Then the master said: “You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?” And in his anger, the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. “And that is how my heavenly father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.” Matthew 18: 21-35
Today’s First Reading comes from the Book of Sirach and is a fitting prelude to our gospel-reading. The Hebrew name for the author of our First Reading was Ben Sira, a figure of wisdom who wrote about 200 years before the time of Jesus. He wanted to convince his people that their culture was as rich in wisdom as the culture of the Greeks. As a matter of interest, it was the Greeks who first referred to Ben Sira as Sirach. Today’s reading from Ben Sira is a word of advice to people who are victims of crime. Pointing out that they tend to become angry with those who have offended against them, he observes that, if they cling to their anger, they end up creating an angry world in which they imprison themselves. That’s like a good piece of psychological advice. Clinging to “justified” anger is something to which we can all be prone.
When we come to today’s gospel-reading, we meet a Peter who seems to be boasting to Jesus about how virtuous he is in being ready to forgive seven times anyone who offends him. In correcting him, Jesus says: “No, Peter, not seven but seventy-seven times”, effectively stating that there should be no limit to his and our readiness to forgive. And that led to a far-fetched story from Jesus to illustrate his point.
Jesus began by referring to a servant who owed his master 10,000 talents, an almost incalculable amount. In the time of Jesus, a day-labourer earned one denarius per day. The monetary equivalent of a talent was approximately 6000 denarii. A talent was the weight of precious metal a well-conditioned soldier could carry on his back in the course of a trek. So, the servant, who had convinced a very wealthy businessman to give him a very substantial loan to invest in what appeared to be a very promising commercial venture, in turn loaned a small part of what he had borrowed to an acquaintance, who planned to set up something as humble as a roadside fruit and vegetable stall. Of course, two separate deeds of agreement were drawn up with repayment dates clearly stipulated. When the very wealthy businessman presented himself to his debtor for repayment, he quickly realised that he would not get his money back, even though the man to whom he had loaned it pleaded for more time to pay. Out of compassion for his beleaguered debtor, he tore up the loan agreement, thereby freeing his debtor from all obligation of repaying what would have amounted to 60,000,000 denarii, a quantum his debtor could not have earned in ten life-times. That’s the humorous “believe-it-or-not” story that Jesus told to Peter and the other disciples in today’s gospel-reading. Yet, the man, who had been freed from a life-debilitating burden by the boundless compassion of his benefactor, was so insensitive that he demanded from his acquaintance the pittance that had already been wiped off his own ledger. Moreover, he had the poor unfortunate thrown into prison until he could repay the very last penny that he owed.
In today’s First Reading, Ben Sira told us that, by our very behaviour, we create the environment, the kind of world in which we want to live. In the gospel-reading, by questioning his disciples about their approach to forgiveness, Jesus was really asking them what kind of world they chose to live in. If they chose to count the number of times they were prepared to forgive those who offended them, they were creating an environment in which keeping the score was what mattered. The irony of the man forgiven a fortune-sized debt was that he was unable to recognise that the man he pursued and had thrown into prison pleaded to him with the very same words as he had used in begging for mercy from the man who ended up cancelling his huge debt. His subsequent insensitive and heavy-handed behaviour demonstrated that he had chosen to live in a world in which compassion and mercy played no part. His benefactor was left dumbfounded.
Therein lies the message of this parable for every single one of us. The kind of treatment we mete out to those who hurt us spells out the parameters of the kind of world in which we choose to live. The way in which we respond to those who trespass against us will proclaim to others the kind of world in which we choose to live. Will it be a world known for its mercy and compassion? As disciples of Jesus, it is not our role to judge whether anyone is worthy of mercy and forgiveness, it is for us to show mercy, compassion and forgiveness to everyone. Does our readiness to forgive reflect, even in a small way, the depth of forgiveness God has shown us?