URC Daily Devotion for 6-02-2026
St Matthew 18: 21 – 35
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Reflection
The scale of the servant’s extraordinary, unpayable, debt (more accurately rendered 10,000 talents) in this story is extraordinary.
A single talent was worth six thousand denarii and a single denarius was a day’s wage for a jobbing labourer. One talent then, or one ‘bag of gold’ was equivalent to about 20-years-worth of wages – a full lifetime’s worth in those days.
The sum of ten thousand talents exceeds even the sort of imperial tribute demanded of an entire province. The amount is supposed to be shocking.
In Roman provinces like Judea local elites collected taxes on behalf of Rome, using a practise known as ‘tax farming.’
Wealthy individuals, known as a publicans, would pledge to pay the required tax for an area, and that would give them the right to collect taxation from the inhabitants of that area – anything over and above what they had already paid out was for them to keep. Alternatively, if there was a shortfall, they were liable. It operated in a pyramid model, with agents licensed to collect from specific areas on the same basis.
This story reflects that reality, here a tax farmer is unable to pay the enormous sum demanded of him. The mercy shown to this publican is radical and offers the opportunity for a reversal of circumstances, but the tax farmer fails to replicate it to his agent, he fails to extend that mercy he received – instead multiplying the oppression on those below him. There is no ‘trickle down’ mercy in exploitation systems – only cruelty.
As Jesus travelled around encouraging the formation of communities based on mutual support, love, and care, he was keen to explain and demonstrate that true forgiveness of debts cannot simply be a transaction – it must be an act of radical solidarity. Mercy cannot be simply personal, it must be structural.
According to Jesus’ teaching here, systems of debt and punishment are the opposite to the ways of God’s kingdom, where justice is restorative not retributive.
Prayer
God your kingdom values
subvert the exploitation of our time.
You call us to lives of radical grace,
to enact systems of justice,
to think differently,
and to live differently.
Help us to see
the way that people are exploited and oppressed.
Lead us out of such systems,
into a way of living that speaks
of different values, different priorities.
Lead us, most of all God,
to prioritise love over all.
Amen