The issue of forgiveness is a perennial religious question. It is a theme that runs through the entire Gospel. We meet it at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt 5:23ff). This implies that conflict is a normal part of human affairs. At some point in our lives, we find ourselves bearing hurt and grudges against others. For most of us these disputes emerge out of the relatively ordinary events of everyday life: spat with a partner over division of labour or financial issues, disagreeable, disobedient children who, at times, get on our last nerve, a misunderstanding between friends causing hurt feelings, or aggravation with a boss or workmate that leads to contention in the workplace.
These frictions may even happen frequently. How do I react when they happen? Do I forgive as often as seven times? This is the question that Peter put before Jesus in the Gospel: “Lord, how many times must I forgive the offenses of my brother or sister? Seven times?” (Matt 18:21). With this question, Peter is asking if there is a limit to forgiveness. Should I allow my brother or sister to continue to offend me endlessly and I forgive at every instance? Shouldn’t there be a point where I draw the line and say: “Enough is enough”? Jesus responds to Peter’s question by indicating that forgiveness has no limit. We must not make calculations. We cannot count how many times we forgive. The true Christian disciple has to adopt a lifestyle according to the dynamics of the kingdom in which mercy is boundless and forgiveness is without reservation. Hence Jesus says: “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy times seven” (Matt 18:22). To illustrate the unconditional nature of forgiveness Jesus employs a parable.
The parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21-35) is also known as the parable of the merciless servant. It draws our attention to the need to forgive at all times and to do so promptly. The parable contains three scenes. First, there is a king who forgives. Secondly, there is a servant who punishes. The third scene compares the two modes of action between a forgiving master and an unforgiving servant. In the first scene, a master, in the process of settling his accounts with his stewards, was brought a servant who owed him ten thousand talents. This is a huge sum of money. The total annual income of Herod’s kingdom was just nine hundred talents. Even the total tax revenues of Galilee did not exceed two thousand talents.
The parable aims to show here that there is no way the servant could have paid back his debt. Even his desperate plea for more time is unreal (cf. Matt 18:26). No extension of time could have been enough for the servant to pay off what he owed. It is on this account that the master gave orders that the servant and his entire family and belongings be sold to meet up the debt. But this order is followed by a surprising move of pity following the plea of the servant. This made the master not only to release him but also to entirely cancel out his debt.
When a king forgives an immense debt to a servant, what should one expect from the servant? The forgiveness of so huge a debt should result in some attitude of gratitude and compassion from those who benefit. Being a servant who has been forgiven, he should know how best to treat a fellow servant since he himself has experienced first-hand the consequences of poverty and the merits of compassion. But this does not happen. As the servant who was forgiven went out, he ran into a fellow servant who in turn owes him a hundred denarii. For a servant, one hundred denarii roughly corresponded to a little more than the pay for three months of work. This is grossly immaterial when compared with ten thousand talents. Here we see the attitude of the forgiven servant towards a fellow servant. The harsh treatment meted by the forgiven servant on his fellow servant is underlined from the words of the parable: “He grabbed him by the neck and almost strangled him, shouting, ‘Pay me what you owe!’” (Matt 18:28).
The servant is asking for justice. No one of us will frown at this. But the ruthless manner in which he went about it shows the stark contrast between his attitude and that of his master. He had been introduced into the compassionate heart of his master. He should have learnt from this attitude of the master, but he failed to. He admired his master’s attitude, but he does not want to imitate him. As with the forgiven servant, the debtor servant fell down at the feet of his fellow servant and asked for an extension of time, but his plea fell on deaf ears. The ruthlessness of the forgiven servant is completely unjustifiable. He throws his debtor colleague in prison “until he has paid all his debt” (Matt 18:30).
The last scene of the parable begins with the reaction of the other servants who saw everything that happened. They were “greatly distressed” at the way and manner the forgiven servant treated his fellow servant. It is from this standpoint of sadness and pain that “they went and reported everything to their master” (Matt 18:31). The master summoned the merciless servant and said to him, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all that you owed when you begged me to do so. Weren’t you bound to have pity on your companion as I had pity on you?” (Matt 18:33).
The unlimited and unconditional forgiveness of the master is thus reversed. The master’s final sentence is based on the concept of justice that the servant adopted towards his colleague. Mercy now gives way to justice. This is indicated in the denouement of the parable. The forgiven servant is now punished because of his failure to show mercy just as mercy was shown to him. “The Lord was now angry, so he handed his servant over to be punished, until he had paid his whole debt” (Matt 18:34). Jesus concludes the parable by indicating that God will treat us in this way unless we sincerely forgive our brothers and sisters from our heart (cf. Matt 18:35).
This parable highlights the nature of God. He is compassionate when implementing forgiveness, but He is angry when mercy has no place in our lives. The forgiving attitude of God ought to shape our lives. We are not only to stand in awe of God’s mercy. We are to imitate the God who is merciful and full of compassion (cf. Luke 6:36). According to St Thomas Aquinas, “The omnipotence of God is shown, above all, in the act of his forgiveness and the use of his mercy, for the way He has of showing his supreme power is to pardon freely.” For St. John Chrysostom “Nothing makes us so God-like as our willingness to forgive.”
Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer: In the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we raise our hearts to God asking for his forgiveness for our sins. We say: “Forgive us our sins just as we forgive those who sin against us” (Mt 6:12). This petition grows from a realization that we are in a world where people offend one another. Offenses can be in relation to God or in relation to one another. How do we repair the harm that others have caused us? Is it by retaliation or by forgiveness? If it is by retaliation the result is a chain of sin and guilt. This will lead to the viral multiplication of evil, with guilt growing and expanding ceaselessly until it becomes impossible to repair. Thus, with the petition on forgiveness, Jesus tells us that guilt can be overcome, not by retaliation, but by forgiveness.
Father Ojeifo is a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja.
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