The Unmerciful Servant Vs. The Repentant Thief

Gospel taken from Thursday of the 19th Week in OT
(Matthew 18:21–19:1)

Who was the unmerciful servant, and how does one end up like him?

Unforgiveness weaponizes people’s wounds into an argument for righteousness. Righteousness can simply be defined as being in good standing with God. Unforgiveness maintains that we are not in good standing with God because of His mercy, but because we have been wronged. Unforgiveness is appealing because it is an act of dominance.   It puts us in complete control over the status of our own righteousness.

This was the unmerciful servant.  The injustice of his own actions threatened the status of his good standing, with the King.  Rather than trust in the mercy of King and its healing power over his own failures, he opted for the false sense of control offered through unforgiveness.  The consequence? His unforgiveness actually worsened his good standing with the King - his actions forfeited the righteousness that the King gratuitously and mercifully offered.

Unforgiveness is toxic because it gives sin more power than it deserves.  It denies the victory of Christ’s forgiveness on the Cross. Denying the victory of the Cross ergo denies its power to transfigure one’s suffering into an instrument of healing.  Suffering that is not transformed is transmitted, and so the unmerciful person can only transmit and inflict sufferings upon others. 

We therefore can see how someone can quickly mimic the unmerciful servant.  When we give sin more power than the Cross, we make our own debt unbearable.  We have to alleviate the burden somehow, and we do such precisely by fixating on the debts of another.  Their sins offer the illusion that, even if we are not the hero, we can at least be the victim.  

So, how do we avoid this? Like the repentant thief, we embrace the beauty of our powerlessness and vulnerability.  St. Augustine offers a prayer that embodies this embrace: God, give what you command, and command what you will. 

We can apply this prayer to forgiveness.  God commands us to forgive - it is not an option.  But as this prayer implies, we need God to give us the very thing He commands us to do.  Forgiveness is something that the crucified Lord does in, through, and for us.  Jesus does not simply exemplify or model forgiveness.  He actually pours forgiveness into our very heart.

In other words, He gives us the thing that He commands.

We are therefore given the opportunity to live like the repentant thief who asks for, and receives, the justice of mercy. Or we can live like the unmerciful servant who seeks to possess justice on his own terms - only to find ourselves alienated and more wounded.

May we receive what God gives so that we may in turn offer to one another.

Or to put it in the words of the prayer Jesus taught us: may we be forgiven for our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.