It is obvious that the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is about forgiveness, but what it actually says about forgiveness can be a bit elusive. It seems to say that if you do not forgive the sins of others; your own sins will not be forgiven. Fair enough. The trouble is, forgiveness isn’t fair; it’s totally unfair. That’s the whole point of forgiveness. We often complain about unfairness if we are blamed for something we did not do, or if we think the punishment is out of proportion to the offense. But forgiveness is an opposite unfairness; we are not given the punishment we deserve. We don’t complain about the unfairness of it except for when it comes to other people who obviously deserve a harsh punishment for what they did to us,

Fairness and unfairness aside, this parable seems to pose the conundrum about the forgiving god being unforgiving. We could say it isn’t God but the Master in the parable who is unforgiving. There’s no question about the Master, but does the Master stand in for God? The concluding verse seems to suggest it: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Mt. 18: 35) But how can we speak of God being forgiving if God does not always forgive? Of course, if we aren’t inclined ourselves to forgive the unforgiving servant, who are we to judge God for not forgiving him?

I find the Swiss theologian Raymund Schwager helpful here. In his book Jesus in the Drama of Salvation he develops a dramatic theology in five acts. The first act is the proclamation of , forgiveness, most powerfully expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The second act is the refusal of the message of forgiveness on the part of Jesus’ hearers. This parable and many others that include acts of violence fall into this second act. That Peter asked if he had to forgive as much as seven times is an example of resisting the teaching on forgiveness. Schwager suggests that the weeping and gnashing of teeth that crops up in several parables refer to this refusal of Jesus’ message. Schwager emphasizes the point that Jesus is not just talking about small-scale relationships; Jesus is preaching a System of forgiveness. Society is to be made up of forgiveness rather than blame and retaliation. If God really is a forgiving God, then God forgives our lack of forgiveness, but God does not save us from the consequences of sticking to the old system of blame and retaliation. All this old system ever got us is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Gnashing of teeth is an apt image of blame and retaliation; Paul admonished his corespondents to stop devouring one another. (Gal. 5: 15) On a more positive note, in Romans, Paul gives a concrete illustration of what it means to live and die for the Lord: Do not judge our brothers and sisters or hold them in contempt because we all stand under God’s judgment seat. (Rom. 14: 8, 10)

If Jesus does indeed want us to develop a system of forgiveness as Paul clearly believes, then it only takes one unforgiving person to short circuit the system and knock over all the dominoes of forgiveness in quite a spectacular crash. The effect is much the same if someone commits what seems an unforgivable act. Even worse is an act that combines vengeance with lying accusations. The only way to keep the system from crashing in a situation like this is to remain open to God’s gift of forgiveness as a free gift for ourselves and for the offender in the midst of the crash. If Jesus is indeed enjoining a system of forgiveness, then he isn’t telling Peter, as an individual, to forgive offenses seventy-seven times or seven times seventy times; he is asking Peter, as he is asking us, to counter offenses and vengeance by starting a counter chain reaction of forgiveness. Easier said than done. We need to be focused on God and not the one who has hurt us and certainly not on our own hurt. The judgment seat we stand under is a judgment of forgiveness, but forgiveness does shed light on what needs forgiving in the very act of forgiveness. That can be a painful and a built-in punishment for what we have done or not done. Forgiveness may get us off God’s hook, but it doesn’t take us off the hook we’ve hung ourselves on. We are easily distracted by thoughts (sometimes legitimate ones) that the other is the one who needs a lot of forgiveness, but we must remain grounded God’s forgiveness of us and use that free gift to participate in God’s forgiveness of others. Only then can we rebuild the system of a forgiving society.

In Schwager’s drama, the third, fourth, and fifth acts are the crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, far from punishing his unforgiving hearers, Jesus took on the wrath of their blame and retaliation on the Cross. And that is where accepting the gift of God’s forgiveness in the midst of blame and retaliation can take us as well. But what other way is there, really, to the resurrected life and the breath of the Holy Spirit which breathes God’s forgiveness of our sins?