Who Cancels the Debt?
Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent Dan 3; Ps 25; Matt 18:21–35
What would happen if banks suddenly cancelled debts?
Credit cards erased. Student loans gone. Mortgages forgiven.
Markets would shake. Economies would tremble. Some would celebrate. Some would panic.
Now go further.
What if wealthy nations cancelled the debts of poorer countries?
Or if Africa, Asia, and Latin America demanded repayment for what was extracted during colonisation?
History is not clean. Money carries memory.
When a poor peasant first heard Jesus speak about debt, he did not imagine “sin” in abstract terms.
He thought about money he owed. Land he might lose. Children he might sell into servitude. A system built to keep him small.
Jesus says a servant owed ten thousand talents.
That is not a large debt. It is an absurd one.
Ten thousand talents equals billions in today’s terms. It is the GDP of a province.
In other words: The system is crushing.
And then — the master cancels it.
No negotiation. No repayment plan. Cancelled.
For a poor listener, this is revolutionary.
It sounds like Jubilee. Like freedom. Like Exodus.
But then comes the twist.
The forgiven servant refuses to cancel a much smaller debt.
He demands payment. He chokes the man who owes him.
And suddenly the story turns.
Jesus is not romantic about power.
He shows that people who are freed can become oppressors.
Those forgiven can become unforgiving.
Those rescued from injustice can reproduce injustice.
The problem is not only the system. It is the human heart.
Debt cancellation alone does not create mercy.
Only a changed heart does.
The Christian claim goes even deeper.
Before we demand justice from others, we stand before God as debtors.
Not because God runs a financial ledger, but because we participate in systems that wound others — sometimes knowingly, sometimes quietly.
We benefit from what we did not build. We consume what we did not pay for. We inherit histories we did not choose.
And yet — mercy is offered.
If God cancels what we cannot repay, then we are invited into a different economy.
An economy of forgiveness.
Imagine a world where nations sought justice without revenge, where banks pursued fairness without exploitation, where individuals released resentment instead of weaponizing it.
That would shake the world more than any market crash.
Jesus’ parable is not naïve.
It is radical.
The question is not only:
Should debts be cancelled?
The deeper question is:
What kind of people are we once our own debt has been forgiven?
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
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