Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
The parable before us from Matthew today is really quite breathtaking. A very powerful king has decided that today is the day he is going to settle his accounts with his slaves (or servant/laborers). For one servant, in particular, this is especially bad news. This servant owes 10,000 talents. According to those in the know, a talent was worth a great deal. To translate it into labor, it would take a servant (or laborer) fifteen years just to pay off one talent. To pay of 10,000 talents—impossible. Knowing this, the king orders that the servant, along with his family and all of his possessions, be sold. There is no hope for this servant. He cannot ever pay that debt—no matter how long and or how hard he tries to do so. He is lost.
Knowing this, the servant falls upon his knees and begs for mercy. But to a king who is quite prepared to sell him and his whole family? What are the chances?
Zip.
What does the king do? He forgives it all. Just erases the debt. Wipes it all away.
Can we even begin to imagine how astonished the servant must have been? To think that such a ginormous debt—an unpayable debt with dire consequences if not paid—was suddenly gone. He must have felt that after laboring with an anvil on his back for some time he had suddenly sprouted wings and could just fly away completely liberated.
Even more amazing than the story itself is the fact that it reveals something about the kingdom of heaven. We aren’t just hearing about some garden-variety king who inexplicably lifts an unbearable weight. The kingdom of God is like this. The king here is our God.
We all labor with anvils on our backs, don’t we? Anvils of sin. Anvils of regret. Anvils of shortcomings. All that we have done that we wished we hadn’t done. All that we have not done that we wished we had done. Such an unbearable burden. If we look across the years of our lives there is absolutely no way we can even begin to calculate the weight of it. The anvil is incomprehensibly heavy. With it upon us, we cannot move.
But within the kingdom of God, and for reasons we cannot explain, that weight is lifted. Removed. It makes no sense. All that we have done. All that we have left undone. Gone. Wiped away. Just a moment ago we could not even move under the burden of it. But within the kingdom, with the grace and mercy of our Lord, not only can we move—we can fly.
There is just one catch. We must do the same for others. When others are in our debt, we are called to live within the kingdom too. We are called to forgive. And when we do, we lift a great burden, maybe even an unbearable weight. In our forgiveness, we may even set the other into flight. What a kingdom! Praise be to God.
- Sue Trollinger