Daniel 3:25, 34-43 / Matthew 18:21-35
To be poor is really to be in an unfortunate situation. A way of expressing it is to live from hand to mouth, with nothing for spare or for savings.
But maybe a worse situation than being poor is to be bankrupt! Because being bankrupt may mean that you not only have no money at all, you even have debts to pay and whatever money that comes your way is not going to be yours.
You will probably spend the rest of your life paying the debts and having nothing to live on.
Such was the situation of that first servant in today's gospel parable. The amount of money that he owed is beyond imagining, and to meet the debt will mean that he and his wife and children will have to be sold, along with all his possessions.
But the parable seems to be heading for a happy ending when the master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt.
So if the debt is beyond imagining, then so is the generosity of the master. If the parable ends there, that would be a happy ending.
But after this came the twist - this same servant did not cancel the debt of another fellow servant.
That first servant was poor, but in not cancelling the much smaller debt of another fellow servant, he became bankrupt and maybe even bankrupt for life.
Jesus came to redeem us from the debt of sin and freed us from being condemned by our sins.
If we can't forgive others the wrong that they do to us, then we are a tragic bankrupt.
So when we pray "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us", let us mean it.