Today's readings are Deuteronomy 29.1-29 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Deut.+29.1-29 ) and Matthew 18.21-35 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Matt.+18.21-35 ).
Our Lord addresses us through Moses in Deuteronomy 29, establishing a new covenant. See how in this covenant God takes the commandments he has given before and adds a very specific individual element. While Israel remains the people of his covenant and promises, he will place individual blessings and cursings on those who obey or disobey. The person who turns from his grace and chooses to take his own human glory will be subject to the curse of God. The individual man is responsible for his own disobedience and will receive the reward of his own guilt. We have been given mighty signs of God's blessing. We have had God's word revealed to us. We have been given God's promise. And I do say "we" because at this point national Israel also includes proselytes from among the Gentiles.
Why does our Lord specify this individuality in his blessing and cursing? He is quite clear about it. It is so that the other nations will see that the people of God's promise are those who act according to the promise he has revealed to them. Those who do not act according to the promise of God are rejecting God's promise and are choosing to earn their own rewards.
Today's reading in Matthew shows the fruit of that choice to earn our own reward. The servant who owes 10,000 talents, enough, incidentally, to equip a fleet of a hundred warships for about eight years, a phenomenal sum of money, is held to account. He is to pay his debt. He realizes he is a just debtor to a master he cannot repay. His response is essentially to confess his inability and to throw himself on the mercy of the master, knowing that it has cost him all his life and freedom. That servant then attempts to collect a smaller debt. It is smaller but not inconsequential. This is a few months' wages. It is not inconsequential but is something which can reasonably be repaid, though likely not immediately. Though his debtor acts with the same commitment to repay but here has the added bonus of an ability to repay, the first servant does not act as his master did. We see how the master rewards the servant according to the servant's attitude, not according to the master's attitude.
Our Lord has given us a promise, an eternal life of blessing. We have earned his curse. As we confess that we have earned God's curse he pours out on us his blessing and reminds us of the wrath which his son Jesus Christ incurred on our behalf. As we choose to stand in our own righteousness our Lord allows us to fall before him in our own righteousness, receiving the condemnation we have earned. Let us confess that our Lord and Savior is good, that his word is right, that he has made us heirs of his promise. Let us turn to him in confession and faith. Let us receive the good gifts our Lord has prepared for us, his eternal blessings.
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