Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
It is possible to receive forgiveness but take a lesson from it that is entirely wrong, the opposite of what we ought learn. We all stand before God with a debt even larger than the massive debt of the servant in this parable. Hopefully we all do in fact come to God for forgiveness. But some of us come to see this forgiveness in such a way that we believe that we have discharged our obligations toward our heavenly King, that we no longer stand in a relationship of dependence toward him. The idea that gets us in trouble is that our lives are ours to do with what we please once we have forgiveness. This has an initial appeal. But it leads to existential terror when we realize that on our own we have nothing to protect us from the various negative circumstances that might occur in life. We must, as it were, become the gods of our own lives, jobs to which we are not well suited. Without remaining rooted in the compassion of the king we can only root our identity in changing and corruptible things. We can't shake the vague sense that we our very selves might be destroyed by any negative change of our fortune. And so we become desperate, even though we have been forgiven and should know better.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
If we want to know how deeply we have received the mercy of God into our own hearts we ought to look at how we treat others more than our subjective feelings about it or whether we enjoy singing songs praising him for it. We are more than able to plaster over the exterior of our hearts, but still try to extract all we can from others as though our very continued existence depends upon it. The point of forgiveness is not that we can henceforth be independent of God and then flail around desperately as we try to fend for ourselves. It is so that we will learn to trust his love and remain rooted in it. Given that we know all this, and yet still sometimes demand from creatures what we ought to receive from God alone, how can we take precautions against such flawed tenancies? Our first and second readings have some pointed suggestions.
remember death and decay, and cease from sin!
If we remember our own finitude we won't try to extract from creatures a security or certainty that they cannot offer. We will thus be more free to show them compassion, to let the mercy we first receive from God flow through us to them.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
If we remember that our lives are no longer meant to be about us but about Jesus we will not make the mistake of forgetting his agenda to pursue our own. We will treat our brothers and sisters as those who should be shown mercy and love since this is God's will for them just as it is for us.
remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.
If we remember the covenant of the Lord we will recognize that the entire story of salvation history is built on the tender mercy of our loving heavenly Father. We won't attempt or desire to be free and independent of one who has loved us so constantly and so well. We will see the story would have ended long ago if God was committed to strict justice, but which continues precisely because his heart is one of mercy. His mercy is meant to be the firm foundation of our own lives, and the basis of our own relationship with others. This should not become for us a mere obligation or a duty to avoid certain kinds of stingy behavior. It is at least that. But it is meant to give us the confidence in God's love that transforms our own hearts so that we genuinely want to show others the love we have received from him.
The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion
Songs In His Presence - So Bless The Lord
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