3.04 The Unmerciful Servant

IV. THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.

Matthew 18:23 - Matthew 18:34. The question put by Peter: “ Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him: unto seven times?” gave occasion to Jesus to speak this parable. It was a common opinion among the Jews that a man was bound to forgive his neighbour three times, not oftener, and this opinion was based on the analogy of the Divine action as set forth in Amos 2:6: “For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn it away “ that is, the punishment or the sentence decreeing it. In this passage, how ever, it is a question, not of the forgiveness of man by man, but of the forgiveness of man by God. Jesus answered him: “ I do not say to thee unto seven times, but unto seventy times seven times.” If we translate “ seventy and seven times,” the sense of the answer is not affected, inasmuch as both expressions indicate THE PARABLES OF JESUS 105 the duty of forgiving an unlimited number of times. To make His meaning plain, and to place in a clear light the true relation of man as a debtor towards God, He narrated the parable. The Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a king who began to make a reckoning with his servants. As he did so, a certain servant was brought before him who owed him ten thousand talents, a sum which has been computed to represent more than two millions sterling. The hopeless servant having no means with which to pay this enormous debt, his master ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made of the proceeds. The servant, seeing absolute ruin staring himself and his family in the face, is driven by sheer desperation to appeal to the clemency of the king, while he makes a promise which in his cooler moments he would have felt it impossible to keep. He falls down before his sovereign, and in accents of touching supplication he invokes his mercy: “ Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.” His prayer was granted even beyond what he asked: his lord was so touched with compassion for his distress 106 THE PARABLES OF JESUS that, far from contenting himself with giving him time to pay, he forgave him instead the entire debt. We can imagine how effusive the servant was in his gratitude towards his lord, and in his protestations of loyalty and attachment in return for such unmerited and unexpected indulgence. Scarcely had he gone forth from the royal presence, when he met a fellow-servant who owed him a trifling debt, a hundred denars only the six hundred thousandth part of the sum which had been just remitted him. One would have expected that, with a heart dilated with joy, he would have welcomed the opportunity of imitating his master’s generosity, and gladly forgiven his debtor. No, on the contrary, he takes him by the throat and sternly demands of him the payment of the debt. The words and the fierce action which accompanied them struck terror into the heart of the unfortunate man.

He fell down at his creditor’s feet and besought him: “ Have patience with me, and I will pay thee.” His prayer is in vain: the merciless servant steels his heart against the distress of his companion; and, spurning a petition couched in language almost identical with THE PARABLES OF JESUS 107 that which he himself so shortly before had addressed to their common master, he went and cast him into prison, there to languish-till he should have paid what he owed. His fellow-servants who had seen the whole transaction were full of grief and indignation at it. They came and gave a full account of it to their lord. His former pity is now turned into anger, and so, summoning the unmerciful servant into his presence, he upbraids him with his heartless behaviour. “ Thou wicked servant,” he cries out, “ I forgave thee that debt because thou besoughtest me. Was it not, then, thy duty to have pity on thy fellowservant even as I had pity on thee?” Then in his just anger he delivered him over to the torturers until he should have paid all he owed.

Jesus Himself points out the application of the parable with the words: “ So also shall my Heavenly Father do unto you unless ye forgive each one his brother from his heart.” No reader of the parable can fail to be impressed by the force and eloquence with which Our Lord teaches the great lesson of forgiveness, and one feels that no explanation of it is needed to show the absolute necessity 108 THE PARABLES OF JESUS we are under of forgiving others if we would be forgiven ourselves. The lesson inculcated is that of the petition of the Lord’s Prayer; “ forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,” put into concrete form. And the parable further teaches us that so enormous is the debt which each of us owes to God, that of our own resources we come infinitely short of satisfying the Divine justice. These are the two important truths which it is intended to convey. It is obvious that many details in the narrative have no exact counterpart in the real half of the parable. Such is the reckoning which the king made with his servants, and which has no parallel in the real half, inasmuch as we are precluded from identifying it with the Particular or the General Judgment by the fact that even after it had taken place there still remained a possibility of pardon and of sinning anew. Such, too, is the account of the servants acquainting the king with the harsh action of the servant whose debt had just been remitted. And we must regard the king’s withdrawal of forgiveness in the same light, since God does not repent of His^gifts. THE PARABLES OF JESUS 109 These and similar details have, however, their own use in imparting force and vividness to the story.

There is, perhaps, no consideration which has so much power to lead us to forgive others as the remembrance of our own indebtedness to God. United and equalized as men are by their common nature, when one offends another, the gravity of the act, in as far as it is an offence against man, pales into insignificance in comparison with the gravity of a sin as it is an offence against God. And then the knowledge of our own sinfulness and imperfection ought to render us lenient to the short comings of others. How inconsistent it is of us to hope that God will take a merciful view of our sins and failings, while we regard those of our neighbour without compassion, and with perhaps a proud consciousness of our own superiority to him! The duty of forgiveness is an essential part of the precept of charity, and its importance may be inferred from the various means which Jesus made use of to bring it home to us namely, precept and threat and promise, parable and example.

110 THE PARABLES OF JESUS TAGS: [Parables]