Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXIV per Annum A

13 September 2026

Last weekend’s readings instructed us about the difficult work of confronting error and sin, and it showed us the Church’s role in confronting and healing divisions that may arise in the community. This weekend’s readings continue that theme, but they take on a more personal note in teaching us how we need to be forgiven and how we are called to forgive others. Forgiveness is not easy. But our faith stretches us and challenges us to live by higher standards than the secular world proposes.

In the Gospel parable we are told about a servant who was in debt to his king, a servant who owed a “huge amount”, says our English translation. That’s accurate but the original Greek gives us more information in that we are told that this servant owed a “myriad of talents” to the king. A myriad was the largest number in ancient Greek and equaled ten thousand (10,000). A talent was the largest monetary unit, representing six thousand (6,000) denarii. A single denarius represents a day’s wages. Doing the math shows us that the servant owed 60 million days’ wages. The clear hyperbole shows us that the point here is that the servant owed a debt he could not possibly pay off. When we know that, then we can also see how ridiculous a request it is for the servant to beg for patience by claiming he will pay the king back in full. When we recognize the extent of the impossibility of paying back the debt, the parable likewise shows us the extravagant generosity of the king’s forgiveness.

Thus, it is shocking that the servant seems oblivious to just how much he was in debt and oblivious to just how merciful the king was to him. That servant went out to a fellow servant and showed no mercy for one who owed a “much smaller amount”, says our English translation. Again, the original Greek tells us that the second servant owed only about one hundred day’s wages. That far smaller amount certainly could have been paid off. It was also entirely reasonable, given the smaller amount, for the second servant to request patience. The first servant is full of anger, unaware of the magnitude of his own debt, and unappreciative of the mercy shown to him. For this he is called wicked and the king hands him over to the torturers “until he should pay back the whole debt”. Now, we know the servant could not possibly pay off the debt. So, this line tells us the wicked servant is sent to a never-ending punishment. The details of an incomprehensible amount of