The discussions demanded by Rabbi Jesus

I love the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. No one questions that they are from the mouth of Jesus, the common man’s rabbi from Nazareth. They both speak of the virtues of kindness, compassion, grace, generosity and love. When we read them with openness, they take us beyond our comfort zones. They challenge us. They are great discussion starters. They take discussions well beyond “common sense.”

Other parables of Jesus, are more difficult to interpret and find little voice among his followers. I suspect most Christians read their Bibles very selectively and not very seriously. They avoid what they do not want to hear. Further, the typical Christian preacher neglects telling people the whole story.

This is particularly true of the parable of the unmerciful servant found in the 18th chapter of the Matthew gospel. The story has a cast of unsavory people. The cast includes a king who has power beyond limits who does not hesitate to sell his highest and best-paid employee and the employee’s wife and family into slavery. The king rules by threat and torture. This particular story and its characters are incompatible with the lead characters in the Samaritan and Prodigal stories.

The cast of characters includes a servant who is relieved of a great debt, but who feels no need to pass along generosity. Any interpreter of the parable is challenged immediately with the introduction by the Matthew writer. Matthew gives the parable an introduction with the words “the kingdom of heaven is like….” The Matthew author further complicates the story with a conclusion that states that forgiveness is conditional in God’s kingdom. According to the story conclusion people are to be tortured until they clean up their act.

Fundamentalist Christians who insist on verbal inerrancy of the Bible are forced to embrace a fickle God who is questionably gracious. Modern Biblical scholarship is not hesitant to point out these discrepancies. According to credible scholars for the parable of the unmerciful servant to make sense, it must be stripped of Matthew’s introduction and his conclusion. When this is done, the story takes on a very different perspective and becomes a different subject for debate and discussion.

The parable in its original form and as told by Jesus was just that. It was a discussion starter told to peasants who were near the bottom of the economic ladder. Honesty calls for us to ask what the first listeners actually heard. They heard a frank description of the economic and political structures that made them poor and kept them poor and starving.

The world of Jesus and his fellow peasants was a world of cutthroat economics and politics. The system was a pyramid of patron-client relationships that were based on wealth and power. At each level power belonged to the person or persons who had the most wealth. They exercised their power with only their own financial interests in mind. It was a power-driven, fear-dominated society. People of wealth even controlled the religious leadership.

The picture that is painted by Jesus’ words in the story of the unmerciful servant is completely at odds with a loving messiah who is motivated by love and who is committed to bringing justice and wholeness to everyone. Rather it is a picture of a cruel economic and social system that preyed on the poor. Unfortunately, Christians today are not interested in a Jesus who was politically active and who was an aggressive critic of the economics fostered by Roman rulers and their cooperating Jewish clients.

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry he declared that a new day was arriving. He said that a Year of Jubilee was coming at which time all property was to be turned back to temple priests for compete redistribution as was required in the Laws of Moses. Jesus told the story as a social, political, economic radical, who cared deeply for the peasant poor. The rich and the powerful killed him.

It is very difficult to apply the message of an ancient story to the modern world. However this parable, when restored to its original setting, gives real opportunity to discuss the outcomes in our American society where a few people are unbelievably rich, and masses of people are cripplingly poor. Wealth becomes the base for public and personal morality. Upper income levels continue to soar, and resistance to a minimum wage that is a living wage is strongly opposed.

Where can we turn to find solutions to the horrible economic injustices that are rampant in our society? The parable of the unmerciful servant, when stripped of its misleading introduction and faulty solution, gives no answer. It merely describes the meanness of our economic realities.

Christian churches are supposed to operate off of a very different moral standard than does the world. Over and over we have become friends with the rich rather than the poor. Churches are in desperate need for honest discussion. Jesus gave us some marvelous discussion starters. The story of the unmerciful servant is a great beginner.