Matthew 18:21-35

 [The Lord] has not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.  [Psalm 103:10-11]

Debt and punishment, forgiveness and mercy are carried to the extreme in this parable of the unforgiving slave.   The parable calls us to consider God’s immeasurable mercy toward us; in the words of the Psalmist, we have been spared the wrath that we deserve according to our sinfulness.   In turn, the parable calls us to consider the consequences of withholding mercy from those who have wronged us.

In this parable, we are told that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to the king whose slave owes him ten thousand talents.  For perspective, let us consider that one talent was worth six to ten thousand denarii, one denarius being a day’s pay.  Ten thousand talents, then, could amount to as much as ten thousand denarii times ten thousand days equaling 100 million days of work, which figures out to roughly 274,000 years of labor.  Thus, we are assured that it is an inestimable amount and, certainly, a debt that is humanly impossible to satisfy.

We learn, though, in our story from Matthew’s Gospel, that the king takes pity on the slave and his family and forgives the massive debt.  Again, we experience the extreme when we register the enormity of the debt forgiven.  Only then, can we see the true greatness of the king’s mercy.  The debt is beyond our human comprehension; the king’s mercy is immeasurable.

Sadly, however, we read that the slave, released of the life-threatening debt, goes his merry way and, upon encountering his fellow slave who is indebted to him, finds no pity for this former cohort – tossing him into prison for his inability to pay him the debt he owes.  And, when the word of this merciless injustice reaches the king (or lord, as he is referenced in the later verses of our lesson), the king hands the ungrateful and unforgiving slave over to be tortured until the fathomless debt is paid – thus, tortured for eternity.

Forgiveness, it seems, is conditional.  We are forgiven of our debts as we forgive our debtors.  Sound familiar?  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against.  Does God punish us for our lack of willingness to forgive those who hurt us as this king or lord calls for the eternal torture of this ungrateful slave?  No, the reality for us is that it is our lack of willingness to forgive that tortures us, eating us from the inside like acid eats its own container.

Our simple theological understanding of forgiveness is to “let go.”  Letting go doesn’t mean we forget; letting go doesn’t mean we don’t learn from our mistakes; letting go doesn’t mean we continue to subject ourselves to helplessly toxic relationships that drain our spirit.  Letting go means not allowing that negativism to define us.  When we let go, we load that negative cargo on a boat and watch it sail away down the river, all while we reclaim the strength that had been lost under the weight of the negative cargo.

Fr Richard Rohr captures this sense of the eternal torture of unwillingness to forgive others in his articles from his audio version of The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis.
Quoting Fr. Richard, “If that story line has become your identity, if you are choosing to live in a victim state, an abused consciousness, it gives you a false kind of power and makes you feel morally superior to others.  But let me tell you, it will also destroy you.  It will make you smaller and smaller as you get older.  You will find that you have fewer and fewer people you can trust, fewer and fewer people, if any, that you can love.  Life itself becomes a threat.”  Fr. Richard alerts us to the reality that our ongoing and, in our eyes, non-reconcilable woundedness might bring us a perceived sense of power, wielding our demand for retribution from those who have hurt us.  Yet, in truth, it is our bitter destruction.

The debt of the slave in our parable – 100 million days of work, is immeasurable; our debt, which our Lord Jesus Christ paid for us, is beyond immeasurable.  Jesus came willingly to pay that debt, clearly a debt we could never pay.  We are simply asked to extend that same sense of mercy to those who have hurt us.

There are few better examples of human forgiveness than the saga of Joseph, which takes a significantly different outcome than our parable.  Joseph’s jealous and vindictive brothers had sold him into slavery; Joseph was, thus, carried off to Egypt and assumed gone forever by his brothers.  But, as always is God’s way, the evil deed of the brothers was converted to good.  Years later when the people of Israel were starving and the brothers were sent to Egypt to beg for grain, it was their long-lost brother Joseph they encountered.  Under God’s providence, Joseph had risen to prominence in Egypt and now, ironically, was keeper of the grain.

Revenge, they say, is sweet; but Joseph had no desire for revenge.   As the brothers humbled themselves with great fear in the face of their enormously evil deed, we read that Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid!  Am I in the place of God?  Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.  So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” [Genesis 50:20]   Their debt was immeasurable, yet Joseph forgave the debt.  The brothers’ relationship was restored; their request for food was granted; and the remnant of God’s people of Israel was preserved.

Our debt to our Lord Jesus Christ is immeasurable; and, yet, we are set free of our debt, forgiven of our evil ways and ongoing sins, and granted prosperity in this life and in eternity.  In turn, we are called to forgive immeasurably – seventy times seven.  Jesus demonstrated this immeasurable forgiveness from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they no not what they do.”

The foundation of our faith is that we are forgiven and redeemed by God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Certainly, it is to our benefit that we are forgiven by our neighbors.  But, equally important is our call to forgive.  That doesn’t mean we forget the hurt; it means we let it go, sailing off down the river – carrying with it the bitterness that would otherwise lead to our own destruction.

Returning to the words of Richard Rohr: “Thankfully, God has given us a way to not let the disappointments, hurts, betrayals, and rejections of life destroy us.  It is the art of letting go.  If we can forgive and let go, if we don’t hold our hurts against history and against one another, we will indeed be following Jesus.”