Sept. 14, 2003 (Jimmie Johnson)

Matthew 6:9-14

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

The idea that all we need for Christian living are a literal Bible and the unseen guidance of the Holy Spirit is an attractive foolishness. It is true but not true. We Bible-believing Protestants must always remember that we are meant to study and hear Scripture within communities of faith— congregations—with theological thinking from the past and the present helping us question, correct, amplify, and explain the hearing of God’s Word together.

You haven’t missed the fact of all those plural pronouns in the Lord’s Prayer, have you? Christian spirituality is a congregational experience. “Our Father, give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us” The big problem these days is that so many people are without a theological tradition, without a congregation’s collective wisdom, and so they are reading the Bible through tendentious political or social affirmations.

“Forgive us.... as we forgive” I am so glad I have a congregation to help me with forgiveness. I can’t imagine trying to forgive without a congregation holding me accountable to forgive. As one of our members said this week, “It’s not natural to forgive.” It’s supernatural, and that’s why I am glad to be part of a congregation.

“Forgive us ... as we forgive” I pray this is one prayer that God chooses to answer with a loud “No!” don’t you? “Forgive us as... we forgive?” You’ve got to be kidding. If that is true, I am spiritual road kill. Do we want to be forgiven on the basis of how we forgive?

Let’s start first with a related but easier issue. Why do some of us in the family of Jesus say “forgive us our trespasses” while others of us say “forgive us our debts”? The word in Matthew 6:12 is a Greek word which means debts, but two verses later in verse 14, a different Greek word which has the root meaning of “to miss the mark” is used and translated in the King James Version as trespasses. In Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, the word used is the word sin. Debts, trespasses, sin. They are all there in the mix. At this point it gets a tad interesting. William Tynsdale, a Bible translator in the 1500's, chose to use the word trespasses in his translation of Matthew, and Tynsdale’s translation with the word trespasses would be used in the Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer would become the worship book of the Anglican and Episcopal Church. Later our friends the Methodists would use trespasses. Therefore, because of the Book of Common Prayer, the word “tresspasses” is widely used.

The King James Version of the Bible, on the other hand, rendered Matthew’s word in the Lord’s Prayer not as trespasses but as debts, which is what it is.
Strictly speaking, the word trespasses does not occur in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew or Luke. This is the reason why so many churches in the Reformed tradition like us Presbyterians say the word debts. So now you know the rest of the story. Whether you use the word trespasses or debts, what you mean is the word sin.

“Forgive us our sins...as we forgive those who sin against us.” Wouldn’t it be better if the English-speaking followers of Christ were to be all united in the Prayer Jesus taught? Yes. Will it happen? Probably not for a long time. Why? Because we are sinners and therefore idolatrous about our traditions. But, if you look in the front of the Presbyterian Hymnal, you will see the Lord’s Prayer as we traditionally say it with the word debts and another version of the Prayer called The Ecumenical Version which uses the word sin. In time, after enough funerals all of us followers of Jesus—Anglicans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists and Catholics, too, just might all be using the word “sin.” Given enough time, all sacred cows get served up as bar-b-que. That’s the easy part: the trespasses versus debts part.

The difficult part is “forgive us... as we forgive.” It is difficult for a good reason. It sounds as if grace is out the window if we pray “forgive us... as we forgive.” That sounds like forgiveness by works to me. Forgive us because we are forgiving sounds like transactional theology. God will be forgiving if we are forgiving. That’s not good news at all, is it? Just think of all the grudges and hurts and anger, sitting on these pews and standing in this pulpit this morning.
If our gaining God’s forgiveness is on the basis of our being such forgiving people, then there isn’t much forgiveness being handed out on Sunday mornings in our churches.

Let’s think together about the theological issue of forgiveness and Jesus’ words in the Lord’s Prayer this way. First, what do the birth, life, and the death of Jesus seem to tell us about forgiveness? Don’t these revelatory events of Jesus’ life tell us that forgiveness is given to us even before we are able to ask for it? Did we talk God into sending Jesus? Did we convince Jesus to live as he did? Did we talk Jesus into climbing upon that cross? No, we had nothing to do with it. It was all God’s doing. In other words, isn’t your primary, non-negotiable belief about God as you see being lived out in every aspect of Jesus’ life and death that Mercy is God’s other name? I acknowledge it is my core belief of who God is in Jesus. It is the core of the tradition in which I stand to interpret the Bible. It is amazing grace only, not grace plus.

After all, Jesus prays on the cross the most generous, loving, merciful prayer I could ever imagine: “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” I don’t believe truer words could ever be spoken regarding the divine/human relationship. “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” Only God’s beautiful, merciful, strong grace that loves us while we are still sinners can give us hope. That’s Presbyterianism 101. I think it is also Christianity 101.

Then, what does “forgive as we forgive” mean? You know what it means. You and I pray this and look what happens. The forgiveness we see being given to us in Jesus, relentlessly even if slowly, begins to transform us into being agents of this very forgiveness. We don’t want to forgive. It’s not a natural thing to do. But ever so slowly, the Risen Christ praying this prayer within us begins to bring a holy tension to bear upon us. While forgiveness is not natural, it is a supernatural promise that fulfills itself.

What does forgiveness mean except to stop the returning of evil for evil? Forgiveness is not a feeling: it is an action. Break the cycle of hurt for hurt. You can’t think your way into being forgiving, you can’t feel your way into being forgiving, but if you will choose to act with forgiveness, if you will stop returning hurt with hurt, in time you will find your thinking and your emotions, your mind and your heart, becoming forgiving. If you don’t want to forgive,
don’t! I’m sure you will still go to heaven. Going to heaven is not the issue Bible-belt religion has made it out to be. You’d think going to heaven is the big issue the way we do religion in the Bible Belt. It’s not. Some churches seem to think their only reason for existence is to get people to heaven. Wouldn’t it be more helpful if churches worked on things like “forgiveness”?

Heaven is entirely up to God. Sure, you don’t have to forgive to go to heaven. Cherish your hurt, hold on to it, honor it, nurture your hurt every day, and never walk away from it. You’ll end up in heaven because of who God is, not because of who you are. But if you choose to be unforgiving, your hurt will eat you alive from the inside out. It will ruin this life for you. And that’s the issue.

It is actually easier in the end to forgive than holding on to your feelings of being wrongly treated. Being unwilling to forgive will cost you far more than what you think was taken from you by the terrible way you were wronged. Yes, our sins against one another create consequences and require accountability. Some are terribly sad. The cycle of sinning against one another can be broken. Stop returning hurt for hurt. You are only hurting yourself in the long run.

Then in time and with the help of the Spirit through your relationships in the congregation where the bread is broken and the cup for forgiveness is shared, your heart and mind will find it is easier to forgive than to stay angry or resentful. Act with forgiveness, and in time you will feel forgiveness and think with forgiveness. After all, look how much you and I are forgiven. Oh, you and I don’t have to forgive. The problem is that it is such a miserable way to live. Why wait till heaven? Why not start now? Why not trust that Jesus just might be on to something that is a lot more fun than being miserable!

 

 


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