Matthew 18:21 to 19:1 for
Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Three times a
year, the Church at Mass turns to this Gospel reading— a horrendous parable of TORTURE
for failing to forgive.
This translation
says the first servant owed his king a huge amount.
However, the
original language says it was ten thousand talents.
A New Testament
Greek talent was the salary for
fifteen years of work.
So, ten thousand
talents are the salary for the work of one hundred and fifty thousand years.
That is an IMPOSSIBLE
debt, and there is NO way of paying it back, as
the Gospel indeed says.
The servant begged
the king: Be patient with me, and I will pay you back
in full.
That was
impossible; so, the king just forgave him the loan.
You
and I are in the same standing with God.
God
made us from nothing to live not merely one hundred and fifty thousand years,
but forever.
Even
if we were sinless, our souls are forever indebted to God.
So
then what kind of further impossible debt must we have since we are not only
alive, but also sinners?
Moreover,
what of God in Christ the King who, by HIS undergoing torture and death
in OUR stead, chose to pay all the debts we owe him?
He has
NOT merely FORGIVEN our debts.
Rather,
he has paid them with his own Body, Blood, Soul and Godhead.
The
second servant in today’s Gospel today owed the first what this translation
calls a much smaller
amount.
In
fact, the original language says it is a hundred denarii, the Roman salary for only a hundred DAYS in the land and time of
Christ.
That’s
as NOTHING against one hundred and fifty thousand YEARS.
The
sins of our fellow humans against us are as nothing against our everlasting
souls that we owe to God and against our sins that disown and dishonor our
Creator.
God
gives us mercy if we ask it.
However,
he lays down the condition that we forgive others from our hearts.
Otherwise
God will withhold his mercy from us.
But
even worse, horrendously worse!
Christ
says here on this page of his Gospel that his heavenly Father will do to us as
the king did to his indebted and unforgiving servant: handed him over to the TORTURERS until he should pay back the
WHOLE debt.
One
hundred and fifty thousand years of torture might as well be forever.
You
and I are here before the altar to dare to ask Christ our King and God to hand
over his Body and Blood to pay the impossible debts we owe him.
What
everlasting fools, DAMNED FOOLS, we should be to withhold a
lesser forgiveness from our fellow servants.
Turn. Love.
Repeat.
