“Please forgive me.” These are, many times, difficult words to say. It is easier to say, “I’m sorry” or even “I apologize.” Somehow those phrases keep me on the same level as you and what I’ve done was simply an accident. “Forgive me” acknowledges that I am somehow in your debt and, therefore, at your mercy. Because we have a need and constant drive to be justified, to believe we are in the right in whatever we say and do, it is difficult to admit when we are wrong, and at the mercy of another to release us from our moral debt.
Being on the other side of forgiveness has its challenges as well. You have been wronged. This person owes you. Now he is coming to ask forgiveness; for you to absorb the debt that he created. If you forgive him, it will cost you in some form or fashion. You want vengeance, your pound of flesh, your money, your dignity, all that he took from you. You want strict justice. Granting forgiveness can be challenging.
Both of these challenges of forgiveness are part of the ongoing life of the family of God. But the challenges don’t end there. When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he deepens the challenge with “forgive us our debts….” Just as when we pray for daily bread we are concerned about the needs of others–“Give us this day our daily bread”–so in our petition of forgiveness, we are praying for the forgiveness of others as well as our own.
It is difficult enough to humble ourselves before others to ask for their forgiveness or to absorb the cost of someone’s direct assault on us through word or deed, but to ask for forgiveness for sins we haven’t personally committed seems to be asking a bit much. But that is exactly what Jesus is teaching us to do.
Jesus isn’t asking us to do anything that he himself is not willing to do. Throughout this prayer, Jesus has identified with us. He is the eternal Son of the Father but teaches us to pray “our Father,” identifying with us as brothers and sisters. He is the one who is first and foremost praying this prayer as the Son. This is rightly called, “The Lord’s Prayer.” He leads us and prays with us for the hallowing of the Father’s name. He leads us and prays with us for the coming of the kingdom. He leads us and prays with us for our daily bread. He leads us and prays with us for the forgiveness of our debts.
How can it be said that Jesus is praying this prayer? We know that he was sinless (cf. 2Cor 5.21; Heb 4.15). Surely, he is teaching the disciples something to pray that he himself will never have to pray. Not so. He is sinless, but he identifies with the sins of his people. He did this in his baptism. He did this at the cross. “He who knew no sin became sin for us…” (2Cor 5.21). He took responsibility for our sin though he himself was not personally guilty of any sin.
In teaching us to pray, “Forgive us our debts,” he is teaching us to follow him in the offering up of our lives for others. Though our churches may not be guilty of ordaining women or homosexuals as pastors, though we may not be blessing homosexual unions, though we may not be bowing to icons, though we may not be neglecting corrective discipline of sin, though we may not be embroiled in sinful infighting, the church that bears the name of the Triune God in some form or fashion is guilty of all of these things and more. Like Daniel who interceded for Israel’s sins that sent them into exile (Dan 9) and like Christ Jesus who suffered and died on behalf of our sins, so we are called to identify with the sins of the rest of those who bear the name of Christ and pray for their forgiveness.
This is, in fact, one of the emphases of the Lenten season and its tradition of fasting. We practice these disciplines (whether during Lent or not, it doesn’t matter), not merely for personal devotion, but for intercession for others. We follow Jesus in dying in fasting-prayer for the sake of the world.
Identifying with sin in praying for forgiveness doesn’t mean that we must then being mealy-mouthed about confronting sin. Quite the contrary. Identifying with these sins in praying for forgiveness keeps them before us as our problems; problems that we need to address as the church, putting feet to our prayer. These sins are not just their problem and only affecting them. The sins of the church are our problems, and we need to be addressing them appropriately through prayer and proclamation.
Let us then follow Jesus and pray, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
