Finding Forgiveness – Part 2

DAILY BYTE

If you read yesterday’s parable carefully, you would have been struck by the fact that Jesus does not exactly mince his words here. He quite pointedly uses the word ‘torture’, and then even more pointedly says that this is exactly what will happen to each of us unless we learn forgive one another from the heart!

These are tough words that seem so very harsh. Quite frankly, some people have had absolutely horrible things done to them. What does Jesus mean if THEY don’t forgive THEY will be punished?! Many us probably really struggle with that statement – especially if we, or a loved one, have been the victim of someone else’s horrible act.

But, perhaps if we move into a careful discussion of this parable we might better understand what Jesus is actually saying and meaning here. You see when people first heard this parable they would laughed out loud at parts of it. In fact they probably would have chortled away throughout this story until that last bit about a torture chamber, and then, they, like us might fallen into a thoughtful silence.

The reason that people back then would have found this parable humorous was because of the sums of money used in it. For example the sum that the first servant owed was vast. It was beyond the budgets of whole Roman provinces, and perhaps beyond the comprehension of many in Jesus’ audience. Someone has actually taken the time to work out that at the average day’s wages for a servant, it would have taken this man about 125 000 years to pay back what he owed! It was ridiculous to the point of being humorous at the thought that any servant would firstly be in a position to incur such a debt, never mind actually pleading to pay it back. The servant owed 10 000 talents, the crowds would have choked with laughter; they would have got the joke.

They would have found it even funnier at the thought of this same servant, released from his tremendous burden of debt, (a burden beyond the ability of any one human to deal with), walking away from the king’s palace praising God and then seeing a fellow servant who owed another ridiculous figure (this time ridiculous because it was so small – just a couple of days wages) and then having him thrown into prison for his inability to pay. It’s like being let off a debt of 10 million rand and then imprisoning someone for owing you ten rand. Who would actually do that?

The crowd was probably still laughing at this point in the story, but their laughter would have soon quietened when Jesus got to the real punch line of the parable. The King hearing of this latest development, had the first servant thrown into a torture chamber and then the clincher, ‘This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother’s & sisters from the heart’. Stunned silence. Jaws would have dropped as people in the crowd quickly tried to count up all people they had heard Jesus say were their brothers and sisters: Hated Roman oppressors, thieving, traitorous tax collectors, heretical Samaritans. Silence as the crowd chewed over thoughts of broken r/ships, betrayals by loved ones, injustices served on them, great hurts caused by others. Forgive all of them?!

Ah … the scandal of God’s grace in operation again. Perhaps you might find yourself just as offended as Jesus’ original audience was by this parable? Does this mean we have to forgive murderers, thieves and child molesters? Who might you especially struggle to forgive?

PRAY AS YOU GO

O Lord, sometimes we find your grace and love very threatening. We rejoice to hear that we are forgiven by you, but we sometimes struggle with the news that you also forgive people that we find reprehensible. Fill us with your loving Spirit once again and move us to a place where we can deal with this. Amen.

FOCUS VERSE

Read Matthew 18:21-35 in your favourite translation.