Turning the Tables on Forgiveness

Q #126: What does the fifth petition mean? 
A: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” means:

Because of Christ’s blood, do not hold against us, poor sinners that we are, any of the sins we do or the evil that constantly clings to us.

Forgive us just as we are fully determined, as evidence of your grace in us, to forgive our neighbors.

Is it easier to forgive, or to be forgiven?

I’m not sure that this question is as easy to answer as we might think at first. If you’re like me, you’re tempted to say reflexively that of course, it is much easier to be forgiven than to forgive. After all, being forgiven lets me off the hook. If I’ve been forgiven of something, then I no longer bear the guilt of what I have done, and things will be better for me. But if I need to forgive someone, then I have to do the hard work of shouldering the harm that was done, and let someone else off the hook. Things will be more difficult for me.

Because this is often how we think about forgiveness, we might be tempted to turn this petition of the Lord’s Prayer into a transaction, an exchange of one for the other. First, we must forgive our debtors, those who have damaged us or have done us wrong in some way. Then, we can ask the Lord for our own sins to be forgiven. But this is counter to the gospel. This makes our forgiving others a condition of our forgiveness. This turns our forgiving others into a work. This threatens the free gift of grace in Jesus Christ. 

But what if the reverse is true? What if it is easier to forgive than to be forgiven?

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes about why we might find being forgiven more difficult. “We do so because so much of life is spent trying to avoid acknowledging that we owe anyone anything. Yet to be a follower of Jesus, to learn to pray this prayer, means that we must first learn to be forgiven.”

Forgiving someone else allows us to retain our control of the situation. We get to choose the time and place and terms of the mercy we offer. But to be forgiven, we have to give up control. We have to cede our telling of the story, and accept someone else’s. 

We are never closer to the gospel than when we accept that we are sinners needing forgiveness. But this is not easy. To accept God’s free forgiveness, we have to accept our place in his story rather than continuing to write our own. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

…there is no no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:1-2).

~Pastor Matt