In His Debt: Sunday Reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 18:21–35:

Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’

“Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison until he paid back the debt.

“Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, rich in compassion. Are we? Or do we cling to our injuries and insults, refusing to pardon those who seek it out of a sense of worldly justice? Today’s responsorial from Psalm 103 reminds us of our heavenly Father’s love for His children, as well as our true relationship to Him. And in His analogy, Jesus makes clear that we have to make a choice if we want to enter into the divine, Trinitarian eternity He promises.

Today’s first reading takes a more direct approach to the holding of grudges and the seeking of revenge as justice. Unlike some other books in the Old Testament, the Book of Sirach has well-known, documented authorship and a clear time frame. Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira – rendered ‘Sirach’ in the Greek – wrote the book less than two centuries before Jesus’ birth. Ben Sira’s grandson translated the book into Greek about 70 years after its creation in classical Hebrew.

Why should the timing interest us? The Wisdom of Sirach provides one of the last quasi-prophetic voices in the Scriptures prior to Jesus and John the Baptist. Ben Sira offered warnings and guidance on many matters, but his teachings on debt and vengeance (Sirach 27) foreshadow the arrival of the Messiah and His clear message of meekness and love:

Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven. Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD? Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins? If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins? Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.

When Jesus spoke in parables, as He does in today’s Gospel, His audience and sometimes even His disciples did not fully comprehend His meaning. This passage from Sirach provides an answer key of sorts to several of Jesus’ most well-known parables, including today’s. Jesus spoke more directly on these matters in the Sermon on the Mount, which again this foreshadows to some degree, as do passages in other prophetic books of wisdom in the Old Testament.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches accept Sirach as prophetic canon (presumably for this reason), and the timing of these teachings cannot be overlooked. At times, it feels as though the Lord went silent between the return of the Babylonian exiles and Jesus and John, but the Lord had not been silent. He had touched those who could still teach the lost children of Israel about the Law and His love, and to call them back from their sin and heal their souls.

Even at that late date, the Lord told His people that He longed to forgive their debts and embrace them in forgiving love, if only they would form themselves in the Word well enough to receive it. Within 120 years, the Word became flesh and prepared to offer Himself as the sacrifice necessary in the blood covenant with Abraham to save all those who choose the Lord. In his way, Ben Sira offered a preparation for the Messiah to come rather than the Messiah that the Israelites expected – a Messiah of service, of sacrificial love, and of an eternal kingdom rather than an instrument of material vengeance.

This makes the parable offered in today’s Gospel even more biting. When Jesus tells Peter that forgiveness must be unlimited, He does not just offer that as a prescription for us but also as a description of the forgiveness the Lord is offering us, and forming us to receive. The king in this parable models the divine meekness – which is not a lack of strength, but power purposely abated in love of others so that they may thrive. The king always has the power to call in his loan and demand service for the debt, but he sets it aside to allow his servant to live in peace.

The servant refuses to form himself in that meekness, however, and Jesus describes the outcome in the parable. Ben Sira offers a more direct description of the consequence: death and decay. We are both material and spiritual beings, and we must choose whether to be led by our spiritual nature or our material impulses. When we choose the latter and ignore the model of meekness provided by both Scripture and Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we align ourselves with decay and death. That alignment prevents us from forming ourselves as necessary for the caritas love of the Trinity, symbolized in this parable by the mercy shown by the king first for his own servant and then later for the servant’s debtor.

The Lord will not have to order our ‘torture’ as repayment of debt to Him. We will have ordered ourselves to it already.

Jesus added His own commandment during His ministry to the existing Law, offered in Mark 12:30-1:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

While this passage is not in our readings today, it is the encapsulation of both Jesus’ parable and the teaching from Sirach. Jesus called for us to form ourselves in those two commandments in preparation for our eternal life with the Father and all those who enter the Trinitarian life. If we choose to keep hugging wrath and anger tight rather than trusting in the Lord’s mercy and justice, we will find ourselves paying off our own debts and sins by our own choice and formation. When we embrace Jesus’ two commandments, we choose to release ourselves from the bondage of sin, and free ourselves to join in the love of God extended to all his children.

Previous reflections on these readings:

The front page image is “Parable of the Unforgiving Servant” by Claude Vignon, 1629. On display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours. Via Wikimedia Commons.

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections can be found here.