|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Genesis 5-:15–21 |
Psalm 114 |
Romans 14:1–12 |
Matthew 18:21–35 |
A prevalent motif in all of Jesus' teaching is the contrast between an old pattern of life and a renewed life, between ways of behavior that ultimately lead to continued wounding and death, and ways that promote healing and rebirth. Last Sunday the Gospel lesson stressed the importance of reconciliation. The Gospel wasn't giving an ironclad procedure for settling disputes; it was saying that reconciliation, not winning one's cause over an opponent, was the primary objective.
One wonders if the first disciples had difficulty grasping this lesson because, immediately afterward, Peter asked, "Well how often should I forgive one who sins against me? Is seven times enough?" Again, Jesus replied, "No I don't want to leave with you a rule and way of accounting for other people's sins, I want you to learn about forgiveness."
Jesus apparently then offered the disciples a parable about a forgiving lord and an unforgiving servant. The trouble is that the parable, as we have it, has become muddled in translation and while we can still learn from it what Jesus was illustrating, some of the details remain confusing. For example, the parable starts off by describing a king who wished to settle accounts, but then refers to the one who is owed the money as a lord. Someone we would consider a slave would never have control of large sums of money nor would he ever have been permitted to have any significant assets. Finally the last sentence of the parable, as we have it, appears on the surface to contradict all that Jesus is saying and one wonders if the Gospel writers simply didn't communicate clearly what Jesus had said or if this was an appendage added by a later preacher-commentator.
However, a reasonable gist of the parable can be recovered. The parable describes a wealthy lord who has entrusted his farms and other business ventures to various supervisors. One of these supervisors has been found to have mismanaged what was entrusted to him and the lord has discovered a huge loss. So the manager is brought in, fired, and then expected to make up the loss. Obviously the hapless former manager doesn't have the necessary assets to repay the loss. The custom would be to punish the manager by putting him in prison, confiscate all that the manager had, and sell his wife and children into slavery to help regain a small portion of the loss.
Instead the wealthy lord had a complete change of heart. He realized that he would never regain what was lost, and imprisoning the former manager and consigning his family to destitution would not do anything but cause more misery. The manager's children or grandchildren would be resentful and likely ever after look for a way of revenge. The cycle of settling accounts would never end.
The wealthy lord decided to act completely different and beyond all expectation by forgiving the debt and allowing the fired manager to return to his family and rebuild his life. The parable does not end there. Jesus realizes this is a hard, hard lesson for us to comprehend. The fired manager, instead of following the landlord's example and in turn accepting the gift of a new life, goes and takes one of his underlings by the throat and chooses to follow the old pattern of punishment and revenge.
I suggest that the last part of the parable, in which the wealthy lord comes and reneges on his action because the manager is unable to change his way of behavior, is not something added because Jesus intended to imply that God would renege on the Biblical promises. Matthew wanted to emphasize to the early church and all later followers that Jesus' mission wasn't to get even with the world's opposition. God is not out to settle scores or get even according to the world's way of accounting. There were passionate disagreements within the church that Matthew knew and increasing opposition to the Gospel without. Hence Matthew wanted it to be clear that the Gospel offered a new way of bearing disagreements within the family and behaving to those who rejected and opposed the Gospel. Hence the continuation of Jesus' mission entrusted to the church never involves trying to wreck retribution or revenge on those who oppose us, or who reject the Gospel, or to overtly or covertly sabotage their integrity. That's the old way of life that continues to breed resentment, and a dismal spiral of reciprocal revenge. When the church has forgotten this warning, as it has many times, it only causes more tragedy and frankly, sets back all that Jesus came to earth to accomplish.
To be sure, this radical new way of acting is a very difficult lesson to actually put into continual practice. It is controversial and even ridiculed in the world. Just read the paper. Yet to paraphrase the poet/street philosopher Peter Maurin, the teachings of Jesus and practice of the Gospel will be practical when the people of God practice it.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
