The Unforgiving Servant

A servant kneels before a king, begging. He owes a debt so huge he could never pay it back. Not in a hundred lifetimes. The king looks down at him. And then he does something nobody expects.

Jesus has been teaching his disciples how to put things right when someone wrongs them. And Peter has been thinking. So he comes with a question, and he thinks he's being generous. “Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Seven seems like a lot. Jesus answers, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Some translations say seventy times seven. Either way, Jesus means: stop counting. And then he tells a story.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.” One by one, the servants come in with their records. Then a man is brought in who owes ten thousand talents. It's a staggering sum, far more than any servant could ever repay. He can't pay. So the king orders that he, his wife, his children and everything he owns be sold to pay back what he can.

The servant falls to his knees. “Be patient with me,” he begs, “and I will pay back everything.” It's an impossible promise. He knows it. The king knows it. But the king looks at this desperate man, and Jesus says he is moved with pity. He lets him go. And he cancels the whole debt. Every last coin of it. Wiped away. The servant walks out of the palace a free man.

Outside, he runs into a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii. That's real money, around a hundred days' wages, but it's nothing like the debt he has just been forgiven. He grabs the man by the throat. “Pay back what you owe me!” The other servant falls at his feet and says almost the very same words. “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.” But he refuses. He has the man thrown into prison until he can pay the debt.

The other servants see it all, and they're deeply upset. They go and tell the king everything. The king calls the man back in. “You wicked servant,” he says. “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” And in his anger the king hands him over to the jailers until he pays back all he owes. Then Jesus says something sobering. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you, unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.

Just how big was that first debt? A talent was a huge weight of silver, worth about six thousand denarii, and a denarius was a day's wage for a labourer. So ten thousand talents is something like sixty million days of work. Ten thousand was also the largest number the Greek language had a single word for. It's as if Jesus said, a gazillion. The second servant owed a hundred denarii. Real money. But next to the first debt, almost nothing.

The Unforgiving Servant. You'll find it in Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 to 35. Peter wanted to know when he could stop forgiving. Jesus showed him how much he had already been forgiven. People who know they've been given mercy are meant to become people who give it. So here's the question to carry with you. Is there someone you need to forgive from your heart, remembering how much God has forgiven you?