Mt 18:21-35

I have to admit that when I was a child more than sixty years ago, I had two distinct reactions to this Gospel reading.

  • The first was that I was practicing my multiplication table by doing 'seventy times seven.' That equals four hundred ninety.
  • The second one was reacting to the king's punishment of the debtor. It was 'dasurv,'[1] that Filipino Gen Z expression for schadenfreude, that malicious enjoyment obtained from observing someone else's misfortune.[2] It was from seeing the punishment received by the unforgiving servant, finally. Karma, as others would say.

Years later, I got curious about how much money was owed by the unforgiving debtor to the king.

Our translation today says a 'huge' amount. But how huge? The Greek uses μυρίων ταλάντων myriōn talantōn; ten thousand talents. A thousand does not seem as big as it used to be in today's world, no thanks to inflation. But we need to remember that the Greek word μυρίων myriōn also meant a very large, or --- more precisely --- an indefinitely large number, i.e., innumerable[3], during the time of our Lord. It was the term used by ordinary people for the uncountable.[4]

What is the value of a ταλάντων talantōn, a talent? A talent was  lbs of a precious metal such as silver or gold.  lbs. is 37.30797 kilos. Silver today costs $811.65 per kilo. Thus a talent of silver today would cost $30,286.98. Ten thousand talents would be $302,869,831.25 or 15,852,812,707.65 PHP. For comparison, that would be about 12.8% or  of what the family of one presidential candidate owes in estate taxes. And we are looking at silver talents.

If the ten thousand talents were in gold, they would cost 76 times as much, a 1,214,131,141,800.00 PHP or 1.2 trillion pesos PHP, a little more than a quarter of the Philippine 2022 national budget.

Hence it is easy to understand why the king was visibly angry with the servant who had no compassion for his fellow worker.

How much did the fellow worker order? The debt was ἑκατὸν δηνάρια hekaton dēnaria, a hundred denarii. A denarius or one of a hundred denarii was a worker's pay for a day's work in the field or a vineyard.[5] Consider it a daily minimum wage today. In Davao, that would be 365.00 PHP, cheaper than two venti size Cold Foam Iced Espresso (the reason why I only drink coffee at home).

Thus, a hundred days' wages for a minimum wage earner in Davao would be 36,500 PHP, cheaper than an iPhone 11 at Shopee!

Our Lord ends with

So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.

Matthew 18, 35

What then does it mean to forgive from one's heart?

May I suggest then how I understand 'forgiving from one's heart'?

We know what it means to be forgiven. But we recall that elsewhere in the Gospels, God is shown as being ready to forgive, even before the sinner is repentant! That is one of the lessons from the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

We need to recall that in that parable, and in this one, the sinner, the debtors, in this parable, admit to their offenses.

Indeed, the fault has to be acknowledged by the sinner.

Note too that the listeners of this story knew that the king in the parable was probably not a Jew. Jews were not permitted to sell other Jews, he could not be expected to impose that judgment.

For Jesus to point out that this king pardoned the debt, he was saying that if a Gentile could be this merciful, so must a Jew and a Christian be!

The listeners knew that given the size of the debt, it could not be ever repaid hence the king's decision to forgive was completely unexpected.

This interaction between the king and the forgiven debtor is no longer about paying a debt but changing the servant's heart.

So it is with us; repentance is not for God's sake; it is for our sake. It is for our own reform and progress in our spiritual life.

The Gentile king saw that the servant's subsequent action showed that the desired change in the heart had not taken place. He changed the penalty to one which no longer covered the servant's family directly but was harsher than the original one. The unforgiving servant would be tortured until he could repay the unpayable debt.  

I propose then that forgiveness from the heart means forgiveness which desires an interior change for the better in the forgiven person.

I highlight that the Gentile king did not look for gratitude from the unforgiving servant.

I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?

Matthew 18, 32-33

He expected the servant to pay it forward.

That, I think, is the first lesson from this parable.

But wait! There is a second lesson to be learned.

I think of the workers who mentioned what the unforgiving servant did to the other servant. They were not involved; there was no visible reason why they should be. But they were outraged!

The Greek uses the phrase It is said that they were deeply disturbed ἐλυπήθησαν σφόδρα elypēthēsan sphodra. Elypēthēsan means deep emotional pain, very intense pain. It is a word used to describe the pain of childbirth.[6] It is amplified more by sphodra, meaning exceedingly. The workers felt exceedingly deep intense emotional distress because of what happened to the other servant.

Today, many are being treated unjustly by the powerful who do so because they can act with impunity. We can choose to remain uninvolved. But should we stay uninvolved, i.e., 'wapakels?'[7] The other workers showed empathy and did something about it.

So should we. 

[1] This FilipinoGenZ slang word used to stress that a person deserved something unpleasant or undesirable.

[2] https://www.wordnik.com/words/schadenfreude

[3] https://biblehub.com/greek/3463.htm

[4] https://www.foundalis.com/lan/grknum.htm

[5] Campbell, A. D. (1986). The Monetary System, Taxation, and Publicans in the Time of Christ. The Accounting Historians Journal, 13(2 (Fall 1986)), 5.

[6] https://biblehub.com/greek/3076.htm

[7] A Filipino GenZ slang word meaning apathetic and uninvolved.