Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
“Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” Mt. 18: 34
It is pretty amazing to realize how much of Jesus’ teaching involves the issue of debt.
The extent of it may surprise us, but in Roman Palestine debt and taxes were a very real, agonizing, and even brutal reality.
Unlike you and I, people in that day did not receive forms in the mail from the Roman Internal Revenue Service. Instead, strong men who could break knees showed up at the door demanding payment.
The unfairness of it all, the desperate craving for mercy, the enormous amount of debt people amassed in those days was precisely what Jesus used as an example, as a door through which he could walk to help people understand the richness of God’s willingness to forgive.
So, to get his point across, Jesus used monetary values that were astonishing … even laughable. In fact, the amounts are so absurd that there is no way of translating them into modern dollars. We’re left to guessing.
A “talent,” for example, was the largest denomination of money in use in gospel times. 10,000 “talents,” then could most likely be reckoned to be the equivalent of roughly 100 million days’ wages for the average worker!
To make his point, Jesus uses numbers so bountiful and lavish to show that God is willing to forgive us – without limit!
His further point is this:
Because of God’s abundant generosity, you and I cannot claim the right to withhold forgiveness from one another. A community of people that has been forgiven, as we believe ours to be, must be a forgiving community.
Today’s gospel story is meant to emphasize to each of us that we are not to hold grudges; we are not to seek revenge; we are not to require compensation or redress.
Instead, our behavior must be to mimic that of God’s toward each of us, and then to seek out the offender and bring about reconciliation.
Reconciliation – resolving conflicts – repairing differences was, and is, fundamental to the message and mission of Jesus.
In the parable in today’s gospel, the servant receives punishment, not because he is evil, but because he wants to get even; he wants revenge; he wants to return meanness for meanness.
What this tells us is:
Failure to forgive is not just bad form or something God frowns upon. Failure to forgive is failure to be like God. As such, failure to forgive creates a massive chasm between God and us.
If we take Jesus seriously, today’s parable is not merely saying that God wishes we would be a little better. Instead, in the parable, the king sends the unforgiving debtor for torture. Now, Jews at that time did not believe in torture. But the Romans did! And consequently, when Jesus referenced torture, his original listeners were shocked!
But Jesus’ fierce demand for forgiveness, his tender invitation to reconciliation was so serious that he pressed the limits to underline the dreadful results that would be experienced by those unwilling to forgive.
Forgiveness is at the very heart of Jesus’ preaching and teaching – and his life. While on the cross, amidst unimaginable pain, Jesus forgives the man crucified with him. And after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus’ first words to those who had abandoned him and denied him were all about forgiveness.
Jesus lived what he taught:
No scolding. No retribution. No shaming. No getting even. Only forgiveness – to the point of seventy times seven.
We have been forgiven abundantly. Now it is our turn to be equally as generous.
Christian author C.S. Lewis puts it this way:
“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
Jesus poses a question:
“Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?”
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
11809194.1
9/14/17
