Some years ago now, a priest was caught up in the preparations for Christmas. One day he went on an expedition to do two things: to make his Christmas confession, and to pick up something a tradesman had promised many times to have ready by Christmas. The priest made his confession, received absolution, and on his way home popped into the tradesman’s shop to pick up the article. It wasn’t ready, the tradesman had not only broken his promise but had lied; and the priest lost his temper. He told the tradesman in a few choice words exactly what he thought of him, stalked righteously out of the shop, and was half-way home before he realised to his horror what he had done. He had just re-lived the parable of the Unmerciful Servant. I find this story rather painful because that priest happened to be me.

Here’s another story. Do you know the one about the two parishioners who had fallen out with each other, and whose antagonism was splitting the congregation? The Vicar did his best to mediate, and eventually managed to persuade them to go over to the church and kneel down with him before the altar. Then with them, he slowly said the Lord’s Prayer. When he got to ‘Forgive us our sins’, he stopped, rose to his feet, left them kneeling there, and went out of the church. The happy ending was that the priest’s strategy worked. Not even the intransigence of those two men could bring them to say together ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’ without actually patching up their quarrel.

How often have you, we, said the whole Lord’s Prayer while holding on to unforgiveness in our heart? It’s not very often that we have the problem persons kneeling next to us when we pray the prayer. Perhaps it would be better if we did. Then we would take forgiveness and the Lord’s Prayer a little more seriously.

Jesus clearly links God’s forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others. He does it again and again. We’ve heard this so often that we’re in danger of missing its force. Let’s dig a little deeper.

First, let’s establish, if we can, what Jesus actually said. He did not teach us to pray ‘forgive us our trespasses’ That’s a wrong translation. Literally, in Matthew’s version Jesus says ‘Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors’. In Luke’s version, Jesus says, ‘Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.’

The idea of ‘sin’ as ‘debt’ isn’t one we relate easily to. But there’s an important truth here. We owe God a certain sort of life. An obediently loving, righteous, and holy life. We owe God obedience. We owe God that, in return for the gift of life. When we fail to live that sort of life, we are in debt to Him. The final reckoning of that debt is on the Day of Judgement. This is the basic mental framework within which Jesus is speaking.  And we do well to take that very seriously indeed.

So the first part of the prayer is essentially saying, ‘Father, on the Day of Judgement, wipe the slate clean. Above all, when we stand before you at the Last Judgement, forgive us that debt we have piled up by our failure to live our life in accordance with your purpose in giving us that life. Yes, and here and now let’s know the joy and freedom of that final forgiveness. Bring it forward, into the present’. You see, it’s a forward-looking prayer, like all the rest of the Lord’s Prayer.

We live in the overlap of two Ages. The past age of sin and rebellion, and God’s New Age. The Reign of God is present in this overlap, but not yet with irresistible force. There’s still the Judgement and the Second Coming (however we understand this). We are now in the Age of Grace, when God through His servant Jesus is willing to forgive sins, and He leaves us free to accept or reject that forgiveness. So let’s seek His forgiveness while we can.

But what about the second part of the petition, ‘Forgive us our debts (or sins) as we have forgiven our debtors’ (Matthew) OR ‘for we forgive everyone who is indebted to us’ (Luke).

Does it mean ‘Forgive us in the same way as we forgive others’? But that seems to be putting it the wrong way round. Shouldn’t we be forgiving others in the same way as God forgives us? You can argue this either way.

Does it mean ‘Forgive us because we have forgiven others’? But that could perhaps take us away from the fact that God freely chooses to forgive us. Certainly our forgiveness of others does not earn God’s forgiveness of us.

If we go back to the original Aramaic (which I can’t), I understand we come up with something like this: ‘Forgive us our debts (or sins) as we also herewith forgive our debtors’. So even in the Age of Grace, in this overlap of the Ages, God will not forgive us, He chooses not to forgive us, unless we ourselves are prepared to forgive. Jesus emphasises this over and over again. As in this morning’s uncomfortable parable.

The prayer becomes something like this (I draw on the scholar Jeremias here): ‘O Lord, we indeed belong to the Age of the Messiah, to the age of forgiveness, and we are ready to pass on to others the forgiveness which we receive. Now grant us, dear Father, the gift of the age of salvation, your forgiveness. We stretch out our hands, forgive us our debts – even now, even here, already today.’

But what is forgiveness? I draw on Richard Foster’s book on spiritual disciplines to help us here.
‘In experiencing forgiveness it is important to understand what it is not…
1. It does not mean pretending that something doesn’t really matter. What we need is not avoidance but reconciliation.
2. Forgiveness does not mean ceasing to hurt. We may well have forgiven someone truly, but still hurt for a long time.
3. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Often we cannot forget. We remember, but the difference is that we no longer need or desire to us that memory against others.
4. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that the relationship is just the same as before the offence. But the relationship will never be the same again. By the grace of God it may be a hundred times better. But it will never be the same.’

And so the outcome of forgiveness, the heart of forgiveness, is reconciliation, the restoration of a loving relationship where each seeks the good of the other. That is the outcome of forgiveness.

Finally, I want to point you towards two liturgical acts in which the Church expresses something important about forgiveness.

1. ‘The Reconciliation of a penitent; a form of Private Confession’. (NZPB p750). Yes, the Anglican Church has sacramental confession. And its position on sacramental confession is summed up thus: ‘All may, none must, some should’. The forgiveness of God can be sought and received directly, without intermediary. (So ‘none must’.) Or it can be communicated through the Church, through a priest. (‘All may, and some should’ i.e. would be wise to.) See the words of absolution (pp752-3): ‘All things have been reconciled to God the creator through the life, death and resurrection of God’s only Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit has been sent among us for the forgiveness of sins. By the authority of Christ given to the Church, I absolve you from your sins in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May God give you peace.’

Sometimes it’s only this authoritative declaration which will, as it were, ‘get through’ to us. And many are the souls who have rejoiced to be free from their sense of guilt after having sought God’s forgiveness in this way. I’ve been on both ends of this ministry, and know its benefits. More about this another time, perhaps.

2. The other liturgical act is ‘the Peace’, which we Anglicans exchange just before we go on to the Eucharist proper, just before the Offertory, the taking of the bread and wine to the altar. Roman Catholics exchange it just before going to the altar to receive Communion. Both places are valid.

Now ‘the Peace’ does mean much more than an expression of mutual forgiveness of each other. But it must include that. When we exchange the greeting of the Peace, we are not just saying a superficial ‘hullo’ – and I despair when I see people saying ‘good morning’ to each other at this point or start chatting. No, when we exchange ‘the Peace’ we are asserting that we are reconciled to one another, that we don’t have anything against anyone, and that therefore we are free to go on and worship God at His altar.

‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’. I suggest that when we exchange the Peace this morning we have in our minds that this is one way of praying these particular words of the Lord’s Prayer. For we come to this altar as a community of forgiving and forgiven sinners. Or we should not come at all.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on 14 September 2008, by the Revd Canon Peter Stuart.

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