August 13, 2023Today’s scripture: Matthew 18:21-35Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive a brother or sister who sins against him. Seven times?
Jesus responds that you would forgive with no limit. The people listening must have though that this was strange and hard to understand, so Jesus responds with a parable.
Jesus opens the parable with the very familiar statement “therefore, the Kingdom of heaven is like…” Jesus is once again going to compare the Kingdom of heaven to something a little more relatable in that day and age.
Jesus begins the parable by explaining that there was a king who wanted to settle his accounts. He began by calling in a servant who owed him 10,000 bags of gold. It was an incredible debt to owe! And Jesus used that enormous number on purpose. For two reasons. Number one, to shock the audience and capture their attention. And number two, he used that huge number to illustrate how impossible it was for this man to pay the debt off.
After begging for mercy, the king decides that he will forgive the debt entirely. Again, this must have confused the crowd and made them wonder why in the world he would do that. But we must understand this is what the Kingdom of heaven is like. When we ask God to forgive us, he shows us tremendous mercy and does just that.
The servant responds by going out and demanding that someone who owed him a much smaller amount pay it back immediately. When they asked for mercy, he gave none. The king finds out about this and decides this man is no longer worthy of mercy, and instead institutes justice. This is what the Kingdom of heaven is like.
This parable teaches us three things. One day God will collect. part of the reality of the parable that Jesus is teaching. One day the king will settle his accounts. And all of us will be found indebted to God. If we have said yes to Jesus God will show us mercy by accepting Jesus’ sacrificial death to pay for our sins. If have refused to follow Jesus God will institute justice and we will be forced to pay.
Forgiveness always costs something. Forgiveness is never free. The king in the story gave mercy to the servant and cancelled his debt. What did that cost? It cost him 10,000 bags of gold. An unimaginable amount. He was willing to forfeit that to show mercy to the servant. It was costly, it hurt him, there was no way to recover it, but he was willing to do it. It was the same for God the father. Forgiveness for us cost him his son. It cost Jesus his life, and his relationship with the father. Forgiveness always costs something.
God expects us to forgive, because we have been forgiven. That is the point of the parable. There is an expression “it's simple but it's not easy.” I think that's a pretty good description of this parable. It's simple to understand but not necessarily easy to do. We need to be a people that show mercy and extend forgiveness. Why? It's simple, because god has done that for us. How do we learn to do that? We look at the cross and remember the incredible debt that Jesus had to pay for forgive us. And we remember we need to extend that forgiveness to others.
