Ever More Perfect
Twenty-fourth Sunday of the Year. Fr Peter Harries suggests that forgiveness is a life-long project.
Ten thousand talents – a lot of money. It was. It was the tax revenue of a whole province of the Roman empire. Unimaginable for most of us. The financial background of the story is a privatised, corrupt and rapacious system of taxation. We also need to remember that these ‘servants’ in the parable were, in a non-Jewish context, most probably slaves. Slaves exercising important financial and commercial roles were well-documented in the time of Jesus, although the vast majority of slaves lived harsh lives of constant manual labour. Setting the story in a modern context, let’s suppose the annual tax revenue for Scotland completely disappeared from the 2006 revenues. Heads would roll and urgent stringent investigation into personal finances would commence, though perhaps avoiding the torturers in prison.
But what about the one hundred denarii? We learn elsewhere that one denarius was a good days’ wages for a labourer. So a hundred denarii would, in modern terms perhaps buy a new car or be the down payment on a mortgage. In Jesus’ time we might think of affording a new cart or two, each with a pair of oxen to draw them, although a slave would cost you anywhere between 500 and 200 denarii. One hundred denarii is certainly not the odd fifty pound note, but it was the kind of financial debt that ordinary people might face, unlike the stratospheric ten thousand talents. It has been calculated that the first debtor would need 600,000 people with debts like those of the second debtor to make up his initial loss.
So having grasped a little better the scale of the finances involved, what are we to make of the parable? Peter asks about forgiveness, how often must I forgive my brother. Even wearily, must I stretch it out to as many as seven times! Surely not that many! Jesus’s reply is that we must forgive each other seventy-seven times, in other words without numerical limits. God is a God of forgiveness so we must be a people of forgiveness, and Jesus illustrates the importance of forgiveness by telling this parable.
Some commentators want to emphasise the contrast between the immense scale of God’s forgiveness of our sins, and the substantial but understandable scale of human forgiveness of injuries caused to us. A good comment, but I think we can understand more to the story. Peter has asked if he must forgive even seven times, seven being the number of perfection. Jesus’ reply calling us to forgive seventy-seven times may suggest that our forgiveness of other’s sins needs to be a perfect forgiveness, and that by forgiving others regularly we need to keep on growing towards a life of perfection. This perhaps contrasts with a style which treats forgiveness as something routine and perfunctory.
Forgiving others can take time. Pressurising other people to forgive violent aggressors in the immediate aftermath of an event is not appropriate. Healing and forgiveness grow together. Forgiveness for offenses against us, great and small, is a life-long project, seventy-seven times or even more, as we grow more perfect. It is often our way of picking up our cross and following after Jesus.
‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ The words of the Our Father trip off our tongue, but do we take then seriously? Do we bear grudges, do we sometimes prefer to hang onto resentments and petty feuds and continue to take delight in them? Honestly? This is why Jesus tells us this story about a king (understood as God the Father) who first forgives the servant (any of us) a colossal debt. In return we must forgive the substantial injuries that have been done to us. If we don’t live lives forgiving others, then the outcome may be like that of the first servant, punishment.
Talking as a priest with Christian people who have spiritual issues, I often find that a deep lack of forgiveness for injuries suffered recently or long ago, can inhibit growth in the life of grace. This happens especially when people are returning to a more faithful life of love of God and love of neighbour, expressed in sacramental fidelity.
And if we don’t forgive others? Being handed over to the torturers, as Jesus suggests in the parable, is not the destiny we want for ourselves.
Readings: Ecclesiasticus 27:33-28:9 | Romans 14:7-9 | Matthew 18:21-35
Image: detail from a stained glass window depicting the return of the Prodigal Son by Franzmayerstainedglass via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
