Genesis 50.15-21, Matthew 18.21-35
The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity,
13th September 2020. Keasden and online
When Jesus told stories about everyday people at work, of the relationships between the bosses and their employees, the landed and their labourers, the creditors and the debtors; when his stories detailed what they did with their money and how they dealt with each other, financially.… when he did this, was it purely to offer his audience metaphors for the spiritual life? That's usually how the parables have been taught and received: teachers from Matthew onwards have said that the parables are about God and us, judgement and forgiveness and heaven, that they're stories from this life to prepare us for the afterlife. But here's a thought. What if Jesus actually told these tales to provoke discussion about the way we treat each other now: that he shared these stories so as to raise points about the morality of the marketplace, about the different choices we make to trade fairly for the good of others, or to trade unfairly, for our own enrichment? [1]
What if Jesus meant us to take these stories at face value so we can take direct lessons from them about our everyday behaviour towards others? If that was truly his intention then wouldn't we look at the parables in quite a different way?
Certainly, this parable of the unforgiving servant can teach us about forgiveness, as Matthew intends it to. But let us assume that Jesus wants us to hear this story so we can reflect on how forgiveness works out in world of debt in which we live.
The parable of the unforgiving servant teaches us that in the world of credit and debt, whilst some build up fortunes from property and land, others become indebted to them. It illustrates how the financial gap between them often increases over time, and with it also a balance of power, in which the debtors find themselves increasingly at the mercy of the creditors, who are able to call in their debts at any time and sanction or punish those who, at that time, cannot pay what they owe. But the parable illuminates a great truth about human society - that there is always more than one way to live, to trade, to deal in our relations over credit and debt. The story Jesus told shows how creditors can exercise mercy towards those who owe them, and it illuminates the idea that debts can be reduced or even written off altogether.
We might rename this the parable of the reprieved debtor, and ruthless creditor: for it is a morality tale of how mercy, pity, grace and forgiveness can show itself in the usually harsh and greedy world of finance.
Jesus isn’t teaching anything new here but rather he is speaking from an ancient tradition of the people of Moses, which in the Book of Leviticus is given the name, Jubilee. This idea, enshrined by God in the laws of the land, that every fifty years would be a year of rest for the land and its creatures, and a year of restoration and reprieve for those who, in the time which has just passed, have lost their land and homes - for each fiftieth year they will return to the homes they have lost; debts to their landlords written off, the balance of power between them neutralised. A cause for celebration in the land. [2]
Jesus is showing us how forgiveness can show itself in many forms - an interesting detail in this story is the size of the debt which the first servant was released from. It was enormous. Ten thousand talents, in the time of Jesus, was the ‘largest debt imaginable’; entire provinces such as Galilee or Perea usually made annual payments to King Herod Antipas of just two thousand talents; so forgiving ten thousand talents is at the level of releasing an entire nation from financial obligation. [3] This insight has inspired movements such as the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which campaigns for changes to global finance for the sake of the heavily indebted countries of the global south, and which achieved $130 billion of debt cancellation for developing countries between 2000 and 2015.
But following on from his exchange with Peter over the question, “How many times should I forgive one who has sinned against me?” Jesus is also showing how individuals can forgive - can release others from the debt they owe us. If you’ve ever lent a struggling son or daughter a sizeable amount of money and done comfortable in knowing you’ll not get any return, then you’ve done this.
So this story can tell us that God is in the business of debt release. It is good news today for students burdened with terrifying loans from the very start of their studies; for tenants building up rent arrears during their time on furlough, and borrowers troubled about losing their homes at the end of their mortgage holidays. It inspires organisations like Christians Against Poverty in their work of helping people who have fallen into debt, to find ways out.
Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Notice how that prayer is phrased. It seems to be saying that The Father will forgive us in the same way and to the same extent as we forgive others. This is why the parable of the unforgiving servant ends as it does, with him being punished just as cruelly as he punished the servant who was indebted to him. How does God judge us? By our own standards. So that if we choose to reject the way of forgiveness and release from debt then God sadly leaves us there in that world of condemnation and punishment of our own making. But if we step through the doorway - which God always leaves open to us - then that debt-free world of absolute forgiveness can be ours.
The Reform rabbi Jonathan Romain recently wrote, “To be a good Jew you do not have to believe in God, just do what God says.” [4] This is sound wisdom for people of all faiths; remember when Peter asked Jesus, “How many times should I forgive one who has sinned against me?” Jesus told him, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven.” In other words, forgive without limit, forgive every time, whether emotionally, spiritually - or practically, financially - make it your practice to always set free those who are in debt to you.
Notes
[1] The central point in this sermon - Jesus’ use of the parables to provoke practical application in everyday life - is inspired by the work of William R. Herzog, Parables As Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed. For earlier treatments, see my 2014 sermon, The Parable of the King Who Failed to Keep Forgiving, or ‘What if the Messiah Came and Nothing Changed?’ and my 2017 sermon Even now in Palestine, imagine a debt-free world.
[2] Leviticus 25.
[3] William R. Herzog, Parables As Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed, p.147.
[4] Quoted in William Whyte, Power of a good story, a review of Jonathan Romain's Confessions of a Rabbi, Church Times, 8 September 2017.
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