Am about a year in to weekly #preaching. Have learned that scripture-based #sermons are much easier to write than topic-focused messages.

This post brought to you by a one-off Labor Day inspired service tomorrow. Next week we jump back into the #NarrativeLectionary. I can't wait.

Writing on Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the king who forgave a gigantic debt and the slave (keeping that word advisedly) who didn't forgive his debtor.

#NarrativeLectionary

The loan the king made was a bad debt from the beginning. Even selling the slave and his entire household would have recovered something like a thousandth of a percent of the liability. There might have been reason to make an equity investment of this magnitude, but surely not a personal loan. The royal banker must have resigned in protest.

It's less obvious that the loan between the two slaves was a bad debt, but what economic margin does the indebted slave have? If a worker earns minimum wage today, how long will it take them to accumulate - or pay back - more than three months' wages? Even if not from the start, this was a bad loan.

1/2