This coming Sunday is the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

28 When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’29 Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’30 But he refused. Instead, he had him put in prison until he paid back the debt.

Clearly the first servant has authority as indicated by his ability to place the second servant in debtor’s prison (v.30). It is not clear if the first servant recognizes the great mercy shown to him. Just having been forgiven “a zillion dollars,” he brow beats a fellow servant about “a much smaller amount,” literally, a hundred denarii – perhaps a 100 days of wages. Not insignificant, but certainly in the realm of being able to be repaid. (For the record, it represents only one six-hundred-thousandth of the debt the first slave has just been forgiven.)

It should not be lost that the pattern and the words of appeal matches the earlier exchange of king-and-servant. Yet, the second servant does not ask for anything but patience. But for naught. For his troubles, the servant is choked and put in prison. There is no compassion, mercy or justice. The first servant offers no part of what he had already received.

Image credit: Raphael, Handing-over the Keys, 1515, Victoria and Albert Museum, London | Public Domain