The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant: Let us not waste our opportunity!

(These are just notes, without important explanations sometimes. Video homily is more complete: https://youtu.be/o-H4k0XExoE?si=SW7oq-bLi5_IxKqO )

As the Master does not forgive the servant who would not forgive his fellow servant, also God will not forgive us if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters.

1. The Master first forgives, but then he does not.

The first time, he forgives the selling of the servant and all his possessions, but then the Master does not forgive the pain of torture.

The selling goes towards payment of the debt, but it cannot pay it in full. The torture is until the debt is paid.

The selling is an order that follows reasoning: the servant cannot pay the debt, therefore, he himself and his things must be sold, so that somehow justice is made. The second time, the master sends the servant in anger to the torturers.

The first time, the servant hurt his master in his possessions: he was not careful with the goods of his master. He dealt with his master’s goods as if they were his own. The second time he hurt his master personally: he ignored his master’s compassion.

The first time, the servant could plead for mercy, the second time the servant could not.

The master’s forgiveness gives the servant another opportunity. The servant should give his fellow servant another opportunity. If the servant does not, then he deserves punishment.

2. Sin is misusing the Lord’s gifts, as bad administrators of God’s blessings. Sin is abusing the things that the Lord gave us to use.

Forgiving is here not punishing us immediately but giving us an opportunity to do better. We can do the same for our fellow servants: we can let them go, we can avoid punishing them. We cannot give them absolution for their sins, we cannot make them better persons, but we can make them participate of the mercy we have received: “I have not been punished, I won’t punish you, my brother. You go.”

The debt is the glory of God. We should have devoted ourselves and our goods to His glory, and we have not. All we have and all we are, are not enough to pay the debt: once we committed sin, we become unable to make up for them. The just punishment for sin is death (the selling of the servant), and the distribution of our goods to other people who may use them better than us (the selling of all of his possessions). This is what we deserve, but not what is given to us right away. We can plead for mercy. And just for the desire of making up for our sins, the Lord forgives us the entire debt and gives us another chance. This is why in confession we need to be truly sorry for our sins, wishing we had never committed them, and sincerely desiring to never sin again and to do whatever is in our power to avoid sin in the future. This is what it means, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.”

The selling of the servant (death) and of all of his possessions is not enough to pay the debt. But then, when the servant misuses his opportunity, when the servant despises the mercy he received and does evil, the master does something to the servant that can pay the whole debt. He sends him to be tortured. For how long? It doesn’t say. But if the debt is impossible to pay, then you can understand why hell must be eternal.

3. What blessings of God am I misusing? Talents, health, capacity to love, money, power…

Am I aware of how much I have been forgiven? What do I do with the opportunity I have to confess my sins and try to make up for them?

Am I putting someone in prison, away from my love and my prayers, in the cage of hatred? Let them go! 1) Consider that everything you have does not belong to you but is rather borrowed from God: God can take it away any time, be it money, power, health or life itself. 2) Consider that, because sometimes you have used those gifts irresponsibly, you have deserved that those things are taken away from you, and this has not happened yet: you have been spared by God. 3) Consider…