September 17, 2023
Matthew 18:21-35
This is a parable about the Kingdom of God, and it is a parable about us. We are the unmerciful servant, wanting pity and mercy for ourselves while we will not, we cannot extend the same to others.
So what’s to be done with us? Forgiveness – for us and others – is not easy. At times we do not want to forgive and at others, we want more than anything to be forgiven.
Saint Paul is right. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yet, Saint Paul would remind us that we have to remember who told this parable.
Jesus was asked about forgiveness. “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus says to forgive 70 times, not 7. And who has obeyed? Who has forgiven that person or themselves for that one thing we cannot forgive? “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[iii] But (and it’s a big but so you know it does not lie) the glory of God is just that, God’s glory; Christ’s glory. And God has forgiven us 70 times and then some.
In accepting the forgiveness extended to us by God, we die to our desires and live in the light of God’s glory. God’s grace and glory raises the dead, and none of our debts, none of our sins are an obstacle, none are significant enough to stop that kind of power, that kind of mercy.
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