Matthew 18:21-35

Matthew 18:21-35 NIV

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” 
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master  ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servantʼs master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldnʼt you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

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You won't find the parable of The Unmerciful Servant on a list of Jesus' most beloved parables. The parable of the Good Samaritan, the parable of The Sower, the parable of the Mustard Seed; these are popular. This parable, however, is a tough one because Jesus ends His teaching with a painfully sobering warning. That warning is that we must forgive from our hearts or else suffer God's wrath.

After having taught that the church should confront sin in its membership and shun those who refuse to repent and change their sinful ways, He turns to the topic of mercy and forgiveness. Peter asked Him how many times should he forgive when someone sins against him. Jesus told Peter not 7 times, but 7 x 70.

The number seven represents completeness or fullness in the Bible. The number ten is also a complete number. It is the sum of 3 and 7. Three has to do with God. So generally I think of the number 10 representing the complete work of God, like the 10 commandments. To forgive 7 x 70 is a way of saying forgive completely, with God's help forgive fully.

Then Jesus tells the Parable of The Unmerciful Servant to press the point. A king had several servants to whom he had entrusted money. When settling accounts he found one servant who owed a substantial sum. The actual figure is 10,000 talents which in today's money is worth about $2.25 billion. The idea here is that the servant owed a debt he could never repay.

The master decided to sell off the servant, his wife and children, and all his possessions in order to pay the debt. The servant begged for mercy and the master forgave his debt. Wow! That is mercy.

The servant, however, found another servant who owed him 100 denarii, worth only about $15,000, the annual salary of a day laborer. Yet he could not forgive the servant when he pleaded for mercy. You can see the huge difference between the first servant's debt and the second one's. He threw the poor man in jail until he paid his debt.

When the master heard about this servants harsh behavior, having shown him incredible mercy, he had him thrown in prison and tortured until he could pay his unpayable debt.
Then Jesus warns that unless we forgive others from the heart we will experience much suffering like that of the tortured, imprisoned, unmerciful servant.

Interpreting this difficult teaching is like a tightrope walk. One false move and you slip either into hellfire and damnation or extreme whitewashing. Let's be clear though. Jesus didn't have a problem talking about hell. He warns of being cast out where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth at several places in Matthew's gospel.

His warning is stern. If we take God's incredible mercy shown to us in the cross, and our hearts are not made merciful and loving, then we've missed the salvation offered there. We remain lost in sin. And where there is no salvation, then there is only the prospect of continued imprisonment in our sinful state. While Jesus said that God will treat you like the master treated the unmerciful servant if you don't forgive, I believe that God is simply letting us suffer the consequences of our resentments. Bitterness and resentment is a killer. It's a self imposed prison of our own making.

The liver is central to the body's health function. All blood is circulated through the liver and food is converted to usuable nutrients. Emotionally we carry negative emotions like resentment, anger, frustration, and gall in our liver. Health studies suggest that cancer and resentment are associated. I like to say that unforgiveness is like eating rat poison and expecting the rat to die. We are only harming ourselves when we hang on to resentment.

But letting go and fully forgiving is a lot more difficult than we may realize. It's not a simple thing to find peace when we've been treated unjustly or abused. That is why it takes God's help. God's amazing grace is fully sufficient to deliver us from our inner torture. It takes continual prayer and undying hope.

I wish I were free of all my resentments, but I'm not. I'm still trapped in prison and tortured over the debt I think some people owe me. And the interesting thing is that since I find it difficult to forgive others fully, I am unable to forgive myself most of all!

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:24-25a NIV