The unforgiving servant

Today I took the older class. I was not well prepared because I did not know I was to teach till 2 minutes prior to class. But fortunately, the older students are each preparing the lessons so most of what I had to do was listen and enable. One thing I notice about Christians - they are largely unaware of the Old Testament and don't notice if it used in the Service in passages they have learned to 'take for granted'. So I asked - how many of you heard the shema in church this morning that we have sung many times before (with this group not so many but a few times)?

None.

But we read the summary of the law as part of the service order - and it is plain and simple a full quotation of Deuteronomy 6:4-5. So with these more inhibited older kids, I started with three blind mice to get them to sing a major third and then we sang the shema and pondered a little the instructions in Deuteronomy.

Following this we heard the reading of the parable of the unforgiving servant - it's a parable. The questions the student had prepared were difficult. Does the master give unconditional forgiveness? The other students were not so sure what unconditional meant. And I realized that such an abstraction misses the point of the action-consequence in the story. Well - much to learn from this. And it was good to see their own preparation.

I will teach again in two weeks - listening this morning was good preparation for me.