Forgiving every Debt

IN LUKE the fifth petition of the Our Father reads: And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. (Luke 11:4) In Matthew’s version it reads: And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matt 6:12) We can see right away that the English forms familiar to us are a combination of Luke and Matthew:

And forgive us our trespasses (or: forgive us our debts) as we forgive those who trespass against us (or: as we forgive our debtors). “Forgive us our trespasses/debts” draws on Matthew, while the present tense in “as we forgive” relies on Luke. Matthew has past tense here: the disciples have already forgiven their debtors all the indebtedness of sin; consequently, God can also forgive their sins. I will come back to this Matthean timeline, “forgive us—we ourselves have forgiven.”

Matthew 18:21–22 ESV

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

How many times we are ought to forgive one another? Endless until the end of time.

Christians must forgive as much as God as forgiven us.

But is the readiness to forgive spoken of in the Our Father demanded only of Jesus’ disciples? Is it not also asked of Jesus’ local friends and sympathizers who live in their homes here and there? To put it another way: is it not demanded of the whole people of God for whom Jesus lived and whom he desired to gather? The question is important because it is appropriate for resolving the problems of the addresses of the Our Father.

Let me, therefore, once again refer to a concrete text. It will show that the readiness to forgive that Jesus demands is asked not only of his disciples but of every member of the people of God. At the same time this text will cast more light on what it means to forgive.

Matthew 5:23–24 ESV

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

What is remarkable in the whole process is, first of all, that Jesus does not say explicitly that the one with whom the person making the offering ought to be concerned is a disciple or follower of Jesus. In this case word “brother [or sister]” leaves everything open. It may simply refer to your fellow man or woman within the people of God.

It is also notable that Jesus says nothing against the temple here. he apparently see it as a matter of course that Jews from the motherland and from the Diaspora makes pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem, that they give money to the temple, and that they purchase sacrificial animals and present them, take part in worship at the temple, and so give honor to God. What is more important, however, is that the members of the people of God should live in harmony with one another, in mutual forgiveness. If they do not, there is no sense in visiting the temple or making sacrifices. Jesus then continues immediately with a reference to the prophets’ critique of cultic worship, for example, the words of God in Amos 5:

Amos 5:21–24 ESV

“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Pure and undefiled worship involves reconciliation with believers and non-believers.

If the social relationships within the people of God are out of line, the glory of the temple and the beauty of its liturgical worship are nothing but a farce. The prophets insist on this again and again. For members of God’s people to live unreconciled alongside one another is as unacceptable to Jesus as social injustice. People who live together in unanimity and reconciliation are, for him, the indispensable precondition for every form of worship.

Finally, it is worth noting how Jesus sets the scene for the example he gives. He does not say, “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that you have insulted or angered your brother or sister, leave your gift there before the altar and go and ask your brother or sister to forgive you.” Instead, he says: “if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you.” Jesus is not interested in the identity of the guilty party; he deliberately leaves that question open. It is entirely possible that it is not the person in the temple who is at fault in the dispute but the one back home. Even so, the one in the temple must do everything possible to bring about reconciliation. She or he may not leave things as they are and most certainly must not say: “So-and-so started it, and so will have to be the one to begin restoring peace. That one will have to come and apologize to me. Then we can see what happens.”

Those who think that way are being guided by bourgeois morality, not by the Gospel. Jesus is convinced that quarrels and enmities are so impossible within the people of God that an immediate attempt must be made to put an end to them, whether a particular individual is at fault or not. As long as one has not personally done everything possible to reconcile with the other there is no sense in going to worship. Such worship, Jesus says, is an abomination before God. But God rejoices in people who make peace, pursue it, and seek reconciliation.

That, however, seems to contradict Matthew’s version of the Our Father when it reads “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” But the problem resolves itself immediately when we consider the sequence in Matthew 5:23-24: someone intends to bring an offering to Jerusalem, visiting the place where glory is given to God, the temple. But this person may not bring the gift to the altar unless she or he has previously been reconciled with a fellow believer back home. Having forgiven the debtor everything, and having returned to Jerusalem, this person also receives full forgiveness from God. Reconciliation with the brother or sister in faith is the precondition for worship in the temple, and yet God has long since established this worship service as the enduring place for the giving of forgiveness. God took the initiative long ago.

Suddenly we behold the way of Jesus and the sacrifice of his life behind Matthew 5:23-24. Jesus ran himself ragged for the sake of the people of God in order to create reconciliation, and his reward was to be crucified. From his death, however, arose the Easter communities, the enduring place of reconciliation.

But now to return to our initial question: it is probably clear by now that “forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors” is something that can be said not only by the disciples who are Jesus’ immediate companions. As Matthew 5:23-24 shows, it applies to all members of the people of God. On the other hand, like the whole of the Our Father, it is first and primarily for the disciples who are the nerve-center of the eschatological Israel that is to be gathered again. Therefore we have to maintain the tension that constantly reveals itself: the Our Father is the disciples’ prayer, formulated by Jesus for their very specific situation, and yet it is the prayer of all those in Israel who join in what is now happening through Jesus.

We petition for daily forgiveness so that we continue to be the church who always forgives one another.