Recently we heard the parable of the Unforgiving Servant at Mass. This parable is clearly about the need to forgive but often I do not think it is taken seriously in its details. Consequently, I have an opinion on how we can look at this parable that potentially makes it land even more powerfully than ever.
We need to notice, first of all, that we are dealing with a king. The king wishes to run his kingdom through using the services of senior slaves. Now and again, the king wants to do an audit to ensure that no one is cheating him. To this end he begins the audit by calling forward the one who owes him the most. In this case it is a man who owes ten thousand talents which is an enormous sum. Obviously, this man was originally owed the money for a reason. One might surmise that this individual is the effectively the reserve banker for the kingdom. It is his job, therefore, to lend out money to the subjects of the king to keep the economy functioning. The banker will charge interest, take his commission, and pass the profit on to the king.
The king is in a ruthless mood and looks to imprison the slave when he is unable to pay him back the money. The banker slave, who has been taken by surprise with the sudden audit, admits that he cannot pay the stupendous sum because the money has all been loaned out. That is why he thinks that with sufficient time he will be able to call in all of the loans and pay the king: "Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything." (Mt 18: 26) The change of heart by the king is amazing. He does not even need to have the money paid back but forgives the debt. This action potentially makes the banker slave stupendously rich since he can still call in the loans and then take all of the money for himself. The ten thousand talents is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
With this in mind, we can see how the banker immediately begins to enforce the loans by throttling, in the presence of other slaves, a debtor slave who owes hundreds of dollars. he does this in public because all the other slaves also owe him. He throttles this slave: "Pour encourager les autres" (to encourage the others). They will be next. Instead of giving the debtor time to pay the banker, who is now stupendously rich, throw him into prison with no mercy. The other slaves, seeing they will be in line for the same treatment, go to the king to tell him of the story.
The king, who from the outset was aware of the greed and ruthlessness of the banker, who happens to the be the loan shark of the kingdom, then has a pretext to act as he wished from the beginning. He recalls the banker, reimposes the debt and sends him to prison. The change here, however, is that this time around: "... his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay the entire debt." (Mt 18: 34) What a horrifying thought that the banker would have to wait for all the loans to come due and be paid back while being tortured to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars!
What is the application? I can see in this a parable about purgatory. If I do not forgive people, while alive, when I have been forgiven so much by the Lord, then I will experience the pains of purgatory until all effects of my own sin have been satisfied: "So my heavenly father will also do to every one of you, of you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart." (Mt 18: 35) That is a hideous thought! All the more to prompt me to forgive in this life while the mercy of God is offered to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment