A Parable About Forgiveness

Parables can be enlightening, frustrating and perplexing. Remember how often Jesus’ disciples were confused by his parables. Because parables are not a common teaching tool these days it’s easy for us to be confused as well. Sometimes we try to read them as stories with one moral or a single point. To do this we often allegorize them. Character A= J; Character B= X.

The word “parable” comes from Greek. Para meaning “along side” as in parallel or paradox, and balo “to cast, “to throw”. In a parable, something is set alongside, placed beside something else for comparison. It can be a positive comparison, or a negative comparison.

Parables are meant, for the most part to be little stories that make us think. They ask us to wonder and ponder and discuss. Parables by design invive a variety of readings. When we spend time with a parable, new insights, new ideas, and new challenges appear. Jesus’ parables use situations that his listeners, people living in the first century, would understand. Which means that as 21st century people, we may not understand unless we spend some extra effort learning a bit about first century life and culture. ¹

Amy Jill Levine in her book Short Stories by Jesus says this about parables.

If we stop with the easy lessons, good though they may be, we lose the way Jesus’s first followers would have heard the parables, and we lose the genius of Jesus’ teaching. Those followers, like Jesus himself, were Jews, and Jews knew parables were more than children’s stories or restatements of common knowledge. They knew that parables and the tellers of parables were there to prompt them to see the world in a different way, to challenge, and at times to indict.

We might be better off thinking less about what they “mean” and more about what they can “do”: remind, provoke, refine, confront, disturb…

Amy-Jill Levine “Short Stories by Jesus, p 4 (HarperOne:2014)

This week’s New testament lesson is Matthew 18:21-35. Which immediately follows last week’s reading. Jesus is still talking about forgiveness. After answering Peter’s questions about how often to forgive, Jesusa tells a parable.

In this parable, Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a kingdom that his followers were familiar with. They knew how the empire works. The fact that the king showed mercy was likely shocking. This is not how any king they knew about acted. The forgiven slave’s action- throwing his debtor into prison- that’s how the world worked. Notice that the other slaves advocate for the imprisoned slave, not unlike last week’s emphasis on the community supporting the wronged person.

What does this parable suggest about forgiveness? That it is unexpected? That it is conditional? That it is required? Is this parable about individual actions or is it a critique of a societal injustice? Maybe it’s both. What questions does this parable bring up for you?

One takeaway is that forgiveness really matters to God and so by extension, it should matter to us. God forgives us, we in turn forgive others. Remember Matthew’s version of the Lord’s prayer (6:9-13) “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Then in verses 14 -15 Jesus says “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” That statement gets my attention.

Forgiveness is serious business. It’s not easy. We can come up with all sorts of “what about….” questions. We can raise all sorts of objections about actual debt forgiveness and actual trespasses. ²

I think the parable suggests, forgiveness is both personal and societal. You and I need to forgive other people. But also, as a society we need to think seriously about forgiveness. What does it look like for a society to forgive? What does forgiveness look like between nations? We need to think about justice, not punishment. Restitution, rehabilitation, and restoration rather than knee jerk, automatic incarceration. How do we forgive and keep everyone safe? Do we forgive and if so how, if someone is unrepentant, declares what they did was not wrong, their behavior doesn’t need to change.

These are difficult questions. And they are questions Jesus doesn’t give us detailed instructions. He gives us parables and the example of his life. Amazingly, he trusts us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to figure this out together.

1. This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. A good study Bible will get you off to a good start. ↩︎
2. By the way, trespass, comes from a Greek word meaning something like a false step, an error, to deviate from the path. ↩︎