Matthew 18:21-35 is one of the most straightforward parables. It can be divided into three main sections or scenes with the first verse functioning as an introduction and the final verse functioning as a conclusion. The first scene sets a standard of behaviour (the king displays mercy to his servant); the second scene parallels the first but the servant does not uphold the expected behaviour, which was established in the previous scene by the king. The third scene addresses the consequences to be carried out against the servant who failed to uphold these expectations. The parable has become a negative example story. The lesson is for the reader to not be like the unforgiving servant. Matthew has placed this parable in a chapter of his gospel that is emphasizing the importance of humility, forgiveness, and mercy. It seems like that the final verse is a later addition by the gospel’s author. With this verse, Matthew turns the king figure into God thus introducing the allegorical nature of the narrative to the audience. Parables are typically about everyday life scenarios and a story about a king does not represent the everyday life of the majority of the ancient audience. However, Bernard Brandon Scott explains that this is no reason to consider the parable an unrealistic fantasy but rather is seems to possess the character of a tale or fable.[1] In this paper we will focus on the relationship between the king and the servant. We will utilize several social models, provided by the social sciences, that can be applied to this parable in order to help shed light on this relationship and how the original audience may have interpreted it. We will also look very briefly at the Roman practice of ‘tax farming’ and also at 2 Samuel 12 as both offer comparisons of similar relationship.
The type of relationship that we see in this parable, between the king and the servant, appears to fit with the social model known as a patron-client relationship. Patronage is above all, a system of exchange either for goods or for services. This exchange takes place between individuals who are not equals. This inequality or difference in power is actually a strong element to this type of relationship. In 18:27 we read that the king displays pity for his servant. This is a significant indication of their patron-client relationship. “Pity does not erase power differences, but reinforces them, by providing emotional and moral valuation of patron-client relationships.”[2] The two parties had access to different and unequal resources and thus used their socio-economic status to provide these differing resources to one another. This system maintained and helped to perpetuate the severe socio-economic stratification of the ancient world. “[P]atronage relations provide a consistent ideological support for social inequality and dependency throughout the Mediterranean area.”[3] Patronage is dominated by the elites and is set up to preserve their privileged position. Patron-client relationships in the ancient Mediterranean were typically associated with a strong element of personal honour, obligation and loyalty. Although these relationships were voluntary, it was common for them to be binding and ideally of life-long endurance.
Typically, the exchange would work to the social benefit of the patron while providing he client, typically a peasant, with the opportunity to earn more than a subsistence living. Wealthier members of society, often playing the role of patron, had access to material goods, social connections and privileges that were impossible for the clients to obtain independently. Clients could offer a variety of services to their patron including the ability to perform tasks, offer loyalty in a fight or a funeral, gather information or even to spread rumours. However, what the client had first and foremost to offer a patron would be honour. The easier way for a client to give honour to a patron would be through public praise. In an honour-based society, i.e. a society in which honour is the greatest commodity, which the ancient Mediterranean certainly appears to have been, public praise would have significantly enhanced the reputation of the patron, thus increasing their honour.
In Matthew’s parable of the Unforgiving Servant the king’s mercy for the servant provides the servant with the opportunity to praise the king publicly for his great kindness and patience. The servant could have replicated the king’s behaviour thus declaring through his actions that the king’s methods were effective.[4] However, the servant instead chooses to contradict the king by using violence, something we will discuss in more depth below, instead of forgiveness. This would dishonour the king, as it not only undermines his method of extracting money and gaining loyalty but also exposes the disloyalty of his servant/client.
Though it is not clear in the parable if the king is Roman or if the servant is a tax collector the situation seems to resemble the Roman practice of ‘tax farming.’ In this practice, the government allowed tax collectors to pay the Roman taxes out of their own pockets and then turn to the public to extract as much money from them as possible to cover their investment and make a profit. This method was beneficial for the Roman government as it eliminated the expense of tax administration.[5] Consequently, these independent tax collectors that were hired instead often resorted to cruel and violent means of persuasion to extract money from citizens.[6] While the relationship between the king, representing the government, and the servant, representing the tax collector, is rather peaceful at first, the lack of mercy shown in 18:30 resembles the unforgiving nature of a ‘tax farmer’s’ methods when extracting money from civilians.
As mentioned previously, the social world in which this parable takes place operated under the assumption that honour was the most valuable commodity and therefore gaining honour should be the most important goal in one’s life. It is not surprising that as a result every social interaction within this society became an opportunity to gain more honour. Gaining honour was primarily achieved through what has been labeled by social scientists as the challenge and response model. The challenge and response model of social interaction can be viewed as a constant tug of war. Every social interaction had to be balanced out. A challenge could take many different forms being either positive or negative. It is perhaps surprising to a modern audience that a compliment was considered just as much a challenge to one’s honour as an insult. While an insult or threat required one to defend their honour, a compliment, favour or gift required one to reciprocate such kindness to prove their honour was equal or greater to their challenger. Essentially, challenge and response was a game of wits. Should an individual resort to violence they would be admitting their defeat.
 |
| Sugardoodle |
This is relevant to our discussion of Matthew 18:21-35 as we see the king choosing to remain in this game of wits by showing mercy and thus maintaining his servant’s loyalty and debt while the unforgiving servant, having failed to ensure loyalty or payment admits his defeat by resorting to violence. Another element of challenge and response is that it takes place in the public eye because it is the public that has the power to apportion or strip away honour. In Matt. 18:30-31 we read that the second servant was thrown into jail and that the unforgiving servant was reported to the king by other servants back. Had his dishonourable behaviour remained unknown to the public the challenge and response model would not work with this narrative but as his dishonour is acknowledged publicly we can confirm that a challenge and response interaction did occurred and the servant would have lost honour. This has further repercussions when considering that members of households, including servants, were embedded in the honour of their patriarch. If the unforgiving servant was a member of the king’s household then the dishonour that he brings upon himself through his violence is then reflected onto the king’s own honour.
If we consider the theological interpretations that have been made from this parable the severity of dishonour increases. The king is commonly interpreted as God in this parable and thus God’s honour is disrespected and put in danger by his servants poor behaviour. The focus of this parable is often directed at forgiveness; how God’s limitless forgiveness should be practiced by his followers. At the same time, with an understanding of the social world behind the parable, it could be suggested that the parable is also cautioning its audience to take care in protecting their honour so as not to dishonour God, the patriarch in whom they are embedded.
The story of David and Ewe Lamb in 2 Samuel 12 resembles Matthew’s parable of the unforgiving servant in so far as it presents a patron-client relationship in which a client, David, dishonours a generous patron, God.
“Nathan is reminding David that God has given no one as many goods as him. No one has had a more generous patron…By taking Bathsheba in this way, David has scorned the generosity of his divine patron. He had not done what was expected of a client in his culture…David has proved himself a disloyal client and his scorned patron will now act to punish him.”[7]
The success of this story and Matthew’s parable of the unforgiving servant relies on their ability to form expectations in the minds of the audience. Expectations need to be set up so that when the unexpected happens the reader is aware that something significant has occurred. The shock in 2 Samuel 12 is firstly that the rich man takes the Ewe lamb and secondly that the judgment turns out to be directed at David. In Matthew 18, the shock is primarily that the servant fails to forgive. If the reader did not expect the servant to forgive there would be nothing shocking about his lack of forgiveness. A further shock could come to the reader who realizes they are the unforgiving servant to whom God has shown mercy. In that situation, the parable could function as an encouragement for Jesus and Matthew’s audience to be more forgiving.
 |
| Gutenberg.org |
Matthew has Jesus using the parable as support for his answer to Peter’s question regarding how many times one ought to forgive. Though the parable is obviously relevant, seeing as it speaks of forgiveness, it is surprising that Matthew did not use a parable that demonstrated repeated forgiveness, considering that that was originally the message Jesus was aiming to get across to Peter. The parable has been critiqued for presenting God in a negative light. It certainly seems inconsistent that a God who teaches of unlimited forgiveness would punish someone so quickly for their failure to forgive. However, when we view God as patron to his people the message may seem more consistent. In patron-client relationship both parties must be satisfied with the exchange being made or else the relationship fails to function. If God, as patron, is expecting his people to display forgiveness in exchange for his great forgiveness of them, then a failure on their part to uphold this exchange threatens the success of this patron-client relationship. God’s desire to maintain this relationship explains the severity of the consequences for anyone who puts it in danger. Furthermore, hyperbole is common in parables and one could suggest that the severity of the servant’s punishment in the parable is exaggerated to work as a heightened warning to the people. The parable, based on reality but not necessarily being realistic itself can create an incentive for the audience to embrace the importance of forgiveness. Were this the case, then in reality God could practice limitless forgiveness and readers would aim to adopt a similar mentality weary of punishment though it may never come.
There are several indications throughout this parable that the king and the servant are engaged in a patron-client relationship. This is significant as it allows the parable to join the other biblical stories that portray God and Jesus in patron-client relationships with the people of Israel. Such a portrayal is relevant as represents a mentality that would have been familiar to human interactions in the biblical world. It is therefore not surprising that the stories that arose from that culture and their perception of God would contain and reflect elements of these common relationships. An understanding of the way in which these relationships functioned also sheds light on behaviour that we read about in this parable including the king’s pity and willingness to forgive as well as the servant’s decision to resort to violence and subsequent punishment. Whether the parable is hyperbolic in its portrayal of the consequences for failing to forgive or unrealistic in the expectations made of people to be limitlessly forgiving, it does send a very clear message regarding the importance of forgiveness.
Bibliography
Bringmann, Klaus. A History of the Roman Republic. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 2002.
Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (Freiburg i.B.: Akademische Verlagsbuchhandlung von J.C.B. Mohr, vol. 1, 1888; vol. 2 1889), 2:305.
Durken, Daniel. New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament. Order of Saint Benedict: Collegeville, Minn., 2009.
Esler, Philip Francis. 2 Samuel — David and the Ammonite War: A Narrative and Social-Scientific Interpretation of 2 Samuel 10-12. in Esler, Philip Francis, ed., Ancient Israel: the Old Testament in its Social Context. Augsburg Fortress, 2006. 191-207.
Freedman, David Noel, ed. Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2000.
Gilmore, David. Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association, 1987.
Scott, Bernard Brandon. Here then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus. Augsburg Fortress, 1989.
Whiteford, Linda M. and Lenore Manderson, ed. Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field. Directions in Applied Anthropology. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishes, Inc., 2000.
[1] Bernard Brandon Scott, Here then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus, (Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 273.
[2] Linda M. Whiteford and Lenore Manderson, ed., Global Health Policy, Local Realities: The Fallacy of the Level Playing Field, Directions in Applied Anthropology, (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishes, Inc., 2000), 185.
[3] David Gilmore, Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, (American Anthropological Association, 1987), 193.
[4] Daniel Durken, New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament. Collegeville, Minn.: Order of Saint Benedict, 2009), 60.
[6] David Noel Freedman, ed., Eerdman’s Dictionary of the Bible. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 2000), 1278.
[7] Philip Francis Esler, 2 Samuel — David and the Ammonite War: A Narrative and Social-Scientific Interpretation of 2 Samuel 10-12, in Philip Francis Esler, ed. Ancient Israel: the Old Testament in its Social Context. (Augsburg Fortress, 2006), 203.
