The Lord’s Prayer: Forgive Us Our Sins...

Here we pass from the bread problem to the sin problem. The Lord's Prayer has a way of getting down to bedrock. We can’t live without bread. But if we are burdened with guilt toward God and toward our fellow human beings, we may not want to survive. Our bread turns to ashes in our mouths. Just as our physical existence depends on food, so our essential humanity depends on relationships with others and ultimately with God. Those relationships are forever being breached, and forgiveness is needed for their healing and restoration.

The phrasing of this petition presents some intriguing variations. Matthew's preoccupation seems to be with the impending final judgment: "Forgive us our debts [in the final judgment] as we forgave [in our lifetime] our debtors." Luke, on the other hand, seems more adapted to the ongoing life of the church in this world: "Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves keep on forgiving every debtor." 

The first question we need to ask is: What is it that stands between us and God? What stands between us and our fellow human beings, and threatens to turn our bread to ashes in our mouths? The obvious answer is sin.

The Bible is rich in its vocabulary for sin. Sin means owing a debt, trespassing on forbidden ground, missing the mark, overstepping limits, straying from the way, setting up a stumbling block, disobeying, rebelling, acting unjustly, acting treacherously, acting profanely, or being twisted, perverse, evil, wicked, worthless, or foolish.

One cause of confusion is that Christians today don’t use the same vocabulary for sin when they say the Lord's Prayer. Traditionally, most say "trespasses" while a few others say "debts." Why? "Trespasses" is the translation in the Book of Common Prayer, a translation made earlier than the King James Version. The influence of the prayer book has been enormous on the worship practice of all English-speaking churches, even those without written forms of worship; the widespread use of "trespasses" comes from here.

On the other hand, some denominations are influenced by the Westminster Assembly, convened in the seventeenth century, thirty-two years after the King James Version of the Bible was published. In its catechisms, the Westminster Assembly cited the Lord's Prayer precisely as the King James Version has translated Matthew 6:9-13:

…forgive us our debts, as we forgive

our debtors.

Those denominations—mostly English-speaking Presbyterians—have used “debts” and “debtors” ever since.

Many recent versions of the prayer read, "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." (That’s the one I’d like us to use from now on.) This makes it clear that we’re not asking forgiveness merely for trespassing on someone else's property or poor financial management. We’re talking about sin in all its breadth and depth.

So then, if sin stands between us and God, what shall we ask God to do? The answer, of course, is to forgive us.

To forgive isn’t to condone. To forgive isn’t to say sin is unimportant, minor, and nonexistent. To forgive isn’t some indulgent grandparent patting us on the head saying, "There, there, what you did wasn't really all that bad; it's all right; forget it; don't worry about it." To condone sin would be to confuse justice and injustice, right and wrong, to destroy the moral fabric of the universe. To forgive sin, on the other hand, is to establish justice and then to transcend justice with mercy.

What happens when someone is forgiven can be simply stated. The debtor doesn't pay the debt because he or she can't. The creditor bears the cost because the creditor, out of love for the debtor, is willing to bear it. The past isn’t denied or ignored, but the future is opened in spite of the past. God absorbs the cost of our sins and says to us, "This is real, but it won’t stand between us. Let’s go on together as before."

Real forgiveness costs something! If you want to get some idea how much, come with me to a skull-shaped hill just outside Jerusalem where three crosses are reared against the black sky. Jesus hangs on the middle cross. You all know the scene. It was pictured in a particularly bloody way in Mel Gibson’s controversial film “The Passion of the Christ.”

What happened on the cross is a mystery the Bible describes in various ways: sacrificing a lamb, a shepherd giving his life to save his sheep, paying whatever it costs to free a slave or pay somebody else’s debt, and a victory over the powers of evil. These images picture a truth which remains beyond the reach of all theory in the depths of God’s love for humankind. They reveal the gravity, cost, and sure achievement of God’s reconciling work. That’s forgiveness.

Now we come to the connection between the divine forgiveness and our forgiveness of one another:

"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those

who sin against us."

The problem is that this sounds like a quid pro quo. Does Jesus really mean that for every five dollars' worth of injury for which we forgive our neighbor, God will forgive us of five dollars' worth of sin?

   Part of the meaning may be this: The very fact that human forgiveness exists gives us hope for God’s forgiveness. Sinful people find it in their hearts on occasion to forgive others. The petition may then mean something like this: "O God, since even we can at times forgive those who sin against us, we dare to hope that you will forgive us our own sins."

Another part of the meaning may be this: For us to be unforgiving after being forgiven is inhuman.  Jesus knew how to use hyperbole--exaggeration--in order to shock his hearers into attention. The parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:23-35) is a case in point. Forgiven an enormous, impossible-to-pay debt, he imprisons his fellow servant for owing a comparatively paltry sum. It’s incomprehensible, unbelievable. Just so incomprehensible, unbelievable, and shocking it is for us to accept God's forgiveness and refuse to forgive others.

I’ve come to believe that the most important meaning of what we’re asking is this: The failure to forgive others blocks and short-circuits the forgiveness of God. In the familiar parable of the prodigal son, the elder brother remains outside the party in the father's house as long as he is unforgiving toward his brother. It’s a self-imposed exclusion. The unforgiving heart puts out antibodies that reject the transplant of God's mercy. While we were still sinners, God showed his love for us; while we were God’s enemies, God made us his friends (Rom. 5:6-10). So the author of Ephesians encourages us: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God (4:32-5:1).

So we need to ask how forgiving are we? We talk about grace and we sing about grace, but do you live out of grace? Are you gracious toward other people, or do you spend a lot of energy thinking of what they "ought" to do? Do you find it hard to forgive people who don't do what they "ought" to do? Is there a connection between that and your own inability to live in freedom and joy and celebration of the forgiveness and grace of God to you? When we pray our Lord’s Prayer, we stand before God and cry over and over, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”!