Incomparable

Verse: Luke 7:41-47
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii (around $125,000) and the other fifty (around $12,500). Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven —as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

Devotion
When you read these verses, do you think about the relative debts that the two people owed? It tugs deep in your heart, where you feel things like fairness and equity, right?

But while the relative debts are an important lesson, it’s way more interesting to think about these two debtors individually, without comparing them. Look: neither one of them had the money to pay back the lender. I’d wager that if these hypothetical debtors existed, they would both feel like their debt was unforgivable, too big to handle, insurmountable, and a burden they would live with the rest of their life, or be forced to pay back via slavery.

I’ve done many things that I cringe at in retrospect. I’ve made some big oopsies. I’ve felt unforgivable, unlovable, and like I don’t deserve to have the people and things I have in my life. When I look at my own failures and sins, I’m not usually comparing them to other people—I usually just think about how hopeless it would feel to pay for it all myself.

We all feel this way—our own sins, failures, and grief are worse than everyone else’s, give or take a few historical dictators.

To me, the most interesting perspective is that the moneylender was cool with forgiving around $150,000, no sweat, and he seems to have capacity to forgive many other debts too. That’s the power and the wealth that Jesus has when he forgives us for all the bad things we’ve done. His death was so potent that it is able to erase all debts, from the smallest to the largest, cumulatively and for all time. And what’s the lender’s (a.k.a. Jesus’s) reasoning for all this? He wants to forgive these big debts because he wants us to love him more.

Many of us know John 3:16: “God loved the (people of the) world so much that he sent Jesus (to die for them)…”. That’s a big sacrifice, and a big love.

Meditation
Just for a minute, think about how much debt from doing wrong you’ve incurred over your life that Jesus can forgive you for. It’s probably a big debt. Allow that pain to turn into gratitude, and that gratitude to turn into love for Jesus’s sacrifice for you.

Author: Jordan Ambra