“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him” (Matthew 18:23-24)
When I think of the stories Jesus’ told about mercy and forgiveness, the first person that comes to mind for me is not a Christian person at all but my dear Muslim brother, Dr Hassoun, the former Grand Mufti of Syria.
For those who don’t know the story, Dr Hassoun’s youngest son, Sariya, was murdered by rebel insurgents in 2011, and at the funeral, Dr Hassoun delivered a eulogy where he spoke of forgiveness and reconciliation.
You can still watch it online. It’s about 20 minutes long. Towards the end he says:
“Those who are listening to me, who killed my son, Sariya, I’m addressing you. May God preserve you from heartache, and may you never experience the agony that you have caused us. I am asking God to inspire you to repentance before you leave this life, so as not to be your accuser on the day of judgement. … I forgive you.”
It is hard not to see the presence of the Spirit of God in those who truly forgive. From a Christian theological perspective, forgiveness is the ultimate gift of God to humanity, and those who compare the religions of the world tell us that Christianity is indeed distinctive in its emphasis on the divine nature of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. It is a divine force that has the power to heal individuals, to end wars and to bring peace to nations. In this story Jesus gives us in Matthew chapter 18, though, forgiveness is also a bit scary!
“One who owed [the king] ten thousand talents was brought to him” (Matthew 18:24)
A talent in this context is a weight of around 34 kilograms, presumably of solid gold. On today’s market, with gold selling at just under AUD $200,000 per kilogram, this slave had somehow incurred a debt of roughly two billion dollars – quite possibly greater than the GDP of his entire country! How had the king not noticed this?
I’m sure you’ve heard it said that ‘when you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem, but when you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, the bank has a problem’. In the case of this guy’s debt, the whole country has a problem!
Parables, of course, are often a form of humour, but if this is a joke, it is dark humour. This slave has somehow generated this impossibly large debt. The king responds by imprisoning the man and his family until they can pay him back in full, which is obviously futile. The debtor-slave pleads for more time, as if this will help, and then he finds himself forgiven of everything, which is the craziest thing of all!
The story reminded me of a relative of mine who had worked for a large winery on the south coast. One day he was responsible for monitoring the wine while it was pumped into a large container truck when he took a call on his phone and wandered off, resulting in something like 10,000 litres of wine being poured out on the ground!
What do you do with someone who stuffs up like that? I’d assumed he would have at least lost his job but, curiously, he didn’t. Apparently, you had to lose about twice that amount of wine before it cost you your job! That seemed crazy to me, but nothing like the craziness of a king who forgives his slave a debt so large that it would have surely thrown the entire country into an economic depression!
Is forgiveness on that scale even responsible for a national leader?
The size of the debt is outrageous, and the mercy of the king is incomprehensible, but the craziest thing of all is what happens next.
“But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt.” (Matthew 18:28-30)
The debt of 100 denarii is not nothing (about three month’s wages for a labourer) but it is insanely trivial \when compared to the debt that the man was just forgiven. The king hears what has happened, of course, and the story ends with the first slave “being handed over to the torturers until he pay his entire debt” (Matthew 18:34). If this is a joke, the punchline is dark humour indeed!
Forgiveness, at any rate, is serious business. According to Jesus, it’s not an optional extra. Forgiving those who have wronged us ‘from the heart’ (Matthew 18:35) is a deadly serious obligation if we don’t want to be ‘handed over to the torturers!
The painful irony for me, of course, is that the most forgiving man I have ever met—my friend, Dr Hassoun—is the one who has literally been handed over to torturers!
He is eighty years old now, and I’m told that the wounds he has received in prison over the last eighteen months are so severe he will never recover, even if he were to live for many more years, and the conditions in his prison are apparently so appalling that he is unlikely to live long (which I suspect is by design).
I continue to pray for my friend. I pray for mercy. I pray for justice. But I recognise that Jesus’ parable does not end with a happy resolution. Both slaves are in prison. The king’s treasury is empty, and the kingdom itself is struggling. It is a bleak story,
And yet one truth shines through the darkness: forgiveness has power.
Forgiveness blesses the forgiver as much as the forgiven. It can liberate both individuals and nations. It is the secret weapon of the spiritual warrior — irrational, yet divine. Wherever forgiveness appears, it generates faith, hope, and love.
Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother? Up to seven times?” Jesus replied, “Not seven times, but seventy times seven times.” (Matthrew 18:21-22).
Forgiveness is not reasonable, efficient, or safe, but it is the way of Jesus, and it is our only path to the Kingdom of God!
First published in Father Dave’s weekly newsletter, September 12th, 2026
