Tuesday in the Third Week of Lent, March 14, 2023

Matthew 18, 21-35

Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

Much confusion surrounds forgiveness, so important an act for our salvation that our Lord says, “Forgive, and you will be forgiven (Luke 6, 37), as though our forgiveness of others amounts to a condition for our own forgiveness.  In the parable which the Church uses for today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord gives a graphic description of what forgiveness looks like, knowing that for us a picture helps more than a treatise. 

First of all, the Lord tells us, one person has committed an offense against another, and this is clear to everyone.  There is no hiding or excusing the fault.  This is a most necessary step.  We might want to look the other way, excuse, or try to forget an offense committed against us, but in order to forgive, we must recognize that something needs to be forgiven.  Otherwise we forego forgiveness, which is a path to peace, and we go on to live in pain.  Now, we should notice here that the offended party does not try to minimize the offense.  In fact, he makes a strict accounting of it.  This, too is necessary.  In this case, the Greek text tells us that the servant owes his master 10,000 talents, or more than $41,000,000 in today’s money.

“His master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt.”  In this instance, the master is also the source of justice because he is the king.  In order to recoup a fraction of his losses he orders the offender and his family sold as slaves.  This action was customary practice in ancient times.  The offender knew this and still squandered his master’s money, thus adding to his offense through deliberately jeopardizing the members of his family.  The story could have ended now.  The servant defrauds his master, he gets caught, and justice is done.  But the servant begged for mercy, and “moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan.”  That is, he let him off with no consequences.  The master does this not because he believes the servant will pay him back or that he will reform, but simply because of his heart, which felt compassion for the man.  We note that the king let him go: he did not necessarily retain him as a servant and certainly did not offer him friendship.  What he did amounts to this: he did not get back at the man for what he had done to him.  We consider again the amount of money the servant took from him and marvel at the king’s generosity.  This is forgiveness.  He even refused to enforce a penalty on him for the sake of justice, which goes over and beyond what forgiveness demands from us.

“He found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount.”  The parable could have ended here, too, but the Lord continues in order to show the role that justice can play in a situation in which an offense has been committed.  The servant who has been forgiven goes on to commit a second offense, which consists of seizing another servant, choking him, and threatening him to the extent that the others become greatly alarmed and appeal to the king on that servant’s behalf.  Since this offense was not directed against the king, the king is not in a position to forgive.  (It would be the prerogative of the injured servant to forgive).  He is solely the source of justice here.  As such, he “handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt.”  This is actually a reduction of sentence compared to what the master had originally decreed for him.  At least the man’s family is not enslaved and can go back to her relatives.  But he will not leave prison alive.  The Lord also tells this part of the parable to console those who have suffered at the hands of a wicked “fellow servant” that they might still suffer from the offense even after they have forgiven their offender, but that one who continued his wickedness will eventually be punished through proper justice.  We do not need to think that we must take justice in our own hands.  It will come, and it will satisfy more than anything you and I could do.

“So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”  The Lord puts the moral of his parable in the form of a warning: if we do not forgive but hold a grudge and seek vengeance, we become no better than the person who offended us.  We may pray for justice, appeal for justice to the legitimate authorities here, and we may seek redress for the harm we suffer, but we must renounce vengeance and pray for our enemies and their conversion.