Today in a parable, our Lord Jesus Christ
gives us a God’s eye view of sin and forgiveness (Matt 18:23-35).
An official owed his king ten thousand
talents. The king is the Lord. You and I are the
servant. His debt represents our sinfulness. So when Jesus describes this debt,
he is actually describing our sinfulness, which concerns us personally and is
worth considering carefully.
There are different estimates as to the actual value of ten thousand talents. We know that a talent was the largest unit of money at the time. It was worth about six thousand denarii, which was a day’s pay. So a talent was more than 15 years of pay. Even if a day’s pay was equivalent to less than half of the current minimum wage in Indiana, ten thousand talents would be worth more than a one and a half billion dollars. So we are talking about a huge amount. Imagine the burden of a debt like that. It is an impossibly large sum – more than a laborer could make in two thousand lifetimes.
There are different estimates as to the actual value of ten thousand talents. We know that a talent was the largest unit of money at the time. It was worth about six thousand denarii, which was a day’s pay. So a talent was more than 15 years of pay. Even if a day’s pay was equivalent to less than half of the current minimum wage in Indiana, ten thousand talents would be worth more than a one and a half billion dollars. So we are talking about a huge amount. Imagine the burden of a debt like that. It is an impossibly large sum – more than a laborer could make in two thousand lifetimes.
It will help us to understand Jesus’
rhetoric a bit further if we also consider the word here for ten thousand – it’s μυρίος, which is the largest Greek
numeral – and as such, it is sometimes used rhetorically and less technically
to mean “countless” or “innumerable” – it’s where we get the word myriad. So
the servant’s debt to his master is the largest numeral of the largest unit of
money. In other words, it’s as big as it can be – that’s the point, I think.
And it’s also possible that Jesus is
making an allusion – because this isn’t the first time that the sum of ten
thousand talents is mentioned in scripture. In the book of Esther, Haman, the
enemy of the Jews, feeling himself insulted by Mordecai, offers to the Persian
King Ahasuerus – also known as Xerxes – ten thousand talents of silver if he will agree to
destroy all Jews (Esther 3:9).
Haman was indebted to his king ten
thousand talents, just like the official in today’s parable. And for what? –
for seeking “to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews”(Esther 3:13) –
the people of God. So this sum of ten thousand talents here is blood money. The
debt of the servant in today’s parable represents our sin. And the consequence
of our sin is death – and that death is born by the true messiah of the Jews –
Jesus the Christ.
By our sins, we participate in the
failed attempt to destroy Jesus, just as Haman, by his debt of ten thousand
talents, participates in a failed attempt to destroy all Jews. In both cases,
the Lord triumphs over sin and death. Through Esther, he delivers the Jews from
oppression in Persia. And he raises Jesus from the dead. So there are meaningful
parallels here. This enormous debt is an image of sin and death.
It is fitting that Jesus describes all our
sinfulness with a parable about money – because the love of money is the root
of all evil. But we mustn’t think that if our sins don’t involve money that
this isn’t about us – we must not leave this comfortably in the abstract.
We should feel invited to place
ourselves in this parable as the servant, to examine our own consciences, and to
discover our own sins against God and against our fellow servants. Sins perish
in the light and thrive in the darkness – so we must name them and confess
them.
I cannot judge you. You and God alone
know which sins trouble your hearts – and I can only know my own sins. We must
all bring our sins to God in holy confession, as the servant did at first –
falling on his knees and begging for the patience and kindness of the Lord. When
we do, we will receive the Lord’s forgiveness.
When the extent of his debt is revealed,
the servant stupidly asks for more time to pay back his king – it should be
clear to us that this is a sum no servant could ever repay. This, I think, is
how it must sound to the Lord if we ever say that we’ll make it up to him by
being good people for the rest of our lives. That won’t make it up to him! That
is good and necessary, but that doesn’t mean that it’s enough. Nothing we do
can ever earn our reunion with God. We are utterly and absolutely dependent
upon his grace. Apart from the energies of God, there is no theosis. We do not
partake of the divine nature by our own power, but by the power of God, with
which we cooperate. We must make every effort to supplement our faith with
virtue, but we must never think that our efforts can succeed unaided (cf. 1 Pet
1:4-5). They spring from, are supported by, and succeed in and only in the life
of God, freely and gratuitously given by God.
So the king does not give his servant more time to pay him back, which would be
impossible – no, he forgives the debt completely! He gives more than the
servant asks for. The Lord is gracious and we depend upon his grace.
We must realize that our sin is like a
debt too large for us to ever repay, and, having received the forgiveness of
that debt, let us turn from our sin, repent, and sin no more. We should allow
this seemingly inexcusable, impossible forgiveness and lovingkindness to prick
our hearts so that we do not remain inert and insensible to our “natural
wickedness.”[i]
With all our hearts, let us turn away from the evils to which we have become
habituated and enslaved.
This turning, this repentance, this
conversion, this μετάνοια begins, as
our Lord demonstrates in this parable, with forgiveness. Not only with being
forgiven, but also with forgiving others.
Our Lord taught us to pray, “forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Or, a more literal
translation of the Lord’s Prayer is “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors,” which closely ties the prayer to today’s parable of debts. So as we
forgive, we will be forgiven. And if we are to have any hope for ourselves we
must have the hope for others that forgiveness expresses.
After receiving the forgiveness of such
an enormous amount, the servant should quickly and easily have followed his
king’s example when a fellow servant begged for patience regarding a comparably
small debt – a hundred denarii – a tiny fraction of what he had been forgiven.
The wrongs we suffer from our fellow
servants – which really are wrongs – sometimes terrible wrongs – are
nonetheless small when you compare them to the weight of our sins against the
Lord. So forgive others, as the Lord forgives you. Do not nurse hurt feelings
or brood on wrongs. Do not let resentments grow in your hearts like weeds
growing ever deeper roots. For, according to the measure with which you
measure, it will be measured to you (Matt 7:2). If you would be forgiven, you
must forgive. Even those who don’t deserve it. Even those who don’t ask for it.
But especially those who do.
In light of the great blessing and forgiveness
shown him, the unmerciful servant’s unwillingness to forgive his fellow servant
who begs for patience is inexcusable. It is so offensive to his king that he
rescinds his earlier forgiveness, and turns the servant over to the jailers
till he should pay all his debt, which, according our holy fathers Apollinaris
and John Chrysostom, is another way of saying “forever,” because the debt is
immeasurable and is more than he could ever repay.
The king’s action here reveals something
about forgiveness I believe we should notice. You often hear the expression,
“forgive and forget” – and this maxim is often held up as a Christian ideal.
You should know first of all that this phrase is nowhere in scripture. And when
the Lord says to Isaiah that he will not remember sins (43:25; cf. Heb 8:12), I
don’t think we should understand this to be a blank space in God’s omniscience.
I think it means rather poetically that he puts aside the sins he has forgiven
and does not cause us to suffer their full consequence. He still knows what we
have done, for he knows everything. And the king in today’s parable
demonstrates this. Remember that the king is Jesus’ own image of God. Yet,
after he has forgiven the servant’s debt, he clearly still knows its amount –
because after the servant is unmerciful the king turns him over to the jailers
after all – till he should pay it back. When justice demands it, the king is able to remember the debt.
We should actually find comfort in this because, even if we are unable to forget a wrong completely, this does not mean we cannot forgive. Forgiveness is
possible, even when forgetting is impossible.
And thank God, because if we do not
forgive, the king will turn us over to the jailers forever. Apollinaris writes
that these jailers represent “the angels entrusted with our punishment.” Still
worse than this punishment is another: Jesus says, “So also my heavenly father
will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your
heart.” As Chrysostom points out, Jesus does not say “’your father’ [or ‘our
father’] but ‘my father.’ For it is not proper for God to be called the Father
of one so who is so wicked and malicious.”[ii] The greater punishment is to lose our familial
relationship with God, gained by our baptism and our faith. It is a rejection
of both to condemn our brothers and sisters – to damn instead of to bless – to
have an unforgiving heart – to rejoice in the suffering of our enemies.
So we must remember our own sins and
forgive others their sins against us. Then, as we forgive, our heavenly Father
will forgive our sins against him, which are far greater. So let us imitate “the
indescribable love of God” and forgive everything.
