Every other month, my husband guest preaches at a small church about an hour away. He usually asks me to tell a short story before his sermon and back in August, he expected me to come up with a tale. The suggested topic was the story of the unforgiving servant. Its found in Matthew 18: 23-35, and goes something like this:
The king was looking over his accounts and found one of his servants owed him a huge sum of money (lets say a million dollars). He calls in the servant and tells him to cough it up or he’ll have the dude thrown into prison. The poor guy falls to his knees and begs to be given time to earn the money to pay back the debt. The king takes pity on the guy and actually forgives the whole amount, letting the servant go Scott free and in the clear.
The guy leaves and runs into a fellow servant. This one happens to owe Dude One a small debt (we’ll call it one hundred dollars).
“Dude! Pay up!” Our guy demands.
“I don’t have it on me. Give me a few days and I’ll get it back to you.”
Dude One has no patience for the debtor. He calls in the cops and has the guy thrown in prison.
Some other servants see what happened and run to tell the king.
Dude One is called back on the carpet and the king doesn’t throw punches. The guy is lead away in chains to work off the whole restored debt.
“And this”, Jesus told them, “is what it will be like when you stand before Our Father in heaven”.
Get the picture?
So my husband calls me up to front to give my little speech. I tell the congregation about a mission trip my son Joe and I took to rural Kentucky to help out Laurel Mission. The youth group at our church had bake sales all year long to raise $9000 for the trip. Most of that money went to help the community at Greasy Creek, Kentucky, a small, dirt poor community tucked back into the mountains. The song Fingertips and Noses by Daniel Amos quickly comes to mind.
The main project multiple congregations had taken on was to build a house for a woman and her kids. They were living in a run down trailer with their nine dogs. Mom home school the kids and the oldest was now starting ninth grade. They only had curriculum through seventh grade, so the eldest would be repeating the material for the third time (fortunately, one of the members of our group was a teacher. She promised to send the mom materials to carry them through high school). Our team also had a licensed electrician and an experienced drywaller. These two men basically lived in that unfinished house that week, getting all the wiring done and the rest of the sheet rock up.
We also handed out bags of groceries and staples to 50 families and painted the home of a widow recovering from eye surgery.
It was an awesome experience.
But what does a mission trip to Kentucky have to do with the story of the Unforgiving Servant? A lot.
See, unforgiveness isn’t just forgiving some who owes you something, or has done you wrong. It’s also an attitude many of us hold toward others. Often people we know very little about, but have already formed opinions of.
“She has NINE dogs? What are you building HER a house for?”
“She homeschools? Well, THERE’S the problem!
Why were you giving out food? Why don’t those people find decent jobs so they don’t need a handout?
He’s from WHERE?
She’s from the wrong part of town
Sigh.
God has forgiven us of so much. Why are we so eager to hold onto prejudice and judgement? Let go of your desire to label, or Jesus warns, we will be judged with the same measurement.
Be God’s, Peeps!