08/18/2026
Gratitude Saves us. Parable of the Unforgiving Servant
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, the gospel has something easy to hear if you have ears to hear, and also not easy to hear if you don't have ears to hear, because if you don't have ears to hear, the part that you hear won't be easy. There's sort of the carrot and the stick in this gospel. And I firmly believe that we respond better to God when we respond better to everything: by thinking of the good things, by striving for good things, and by rewards. Even behavioralists know this — that people learn better, animals learn better, with rewards rather than with punishments. But there are punishments. Now, in the Christian perspective, it's not God punishing so much as our condition punishing us in the next life, but it will still nonetheless certainly seem to be a punishment to us, where there is the gnashing of the teeth.
So let's talk about this parable about the king and the debtors, and glean, I think, something very important from it. First, I'll explain it to you, because I never know what people know about this parable, since there are new people coming to the church every day. So it might be that you haven't heard this parable or don't know it that well. The kingdom of heaven is likened to a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When the kingdom of heaven parables are about what the kingdom of heaven is like, and also how to enter into the kingdom of heaven; they're sort of dual purpose. And the certain king, of course, is God. And of course the servants are us. And when he began to settle accounts, one was brought to Him who owed ten thousand talents, and he was not able to pay. His master commanded him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.
Now, what this is saying is that we owe everything to God. We're sinners. We cannot pay God enough to redeem ourselves. God loves us, and he chooses to forgive us, but we can't do anything that makes us worthy of being forgiven. But God chooses to forgive us. We owe ten thousand talents — an amount that in that culture was impossible for an average working man to make in a lifetime. So the servant falls down before him and says, "Master, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." I want you to note that we're going to hear the exact same words again. "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." So the master of the servant — that is the king, that is God — was moved with compassion and released him and forgave the debt.
But that servant went out. He saw a fellow servant — fellow servant! I circled that when I read it. Fellow servant: someone else in his same condition, in his same human condition, being unworthy of God's love, and yet God loves us. Being full of sins, just like they were both full of sins — there was no difference between them. One had been forgiven ten thousand talents, and one owed a hundred talents, just a small amount. And so he throttled him and said, "Pay me." And the servant said, "Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all;" exactly the same words. And then he threw him into prison.
And then the servants of the king — that is, the angels — knew of this and brought the news to the king. And he summoned that servant, and he said, "You wicked servant, I forgave you the debt because you begged me. Should you also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?" Now, that seems like a question that shouldn't need to be asked, should it? Why should you have patience with someone who owes you a debt, or perhaps has sinned against you, or perhaps is irksome to you in some way? Well — because you owe debts, and because you're irksome to other people. That's why. And because God loves us despite our sins, it's so important to cultivate gratitude. We have so little of it in this world.
I would tell you that you might say in confession, "Well, I get upset sometimes with drivers, and I make gestures to them, or I yell at them when they cut me off," or some other sort of triviality of life that makes you upset. And I should say to you — maybe I'll start saying to you — not only is that a problem with anger, or with irritation, or with impatience, it's a problem of ingratitude. If you have gratitude, then you're not going to judge another man's servant. If you have gratitude, then you're going to give people the benefit of doubt. And even if it's clear that they've done something that's wrong, you're not going to be so angry at them, because you are a fellow servant. You must cultivate this in your life. This is so critically important.
I've confessed a lot of people and talked to a lot of people, and there's sort of a common theme: that we're not that much different than a two-year-old. What does a two-year-old see? He sees things only from his perspective. So if he hits his brother, and his brother hits him back, then his brother's at fault for hitting him, right? That's the two-year-old version. And that is the way we look at life. Let's be honest about it. You might say, "Oh, no." Oh, yes, you do. We all have a little bit of two-year-old in us. You should have gratitude to God for everything he's given you, and therefore extend mercy to other people, just as God extended it to you.
This is a very important principle. The reason you're unhappy about your job, or about the person at work — the boss who's terrible, or the other person who's terrible, or your commute, or the fact that you got cheated buying a car, and so on — is because, really, not only do you have problems with being irritated, but at the base of this is your pride. And this pride makes you blind to other people, and blind to yourself, blind to your own sins. And then you're blind that other people have sins, because, well, they're not anything different than you. They're the same as you. Maybe you're a little further along. Maybe you're an Orthodox Christian. Maybe you're baptized. Maybe you say your prayers. But you're not that much different than they are. You must cultivate this understanding about yourself.
This is why I tell you, over and over again, to read the Gospel, read the Psalter, because this will be a mirror for you. For some of you, reading the Gospel and Psalter is a really big step. It's really hard, because it's like, "Father is too strict on me, I can't do it, I don't have time," and so on. Or, when you read the Gospel, you don't feel anything. Well, you don't feel anything yet, because you have not yet really changed in your heart. Regardless of whether you're a Christian, baptized or not, your heart must move towards God. And when you read the Psalter and the Gospel, then your heart starts to move towards God. Believe it — it's true.
Don't think that I'm just giving you rules handed down from on high or something. This is the way of life, because you have to learn to recognize in yourself, just as I do — my sermons are autobiographical, so I'm not just talking about you, I'm talking about me — that you have to understand in yourself a sense of ingratitude, a sense of forgetfulness about your own sins. But you remember other people's sins really well: just like the two-year-old who remembers that his brother hit him, but he forgot that he threw a truck at his brother. We have to learn to have a good memory about ourselves, and about God's love for us, and about our sins, about how God has delivered us. And then we should extend our gratitude to others. This is so critically important. This, really, is the way of life.
And if you're not reading the Gospel, I'm worried about you, really. I understand that you might have a life that's a little bit topsy-turvy, and it's hard to read it every day and everything. I don't care about all that. I care that you really want to do it, and that you make a way to do it. That's what I care about. And then, also, you start reading the Psalter, which — to me it's like a fifth Gospel. It's way harder than the Gospel to understand, but it's beautiful. So if you start recognizing every day how much God has forgiven you for your sins, you won't be so ready to not forgive others.
And of course, what's at the end? At the end he says, "So my heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother." Terrible! But I would rather think about how beautiful God's love for us is, and how he has forgiven us ten thousand talents. And I want, out of that, the gratitude in my heart to have that reach out to others, and forgive others, help others, be kind to others, and be humble with others. This is the way of life. May God bless you and help you all.
