All Things Bright & Beautiful

Forgiveness.

Matthew 18:21-35, the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant.

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵ 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.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

²⁸ “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.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

The king showed mercy and forgave the servant’s 3 million dollar debt. The servant left the king and saw a fellow servant that owed him a few bucks, but instead of showing the mercy that the king had just shown him, he had the servant thrown in jail. Really? You owed the king 3 million dollars and he forgave you, but you can’t forgive someone else who owes you a few dollars?

When you think about it, our sins are our 3 million dollar debt and the wrongs that people commit towards us are their 5 dollar debt. God sent Jesus to pay our 3 million dollar debt so we would be forgiven, so why can’t we forgive someone that owes us 5 bucks? I’m not saying forgive and forget and then everything will be cool. If you borrow 5 dollars from me, I’m going to remember that you borrowed that money (cause I’m broke) but it’s just 5 dollars, so I let it go but I don’t forget. I would hope that you would forgive me of my debt if I borrowed 5 dollars from you. It’s hard to forgive, but Jesus said that we are to forgive seventy seven (or 70 times 7) times. We’re not supposed to literally count how many times we forgive someone, but its more like how many times we have to say “I forgive you” before we actually do forgive the person.

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