Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

. . . Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Our text this morning brings for our consideration the Unforgiving Servant. Jesus presents this parable to illustrate how we can live with the favor and forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus, but then, also how we might exclude ourselves from it. The question is this: what is the connection between being forgiven by God and forgiving others? When the parable is understood aright, Jesus will teach us that it is not sin, not even lots of sin; but rather unforgivingness that really abuses and separates us from the God’s forgiveness. The connection between these two is also found in the Lord’s Prayer. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. This petition really has eternal consequences as we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s explore this parable to better understand and appreciate these central truths of the Gospel as he teaches the connectedness between grace and graciousness, between forgiveness as a second chances or letting people off easy over against forgiveness, as a way of life.

Jesus is a shrewd teacher here as he sets the stage by setting up Law not Grace as the first element of the parable. The king is first presented as a rather hardnosed financier who has nothing but kind words for those who are solvent and pay what they owe. But, if anyone gets into trouble, his only concern is that all obligations are met and that he gets all his money back in the end. Accordingly, when the stone-broke servant owed him 10,000 talents, the king orders him to be sold - lock, stock and barrel, wife and children - until restitution be made. Note, the amount of debt here - 10,000 talents. This amount is absolutely astronomical. It is the equivalent to a gazillion dollars, and the point is that it is an amount that would be impossible to pay it back. There is no forgiveness in the story at this point and no reason to expect any. From the king’s perspective you have to pay what you have to pay. And if you can’t . . . well if you can’t, you’ll have to pay.

But then, the servant falls on his knees before his master and pleads: Have patience with me and I will repay you everything. Fat chance, this guy couldn’t pay off this kind of debt in a hundred lifetimes. But notice . . . the king immediately goes from the attitude of a hard nose to being a real pushover. The king doesn’t agree to the request for more time, he simply cancels the huge debt in its entirety. Enter here the important point: the servant simply asked for consideration . . . but what he got is pure grace. He does not have to present some kind of plan to repay his debt. The king simply forgives him his debt for reasons entirely within himself. The King, however, responds with nothing that the servant had in mind. He ignores the nonsense about repayment and simply cancels the entire debt, en toto. Forget it ever existed. This is really the picture that Jesus wants to paint. He is not trying to set up some kind of pro quid pro quo situation concerning forgiveness as if it is some kind of new Law. Such an idea misses grace entirely and puts us right back into a situation of obligations: we are required to forgive others as we are forgiven . . . and this crusty servant blows his obligation big time, not even forgiving the other a little when he has been forgiven a tons worth. No, this take on the parable misses it all entirely.

The point is this: the life of living by grace is all one cloth. The servant ends up in prison, not because he doesn’t measure up to the required obligations of pro quid pro quo. He ends up in prison because he will not die to law-demanding obligations and live under grace. He will not have a life ruled by forgiveness. And that is just what Peter and we here this morning need to understand. Forgiveness is not about second chances to meet your obligations. It is not about getting more time to make things right. Nor is a life of grace about the obligation of forgiving seven times, or even the obligation of forgiving seventy-times-seven. Grace is not an appropriate action under certain circumstances or for a limited number of times . . . it is a whole new way of life. Forgiveness and forgiving are all part of the same cloth in the human heart that lives by grace . . . day in, and day out. The heart that can receive grace and forgiveness is the same heart that forgives. If the heart cannot forgive others; if it is a heart that cries out for what the other has coming to him for what he has done . . . that very same heart builds the corrosive residues of bitterness and resentment that choke out the desire and trust for grace in one’s own life. You simply cannot desire to live by justice and grace at the same time in our life with God and others. This parable has nothing to do with any civil use of the Law, we are talking about habits of the heart, not the canons of a just government.

Jesus is teaching us, not about some pre-conditions for grace here in this parable. He is not saying that there is one precondition, one work of the Law, namely forgiving others that you must do in order to be forgiven. Rather, He is teaching about the singular nature of a life lived by grace. Jesus came into the world and died for all the debts of world . . .and that includes the ones that others have committed against you; even the ones that have offended you mightily, even the ones that really hurt, even the ones that just stick in your craw that you can’t let pass. When they sinned against you it was His Law that was transgressed, not yours. To live by grace is to understand that the Father has taken the obligations of those who have sinned against you and cancelled them forever in the cross of Christ. It is no different than your sins that you have committed against others. Since God has died to the whole business of demanding justice from debtors in Christ’s atonement for sin, you must die to it as well. Grace involves us dying to the matters of seeing that people get what is coming to them when they sin against us, instead of living by forgiveness alone.

But if you demand that they get what is coming to them, even if you rationalize that it’s a relaxed sentence from what they REALLY DESERVE . . . you give up a life of grace also for yourself. Living by grace is not demanding an ounce of flesh instead of a pound. It is not letting them off easy. It is forgiving them pure and simple. God does not give you a relaxed sentence in Hell, say 50 years, instead of eternity. He forgives your entire debt. And therefore grace means living by forgiveness as one whole cloth, or living without it. You cannot live with the one received, without living with the other given. Such is just impossible for the human heart even if you are playing games about relaxed penalties for what they have done to you. There are no alternatives. We live by grace - living by forgiveness and forgiving - or we do not live at all.

This is the final point in the parable. When other fellow servants who understand all this see the unforgiving servant exercising all his prerogatives with the one who owes him a paltry hundred denarii when the king did not exercise his prerogatives over against his huge debt, they inform the king of his unwillingness to live by grace. In anger the king exclaims . . . You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt just because you asked. Don’t you think you should have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? Don’t you you think that you ought to die to the Law and live by the free grace that I have provided by my death? So the king orders that the unforgiving sinner be bound and thrown into prison until he should pay off his huge debt. . . which of course will be never. The man is in there for good. And then Jesus says to Peter and to us, this word of judgment. So also my Heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not each forgive your brother from your heart.

The word of judgment here that Jesus pronounces at the end of the parable must be understood only in light of grace. This is a parable of grace. It is a parable that tells us about our gracious God who has died to living with us by the Law in the death of his Son on the cross. It is a done deal. Jesus fulfilled the Law and we are all forgiven. Everybody is forgiven. All debts are cancelled. The obligations are all torn up concerning the debts of every human sinner. All those in Heaven and all who will ever be there, you and I, have our sins forgiven. But such is also the case with those in prison. Those in Hell have all their sins forgiven as well. The only difference is this: those in Heaven have died to sin and legal obligations. They live with and in the forgiveness of our Creator and Redeemer. . . forgiven and forgiving. Those who are lost refuse to die to sin and living by what obligation requires. They are forgiven, but they are refusing to die, that they might live. So, in Hell also, there are only forgiven sinners. He forgives the badness of even the worst of us, and He never takes back that forgiveness, not even at the botton of the bottomless pit. It isn’t that He let’s us off easy, He has died to your sin, and so must we. Grace is a way of life, or there is no life. But this is a parable of grace for you; yes you, the chief of sinners. The Lord’s gift to you is a life of grace - forgiveness and forgiving. All debts are cancelled . . . forever. A-men!