I remember as a kid seeing the 1984 movie The Never-Ending story at the Gepps Cross Drive-in. The central character, Bastian, is a boy lost in fear, grief, and inner emptiness after the death of his mother, ongoing school bullying, and disconnection from his father. One day Bastian escapes from bullies by running into a bookshop, where he is acquainted with a book called The Never-Ending Story. The story is about a fantasy land called ‘Fantasia’, which is threatened by ‘the nothing’—a dark force that slowly destroys everything in its path, leading to despair, pain and loss. Fantasia needs the help of a human child hero who must fight ‘the nothing’ and save Fantasia and everything in it from death. As Bastian reads, he himself becomes a part of the never-ending story, actually entering the story to become that hero: Atreyu–a brave young warrior. One of the first challenges Atreyu must overcome is the death of his much-loved horse, Artax in the muddy waters of the swamp of sadness. The swamp represents the unavoidable experience of death, sucking everything underneath. Throughout the film, Atreyu is pursued by the G’mork, a giant black wolf intent on ensuring ‘the nothing’ does its work in destroying Fantasia. But in the end, Bastian uses his imagination to rebuild Fantasia—the land is lush, Atreyu and Artax are reunited, and Bastian rides victoriously on a flying creature, Falkor.
While the Never-Ending Story is not explicitly Christian, I noted some parallel themes with the Christian faith. The rapid destruction of Fantasia by ‘the nothing’ is similar to God’s creation being in bondage to decay, ever since sin was introduced into the world by Adam and Eve. The wages of sin is death, which no one can escape, like Artax sucked under the muddy mire of the swamp of sadness. G’mork, the giant black wolf, is similar to Satan, who comes to kill, steal and destroy. Just as Fantasia’s only hope is in the child warrior Atreyu, the only hope for the world is Jesus Christ, born as the Saviour of the world, who has won the victory over death. Like Atreyu and Artax who were reunited, all who trust in Jesus will share in his victory together in glory forever.
This is God’s mission in the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. In Christ, God rules with grace, and this is what Jesus shows with his parable in today’s Gospel reading: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.”
To give you an idea of the size of this debt, a denarius was a day’s wage for an average worker. One talent was the equivalent of 6,000 denarii, or 6,000 days wages. So 10,000 talents was the equivalent of 60 million denarii, or 60 million day’s wages. It would take at least 164,383.56 years for an average worker to repay! It’s a debt impossible for any person to be able to work off.
So the king commands that the servant and his wife and children and all his possessions be sold in order to repay him. In desperation the servant falls on his face before the king and makes the ridiculous claim of being able to repay him. All he can do is beg for the king to show him mercy.
And you know what—the king does. This is the first astonishing, bewildering, unexpected twist in the story. We would expect that the king would at the very least want to retrieve something from this servant—but the king took pity on him, cancelled the debt entirely, which means the king bore the cost of that astonishing debt himself! He didn’t even attempt to extract any restitution—and then he let the man go. That is what the forgiveness of God looks like.
Now for the second astonishing, bewildering, unexpected twist in the story. The servant who is fully pardoned of his unpayable debt finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii. What happens? He throttles his fellow servant, choking him. “Pay what you owe!” he maliciously demands. The fellow-servant falls before him, imploring him: “be patient with me”—the very words the other servant has just uttered with his own lips. But rather than pardoning him, the pardoned servant mercilessly throws him into prison! It beggars belief, doesn’t it, that someone forgiven so much could in turn be so unforgiving.
His fellow servants, seeing these things, were greatly grieved, and came to the king, and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called out to him: “You wicked servant! I pardoned you for all your debt since you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ Angered, the king handed his servant over to the jailers until he repay all that was owing.
Why does Jesus tell this story? Jesus had just set the pattern for how Christians are to relate when a brother or sister sins against another. It is not punishing, extracting some kind of revenge, or making them pay, but by forgiving each another: cancelling their debt, and letting them go. Jesus promised whatever the church looses on earth will be loosed in heaven—for wherever two Christians on earth agree about anything they ask for, Jesus is right there with them, making peace too, and it will be done for them by their Father in heaven (Matthew 18:18-20).
How many times should we do this? The world talks about giving someone a second chance. The Jewish teaching of the time said that forgiving a personal wrong three times was sufficient. Peter thinks he is pretty safe: seven times! That’s double, plus one for good measure! Surely that’s a pretty safe calculation—a very generous one!
But what if forgiveness was something to calculate, limit, and restrict, and control? What if God ran a tab, punched figures in his calculator, or slid beads across his abacus? Are you on your second chance with God? Or third strike? If you are, you are doing pretty well. For in his explanation on the Lord’s Prayer petition “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” Luther explained: “we sin every day and deserve nothing but punishment.”
Jesus tells Peter that his whole approach is wrong. Like the unmerciful servant, the attitude of Peter’s heart runs totally counter to the divine spirit of mercy and grace—the mercy and grace God has first shown him in Christ. God requires him not to forgive seven times, but he needs to forgive with the heart of Christ—without limit, without conditions, without counting the cost—like the king in the parable. There is no middle ground—forgiveness is all or nothing. To only forgive sometimes is not to forgive at all. And that’s why there is such a warning at the end. The servant who was pardoned so much has rejected that grace as a pattern for relating with others, and therefore rejected the king who was first gracious with him. He has instead perpetuated a pattern of sin by punishing and exacting revenge, and establishing the criteria for how people should be treated—they only deserve kindness if they can pay what they owe. The unmerciful servant has therefore placed himself under his own condemnation. That’s why Jesus says in chapter seven of Matthew’s Gospel: “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.”
Perhaps you think this all seems so unrealistic. It’s just a story. However, the king in the parable is not a fictitious character only, but represents God himself, and how he forgives. What if God made us pay, and demanded we pay back everything we owed from the unpayable debt of our sin? But God doesn’t make you pay. God paid the debt for you. Like the king in the parable, God bore the cost of our unpayable debt himself. He gave his one and only Son for you, and when his own Son hung on the Cross, God released you from your debt and let you go. That’s why God knows that forgiveness in the Christian life is hard. He knows that forgiveness comes at a great cost.
Forgiveness is the way God’s story never ends. The Father bankrupted himself when he sent his own Son to redeem the world, not with talents or denarii—not with silver or gold—but with Jesus’ holy, precious blood. This blood has washed away all your sin, and you are forgiven not just twice, or three times, or even seven, but completely, without Tc’s and C’s, or key performance indicators, or contractual fine print. It’s a free deal, signed in blood—the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by wearing it upon himself.
Through his word he has drawn you into his never-ending story of salvation. He calls you to forgive others, with the same limitless grace we ourselves have first received from him. We are to forgive even when we can’t forget, and even if we don’t like the person—but we are called to love them by not treating them as their sins deserve and by relinquishing our desire to get even with those who have hurt us.
With every forgiven Christian comes the opportunity for them to forgive others, and they in turn forgive others too, and whatever is loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven. God’s law is good, holy and just (Romans 7), and striving to keep it is what we as his forgiven, holy people have been freed to do. But it is only grace, only forgiveness, flowing out from Christ, through us, that the church of all times and places is built and the power of sin, death and hell is undone, so that not even the gates of hell will overcome it.
As you hear Jesus’ invitation to come to his table again today, you meet with God’s child hero in his never-ending story—Jesus who has purchased you by his precious blood, and brings forgiveness, life and salvation to you. You meet with him who has swallowed up chaos with peace, bitterness with joy, brokenness with mending, condemnation with grace, death with life, and darkness with the light of God’s glory. You meet with him who has pardoned your unpayable debt before the Father—your Father in heaven, who has called you and all your brothers and sisters here to be his partners and agents of divine grace, who will live together forever in his kingdom. This is God’s never-ending story for us: eternal life, where all things are made new, not by our imaginations, but by his powerful word that sets people free. Amen.
