But the damage didn’t stop with the Unforgiving Servant and the Unforgiven Servant. The Lord’s “other servants” were also affected.
Recall how the matter started. The Lord was settling accounts with his “servants,” plural, when one servant with a huge debt was brought before him. That servant begged the Lord for mercy, and the Lord gave him mercy to a very unexpected degree. He forgave the entire debt. It was gone.
Unfortunately, that servant, now free from all of his debt, did not remember the mercy his Lord had shown him.
Instead, he remembered a fellow servant who owed him about three months’ wages and decided it was time to collect that debt. And he demanded payment of his fellow servant quite forcefully and violently;
In just the same way the Unforgiving Servant had begged his Lord for mercy, for patience, for more time to pay his unbelievably huge debt, the Unforgiven Servant begged the Unforgiving one for mercy, for patience, for more time to pay his quite manageable debt. But the Unforgiving Servant refused to show mercy:
But the Unforgiving Servant was never alone in either of these transactions. Other servants were present when the Lord forgave his debt and saw what had been done. Other servants were present when he grabbed the Unforgiven Servant by the throat and demanded payment and saw what was done. Other servants were present when he had the Unforgiven Servant cast into debtor’s prison and saw what was done. And other servants also saw that the second servant was still in orison, and it grieved them:
The other servants in the parable did exactly what they should have done with such a grievance: they told the Lord about it, and let him do justice.
But, in the end, they remained aggrieved, because the Unforgiven Servant remained in debtor’s prison. Only the Unforgiving Servant could release him.
But in the world in which I live, which is not the world of Jesus’ parable, many of the Lord’s other servants would not be content to take their grievance to the Lord and leave it with him to judge. They would want to do some other things with their knowledge of the situation, things which the Scriptures warn about because they often turn disputes between two parties into big problems for many other people who are not directly involved in the dispute.
I will list some of the more important ones here, with the understanding that they will be covered more thoroughly in later installments.
To start with, many of the Lord’s other servants will want to judge the dispute for themselves, particularly so that they can form a firm opinion as to which party is the wrongdoer and should now forever be avoided and penalized:
In forming these quick judgments, strangers to the dispute will not be able to heed Solomon’s warning:
When I take over God’s job and judge a fellow believer unworthy, I despise them, according to Paul:
After deciding which party is the evildoer, it is only natural to take sides with the other party. It seems the just thing to do–except that the foundation on which the quick judgment was based is weak.
And if there is some question who the wrongdoer is, or there is fault on both sides of the original dispute, or there are divided loyalties in the community or church in which the dispute occurred, the result will be factions supporting each side.
People can get hurt for meddling. Hence, the following warnings:
You don’t want to yank on a sleeping dog’s ears!
The most perverse thing about this process of groups forming quick judgments and rallying behind one of the original parties to the dispute is that, once the partisan group forms, the original parties become mostly irrelevant. The partisan groups will often put subtle pressure on the original parties to avoid settling the dispute. But even if the original parties manage to settle their dispute the dispute will not end, because the other people who picked up the dispute as their own will not be satisfied. Even more important, because the late comers to the dispute were not actually wronged, they also cannot forgive the original wrong. They don’t own it. Feuds often continue even after the original offender and offended have both died.
It can be a lot of fun to talk about other peoples’ problems. They are so messed up, I look good by comparison!
It can be a lot of fun to talk about others’ pain. My situation really isn’t that bad!
And it’s also perversely fun to listen to gossip. But listening to gossip comes at a price:
But before I can gossip about you, I have to judge you–I have to believe that you are somehow inferior to me, that the things I’m going to talk about somehow make you bad by comparison to me. Because I certainly wouldn’t want you to gossip about me!
So gossip leads to grumbling:
Reinforcing the point, when I speak against you–even in mere “harmless” gossip–I judge you. I assume God’s place as the only Judge under his Law:
The end of this process of anger nurtured by private judgment and grumbling, is settled bitterness, which can affect groups of people who were not involved in the original dispute: