The Unmerciful Servant

Last evening we looked at the parable of The Unmerciful Servant, in Matthew 18.  We talked about the fact that God has forgiven our wrongs and we must forgive the wrongs other people do to us.  Because God has shown mercy to us, we must show mercy to other people.  In this way, we can enjoy the forgiveness and the grace of God.


The notes of our discussion are below.

October 31, 2011

The Unmerciful Servant

Opening question: What had been a situation where someone has shown mercy toward you or someone you know and how has that make you feel?

Mercy or grace is the compassionate treatment, especially of those who do not deserve it, kindness, forgiveness.  We all make mistakes in our lives and sometimes do what is wrong, so we all can bring examples of mercy and forgiveness.

Today, we are going to look at one story from the Bible, the one that is usually known by the name The Unmerciful Servant.  The story is found in Matthew 18:22-19:1:  Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”  22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Matthew 19

1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan.

This story begins with Peter asking how many times should he forgive his brother or sister.  Then, he puts a limit on the amount of times to forgive, according to him.

What do you think of this number?  How many times should we forgive someone?  How many times should we be forgiven?

Apparently, Jesus’ reply (which means a large number) caused a bit of confusion among the disciples, because Jesus fell the need to use a story to illustrate his point.

The first servant owed a lot, ten thousand talents (or bags of gold), an extremely high amount of money that he would never be able to pay.  Nonetheless, the master shows mercy and grace and when the servant begged, he forgave his debt.

The servant is us, the sinners, because our wrongs are a debt we owe to God, which we cannot pay.  No matter how hard we try, we will still do something wrong, lose our patience, lie, cause someone pain and so on.  But God can forgive us everything, if we ask Him for that.

Why is forgiveness important?  What happens if we do not forgive someone or someone does not forgive us?

In return, after the servant is released from this extremely hard burden, he turned to another servant that owed him a small amount of money.  Notice the difference not only in the amounts, but also in the behavior.  Even though the first servant was forgiven, he does not show mercy toward his fellow brother.

What is the lesson for us?  What do other brothers or sisters owe us?

In the same way that God has shown mercy toward us, we should show mercy toward other people.  Remember that we ourselves have been forgiven.  It was within God’s rights to throw us in jail, in other words “punish” us for our sins.  But He was kind, merciful, even though we did not deserve it.  And He expects that we show mercy to our brothers and sisters in the same way.

What is the reaction of the master when He hears this?

The master is outraged, calling the unmerciful servant “wicked”.  The master does on to reverse his forgiveness and instead decides to punish the wicked servant.  We do not want to be in that same situation.  We can and we should forgive one another, because at one time we were sinners and we make mistakes, just as other people make mistakes that may hurt us in our lives.

Conclusions

God has forgiven all our sins, great and grave as they were.  He expects us in return to forgive the people that sin against us and to restore our relationship with them.  In this way, we show mercy and kindness toward them, just as God has shown mercy and kindness toward us.