The Lord's Prayer: Forgive Us As We Forgive - Matthew 6:7-13

“Our Father” calls us to be a community gathered together in worship of our God who is intimately connected with us. We are reminded that though God is our Father, he is our creator and is far above and more powerful than anything we may experience on this earth as we pray, “who art in heaven.”  “Hallowed be thy name” reminds us to bring honor to God’s name by reflecting His holiness, not only in our speech but also in everything we do, in how we live, in how we treat His Creation, in how we treat all of those He has given life to and His life for.  We pray that this world, including our very lives, will be changed and conformed to God’s Kingdom and Will as we say, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” – that we might be those through whom God reveals His Kingdom, Here and Now.  In asking that God, “give us this day our daily bread,” we ask God, not to grant our wishes, but to provide our basic needs and realize that those needs may be different from what we think they are.

Now, my sisters and brothers, we come to probably the toughest part of the prayer…the prayer that calls for more change in us than any other point…the part of the prayer that challenges everything that society has bred within us.  We are at the point where we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Some other churches pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  What are we talking about here?  Are we talking about our being forgiven for treading on God’s property or borrowing money from God?  We need to come to an understanding of what we are talking about before we can go any further.  I think in our contemporary language we may have watered down and now fail to understand completely what we are praying, as we do with many things we  don’t want to hear or talk about.

There was an old priest who got sick of all the people in his parish who kept confessing adultery. One Sunday, from the pulpit, he said, "If I hear one more person confess to adultery, I'll quit!”

Well, everyone liked him, so they came up with a code word.  Someone who had committed adultery would say they had "fallen."

This seemed to satisfy the old priest and things went well, until the priest died at a ripe old age. About a week after the new priest arrived, he visited the mayor of the town and seemed very concerned. 

The priest said, "You have to do something about the sidewalks in town.  Almost every person that has come to confession this week has told me that they have ‘fallen.’” 

                                                                        

While we may realize its true meaning in the back of our minds somewhere, our use of the words trespass or debt can make us forget that what we are really talking about is SIN.  We are praying, “God forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”  We are talking about grievous wrongs committed, not simply a trespass or a debt.  As sinners we have trespassed onto ground that God has forbidden and because of that, we are indebted to him a debt so large we can never hope to repay, making college loans look like pocket change.

Understanding that we are talking about sin, there are two things that we must realize we are asking when we pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

We have to begin by acknowledging that we are sinners in need of God’s grace, in need of God’s forgiveness.  Very often we tend to forget this.  We are quick to point out the sin of the person we find sexually immoral, pornographer, drug user, murderer, and thief. Yet we forget that our sins of gluttony, drunkenness, lying, deceitfulness, prejudice, and even gossip are equally sinful before God.  In fact, we could say that all of those things are simply “sins,” that they are symptoms of “Sin.”  

When I teach Confirmation classes, we talk about Sin as being the failure to trust God as the center of our lives resulting in “sins” which are any actions and effects that harm persons, relationships or creation. That means that beyond those things we normally list as sins (those things that harm persons, relationships, or creation), that we could also include in that list of sins tossing a cigarette to the ground when we’ve finished smoking it and leaving the butt lying there or using products that will not breakdown and return to the earth in a timely manner.  We could also include telling a joke that belittles a person because of their skin color, ethnicity, or even hair color (regardless of whether they are present or not) or wearing clothes there were made using slave or cheap labor overseas.  Among those sins that we need forgiveness of are passing judgment on and condemning folks because of their sins, or passing judgment on what kind person they are based on their skin color, their piercings, their hair length, their tattoos, their clothes, their turbans or their hijab.

My sisters and brothers, as we acknowledge the sins that haunt us and ask for forgiveness, we trust that the prayer will be heard and that that forgiveness comes will come from God.  We have faith that through our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birth, life, death, and resurrection we receive that forgiveness.  We can be certain that God’s grace is greater than even the most grievous sin that we have ever committed and that through the confession of that sin, we are able to realize the forgiveness that Christ has offered even before the sin was committed.

And yet, in the joy of realizing that forgiveness is already available, we must keep in mind the next part of the prayer.  And, here, my friends, is the real challenge for many of us.  We must remember that the forgiveness that we are seeking from God is the forgiveness that we have offered to others.  We pray, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”  In other words, “God, we want you to forgive our sins in the same way we offer forgiveness to others.”

Brothers and sisters, think about that for a moment, if you will.  Think about what we are praying and if we really mean it.  That means that if we hold a grudge against some one that has sinned against us—for instance, if we still are upset at that man who called us a name last year—then we are saying God, since I hold that grudge against John Doe, then you are welcome to feel the same way about my sins.  It means that if we want to take vengeance or get even with  that person who slashed our tires, then we are asking God to take vengeance or get even with us for any wrong we have committed against Him.  It even means, my brothers and sisters, that if we want to see that person put to death for killing our loved one, then we are asking for that same type of death sentence proclaimed upon ANY sin that we commit.

Jesus Christ stresses our need to forgive others in order to be forgiven, not only does he teach us to pray this way, he immediately follows the prayers with a commentary on forgiveness in verses fourteen and fifteen:  “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”  Prior to the passage of the Lord’s Prayer, Christ talks about loving one’s enemies and turning the other cheek.  Forgiveness continued to be a theme of his ministry.  Right before he enters Jerusalem, heading toward the cross, he continued to stress forgiveness.  Jesus tells us the parable of the unforgiving servant, who after being forgiven a large debt by the king, refused to forgive a small debt owed him by a fellow servant.  When the king got wind of this refusal to forgive, the king then reinstated the first peasant’s debt and had him thrown in debtor’s prison.

We must understand, though, that this forgiveness of those who wrong us should not seem like such a forced or dreadful thing to do.  If we consider the fact that Christ forgave us in the midst of our sin, actually prior to our sin, then out of shear gratitude we should offer it to others.  Freely given to us, we should offer it freely to others.  God’s grace is so great that it should just flow out of our lives into the lives of others.

Can this kind of forgiveness really occur?  Can we as humans offer the same forgiveness and love that Christ offered to those who crucified him, and to us, who sin against God still today?  The answer is yes, it has been done and can be done:

Sister Helen Prejean writes about and interview she conducted in her book, Dead Man Walking:

Lloyd LeBlanc told me that he would have been content with imprisonment for Patrick Sonnier [the killer of his son, David]. He went to the execution, he says, not for revenge, but hoping for an apology.

Patrick Sonnier didn't disappoint him.  Before sitting in the electric chair, he said, “Mr. LeBlanc, I want to ask your forgiveness for what me and Eddie done,” and Lloyd LeBlanc nodded his head, signaling a forgiveness he had already given.  Mr. LeBlanc says that when he arrived with sheriff's deputies there in the cane field to identify his son, he knelt by his boy -- lying down there with his two little eyes sticking out like bullets -- and prayed the Our Father. And when he came to the words: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, he had not halted or equivocated, and he said, Whoever did this, I forgive them.

But he acknowledges that it's a struggle to overcome the feelings of bitterness and revenge that well up… Forgiveness is never going to be easy. Each day it must be prayed for and struggled for and won.

My brothers and sisters, forgiveness is never going to be an easy thing…however, we not only can pray for forgiveness, but we can pray for God to help us forgive those who have wronged us…and He will help, God will pour out His Holy Spirit upon us and fill us with a compassionate forgiving heart, if we only seek it out…

This morning, as we close out our sermon with prayer, I would like each of you to take just a moment, close your eyes, picture someone that you are having a difficult time forgiving, hold that image in front of you, and as we pray, remember that Christ died for not only our sins, but theirs as well…now let us pray:  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.  Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.