“And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;” – Matthew 6:12 – RSV
When I was in high school, each year the final edition of the school newspaper had a section devoted to Senior Wills. Any graduating Senior could submit their “will” – usually a clever little blurb either offering something material or a bit of wisdom up to one or more underclassmen to help them through their remaining high school career. They made for a fun read and were generally well intended. My Junior year, I’d put my skinny, slow, 6′ 1″, 150 pound body into the meat grinder of varsity football. It was my first and only foray into organized tackle football, and in a fairly large and racially diverse Southern California high school, the results were entirely forgettable. They were not, however, entirely forgotten.
When the paper came out with that year’s Senior Wills, my attention (along with that of all my friends) was drawn to an entry that read: “We the Seniors of the Monrovia High School football team hereby will all our athletic ability to Rob Sheehy.” Ouch. Now, I may have had unrealistic expectations of my abilities. And for various reasons, my insecure, 16-year-old self didn’t always project the humility I should have. But still, it wasn’t a kind thing to do. Thankfully back then there was no internet. That meager dig in a high school newspaper pales in comparison to the cruel and often nonstop cyberbullying that goes on in today’s world. I recall in the moment kind of laughing it off but deep down, it burned. I never knew who submitted that and I didn’t bother trying to find out. Perhaps for that reason, it wasn’t long before I was able to make peace with it, forgive whoever did it, and move on.
Forgiveness. One could argue that no topic in any of Jesus’ teachings is more central, more essential. The very act of Jesus going to the cross to die for us is to secure our ultimate forgiveness from sin. It’s the culmination of His message of the Father’s grace and mercy to our broken world. We have had a debt forgiven that goes beyond our human capacity to measure it, and if we actually could, perhaps we’d spend all day, every day, doing nothing but thanking and praising God for that gift of mercy.
While the gift of the cross is free to all of us who will accept it, it does not come without responsibility. These words of Jesus in the Lord’s prayer hammer home one of His most challenging and most crucial messages: as we have been forgiven, so must we forgive others. In Matthew 18:21-35, the parable of the unforgiving servant paints a clear picture of what Jesus means with these words. A servant is forgiven by the king from a debt that would equate to millions of dollars in modern times. Shortly after, that same servant has a man thrown in jail over a debt of chump change by comparison. When the king hears of it, he immediately has the servant thrown in jail for the debt that he was originally forgiven.
The message is clear: as God has been merciful to us, so we are to be merciful to those who wrong us, no matter what the wrong was. This is challenging. SO challenging. We can be hurt so badly, often by those who we love the most or who love us the most, or at least claim to. We can live together with someone for years while the hurts pile up and pile up, and we become so overwhelmed by them that we just can’t take it anymore and move on from that person. We vow that we’ll never forgive them for the pain they’ve caused us. Even observing them from a distance over time, we see how the person still behaves and it reinforces our belief in their general badness, further justifying our unforgiving stance. But God calls us to a different path.
One of the books, maybe the book that started my journey towards seeing God as a loving, forgiving, graceful Father is William P. Young’s The Shack. In the story, the protagonist, Mack, is met by the beautiful and wonderful triune being of God, at a place where an unspeakable horror was committed. As the book unfolds, the persons of Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit lead him on a journey in which the ultimate goal is to find a way to forgive the person who committed the horrible act that has left Mack’s spirit scarred and broken. It’s a powerful and beautiful story, and the film does a wonderful job of bringing it to life. While some have criticized its theology and portrayal of God, I believe the message rings true. Painful as it is, and as much as we want to be justified in all our pain over whatever wrongs we’ve endured, we need to forgive.
Sometimes, the hardest “debtor” for us to forgive is ourselves. No one is more aware of our faults and the wrongs we’ve done to ourselves and others than the one staring back at us in the mirror. But we need to forgive ourselves also. The wrongs we suffer from others may cause us to hold a grudge, which has been likened to drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. But regret for the ways we’ve let ourselves down, along with the ways we’ve hurt others lays an even heavier burden on our shoulders. It’s a burden we’re not meant to carry. Certainly not part of the “cross” Jesus urges us to take up as we follow Him. But we’re so acutely aware of having hurt or disappointed someone that we never stop beating ourselves up for it. The other party may have long ago forgiven us, but somehow we can’t bring ourselves to accept it.
Even if the other party is God, we struggle to receive the mercy He so freely gives us. While it’s no bueno to accept His grace too casually and use the cross as an excuse to continue living in an obviously unrighteous manner, the opposite – failing to allow His grace and mercy to wash away our past, is equally self-destructive. In Psalm 103:12 the psalmist assures us our sins are removed from us as far as the East is from the West. What a liberating image that is! But failing to forgive ourselves when forgiveness has already been given denies us that freedom and keeps us locked up. Repentance is necessary, but it shouldn’t be perpetual.
If God’s Kingdom is to come and His will is to be done, it can only be done when His children are willing to be set free, not only from their own sin against others, and themselves, but from the sins of others against them. The first part was all Jesus on the cross. The second part is on us, with the help of the Spirit.
And forgive us our debts – Lord, thank you that you have indeed forgiven my debt, forever washing away my sin with the blood you shed on the cross.
As we also have forgiven our debtors – Holy Spirit, please help me show the same mercy to all those around me that you have shown me, including myself. Please let me not hold anything against my brothers and sisters. And let me not deny mercy to myself when I have already repented and received it from You and others. Help me let go of all hurts, that we may all share in the true joy of Your Kingdom.