From the Friars: Debtors to God and Man
In today’s Gospel from Matthew (18:21-35) we have the familiar parable of the servant who owes a “huge amount” of money to his king. Because he cannot pay, the king forgives him. Later, we find that the very same servant who was forgiven his debt throws into jail his fellow servant who owed him a “much smaller amount”. Have you ever wondered what those amounts might be in today’s currency?
Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (on the left, initial forgiving of the debt, and on the right the final punishment of the unforgiving servant) by StAnselm – Public Domain, Link
The debt that is owed to the king is literally a “myrion” of talents. This was the number 10,000. In the ancient world, a “myrios” was the largest numerical unit that one could conceptualize—as no one typically would pass the number 10,000 counting out loud. Likewise, a talent was seen as the largest monetary value that one could conceptualize. A talent was worth 20 years’ wages. So, if you made $50,000 a year in today’s wages, you would be a millionaire after 20 years. But Jesus multiplies this number by 10,000—which would amount to $10 billion! We hear about big numbers all the time, but we in fact fail to conceptualize their meaning.
The “much smaller amount” in the parable was “100 denarii”. A “denarius” was one day’s wage, say $100.00 in today’s money. A hundred denarii were then 100 days wages. So the amount owed would be $10,000. This is a significant amount, but not a difficult one to pay off. (Talk to any college student who has over $100,000 in debt.) This is far less than the $10 billion owed by the first servant.
What I find most interesting is the fact that since Jesus used the highest monetary unit known, multiplied by the highest numerical unit known, if the parable was retold in today’s world of higher mathematics and science, it is possible that Jesus would have used the terms googol (the number 10 raised to the 100th power) or googolplex (which is the number 10 raised to the “googol” power) to describe the incredible amount owed—that is, the offense of our sins. Just for the record, a googol surpasses the number of atoms in the observable universe!
In the end, faced with these astronomical numbers—symbolically, the debt of our sins—all we can do is trust in God, knowing that His mercy far exceeds this.
Likewise, we are called to imitate God’s merciful love and show mercy to all who offend us.
Rev. Andrew, FPO