The Nature of Grace
I think we can all relate to this story. We empathise with the poor servant who only owes a few dollars and is thrown into gaol by the culprit of the story. We feel the sense of powerlessness of the poorer servant. We feel the outrage of the other servants as they see this injustice being played out. We cheer when the master finds out and justice is finally done.
I wonder though, how often we find ourselves identifying with the unmerciful servant. Do we ever wonder whether Jesus is telling this story to warn us?
Do you see how the story starts? Peter has asked Jesus a question. It’s a question that arises from the previous discussion. There’s a danger with a catchy story like this. It’s so easy to take it out of context; to read it as a stand-alone event when it’s not. You see, Jesus has just finished talking about the question of discipline in the church. What do you do if someone in the church offends someone else? What do you do if someone is doing something that the Church considers sinful? How do you deal with that person? And the answer Jesus gives is that you first gently confront them in the hope that they repent and are restored to fellowship with you. If that doesn’t work you take a couple of witnesses along and only if that fails do you take it to the whole church.
But Peter’s been around for a while and he knows the sort of behaviour you can expect from some people. He says: “Yes, but what if someone sins against me over and over again?” I guess we’ve all experienced this. Someone does something to you, you confront them, and they apologise, They’re really sorry. They didn’t realise. It won’t happen again. And of course it does! The very next week! So you confront them again. And the whole process gets repeated. It doesn’t take long to get sick of this does it? It doesn’t take long before you begin to wonder whether you’re being taken advantage of; whether your kindness is wasted on this good-for-nothing so-and-so.
So Peter asks, “Where do we stop? What’s the limit?” “Can we put a number on it? How about 7 times?” Now notice that he’s understood what Jesus has been saying. He wants to be a frequently forgiving person. But the weakness in his question is the thought that there might be limits on Christian forgiveness. What he’s forgotten is that at the heart of the gospel is the understanding that wherever there’s repentance there will always be forgiveness.
Now before we go any further I need to put in an important clarification here. We’re not talking here about something like repeated domestic abuse where the offender asks for forgiveness and then repeats the abuse over and over again. Paul in his letter to the Romans is very helpful with that situation. At the end of chapter 12 he encourages us not to repay evil with evil but to seek to live peaceably with one another but then in the very next chapter he tells us that God has established governments to ensure that wrongdoers are punished. So if domestic or any other form of abuse is happening we need to call on the authorities to deal with it. That’s why we have our safe ministry protocols in the church.
But for the ordinary sorts of disagreements, hurts, offences, etc. our model is God himself. Listen to what we read in Isaiah 55: “6Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Do you hear that sense of overflowing generosity on God’s part? He will abundantly pardon!
So there’s a misconception in Peter’s question which Jesus immediately corrects. “Not seven times but seventy-seven times” or “Seventy times seven” some versions have. That is, more times than you can count. Unlimited forgiveness because that’s what God’s forgiveness is like.
It may be that Jesus is thinking about the early chapters of Genesis where Lamech, the great avenger, boasts that “If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” Lamech is the great hero of vengeance. We love stories of vengeance don’t we? We love to see the wicked caught out, the con man conned, the murderer punished. Think about those countless Liam Neeson thrillers with Neeson catching up on criminals who’ve done some terrible thing to his family or loved ones. And we all cheer when he deals with them don’t we?
But here’s the interesting thing about this parable. The popular media teaches that it’s heroic to take revenge. But here Jesus teaches that it’s more heroic to conquer revenge; to forgive, even if it costs us dearly; to leave revenge for God’s final judgement. And he shows us in a very graphic way why this is the case. He tells them a parable that illustrates why Jesus expects unlimited forgiveness from us: namely because we’ve been infinitely forgiven.
There’s a king, he says, who comes to settle accounts with his servants. So one is brought in who owes him 10,000 talents. Now if it’s a talent of silver that’s about $30 million in today’s terms but if it’s gold it’s more like $300 million. Either way it’s an outrageous amount; absolutely unpayable. So the king orders him to be sold into a debtor’s prison along with the rest of his family; a standard punishment which in fact existed in British law until a little over a hundred years ago. The servant falls to his knees and begs for time to repay. Now that in itself is a bit of a joke because the amount he owes is roughly 2,000 years pay, even if he weren’t to be in prison, so there’s no way he could ever repay what he owes. But still, he begs for mercy and to his amazement his master has pity on him. He forgives the entire debt.
Now put yourself in this man’s shoes. He’s been sentenced to be sold into slavery along with his whole family; he owes an unpayable debt and now the king has written it all off. He’s a free man again. He’s asked for patience and the chance to repay the debt and he’s got infinitely more than he asked for: amnesty and a complete remission of the debt. He’s received a forgiveness he didn’t dare to ask for. How would you feel? Overwhelmed with gratitude? So thankful that you have a merciful king?
Now remember that this is a parable about us. What Jesus is saying is that each of us has amassed the equivalent of an unpayable debt before God. Have you ever thought about that? Most people if you ask them how God might see them will say something like “Oh I’ve lived a pretty good life. I’ve never done much that was really wrong. I don’t think God would think too badly of me.” But here Jesus is saying, no, the debt of sin you’ve built up is running into billions, if not zillions. There’s no way you could ever repay it; ever make up for it. But then comes the amazing news of the gospel: that God is a gracious King who willingly remits our debt, who gives us free and unconditional forgiveness, wipes the slate clean, so we can walk away free.
But the story doesn’t end there. With the receiving of forgiveness comes the responsibility of the forgiven.
So what happens? The servant leaves the king’s presence and runs into a fellow servant who owes him a small amount of money, a few hundred dollars perhaps; a mere pittance compared to the amount he’d owed the King. So what does he do? Does he share his good fortune with him and forgive his debt in turn? No! He grabs him and, with some brutality, orders him to pay the lot. Now you can imagine the incredulity that this turn to the story would have raised among the first hearers. We feel the same don’t we, even if we’ve heard it many times before? How could anyone act like this so soon after getting such a reprieve from the king? Even when his fellow servant gets down on his knees he doesn’t relent. He doesn’t show any mercy or pity despite the mercy he’s been shown by the king.
It’s a pity this man didn’t give any thought to how much the king had forgiven him. Even when his fellow servant echoes almost the exact words that he’d used, he doesn’t recognise them. This is an important lesson to learn isn’t it? When we come to deal with someone who’s wronged us, we need to be especially aware of our own failings; of our own infinite need of forgiveness by God. We need to remind ourselves of the enormous debt that we owed God, but that God has removed from us.
Well, as is often the case in these parables the end of the story is a dire warning for us. The man refuses to give his fellow servant time to repay the debt, but throws him into prison, where of course he’ll never be able to repay it. But the mistake he’s made is more than simple ingratitude. What he’s forgotten is not just that the king has forgiven him his great debt, but that the king is still the king; that the king’s job is to ensure justice in his realm. The other servants don’t forget it though. In their distress at this injustice, they go and tell the king about it. The king calls the man in and says “You wicked servant. I forgave you all that debt, just because you asked me. And yet you couldn’t show mercy on your fellow slave!” And he’s so angry with him that he hands him over to be tortured until he pays the lot. “This”, says Jesus, “is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” That’s gentle Jesus meek and mild for you! But this is a repeated message in the gospels. (Matt 6:15 NRSV) "if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (Mat 7:2 NRSV) "For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." So we mustn’t take this lightly. Our forgiveness is in one sense dependant on our willingness to forgive others.
So does that mean we have to earn our forgiveness after all? Does forgiving others make us worthy to be forgiven? It could sound like that, couldn’t it, if we weren’t careful. But there’s two things that we should notice about this parable. First of all the servant’s debt is forgiven right at the outset. It’s the fact upon which the rest of the story hangs. And secondly the debt is so great that no amount of forgiveness of others’ debts could ever be enough to earn it. So there’s no sense that his response to his fellow servant could somehow repay his own debt. No, the remission of that debt is a free gift from the king.
So let’s think about what’s wrong with what he does? Well, it shows that he’s failed to understand the type of behaviour that the king expects of his subjects. Unlike the sort of despotic king that Di talked about last week this king has built his rule on mercy and justice and he expects that mercy to be reflected throughout the kingdom. If this servant were a true follower of the king then he’d show the characteristics that the king places such great value on: in this case, mercy and forgiveness. So his forgiveness of others isn’t so much a condition of his being accepted as a faithful servant as a sign that that’s what he is.
Let me give you an illustration of what I’m trying to say. Do you remember the story of King Solomon and the two women who both claim that a baby is theirs? Do you remember what Solomon does? He says “Bring me a sword.” He’s says he’ll cut the baby down the middle and they can have half each. The real mother of course says, “No. Don’t kill him! Give the living baby to her.” While the other one stupidly says, “Sure, go ahead and cut him in two then neither of us will have him.” Well, it’s quite clear who the mother is, isn’t it? But let me ask you, did she become the mother by giving Solomon the right answer? No! Did the right answer in any way affect the truth of her claim? No! It certainly helped Solomon discern the truth but it in no way affected that truth, did it? Her motherhood came from a prior event - from giving birth to the baby. And it’s the same when we think about this parable. Forgiving one another because God first forgave us helps to discern the truth of our relationship to God, but it doesn’t determine it. Our relationship to God comes from the prior event of God’s forgiving us that unpayable debt of sin. His requirement that we then respond with mercy and forgiveness towards others is to show that we’ve truly changed sides. In other words it’s a sign that the repentance that accompanied the forgiveness was genuine, and that we’re continuing to relate to God with the awe and reverence that our respective positions warrant and with the change of heart that receiving God’s Holy Spirit provides us.
So here we have both a reminder of just how great God’s love and mercy is and a warning about the need to respond appropriately, to demonstrate by our behaviour, by our attitude to others that we’ve truly joined God’s family. While we must never condone sin or ignore it, when the sin is against us, we’re to follow the example of our Lord and King, to forgive unreservedly and without limit. We’re to be so overwhelmed by God’s love and forbearance that we can’t help but be loving and forbearing towards one another. If we’re Kingdom people then the way we relate will be the way our good and loving King relates. We’ll show by our lives that there are no limits to forgiveness in God’s kingdom.
