Kingdom economics--forgiveness

Rebrant's Return of the Prodigal Son

Our family recites the Lord's Prayer together every evening, and every evening we get to "and forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors" and I get a little twinge in my gut. The whole prayer is about God and what he does and then bam! I've got a part and it's hard. And it's not like this is a rare, Jesus one-off. He doubles down on this a few verses after the Lord's Prayer and again in parable form:

32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
~The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 18

Forgiveness is a big deal to God, and it's a big deal for us.

Forgiveness is a big deal to God in that it is through forgiveness that we big rift between us and God is healed. The whole Jesus cruelly killed on a cross thing? That's because we are people who give God the finger in thought, word, and deed day in and day out. And it's not going work for God to say, "That's ok, it doesn't matter, come live in my happy, happy!"

Instead, the story of the whole Bible is more like this, "I have loved you so much, I cannot bear this separation. So I will take on the form of humanity, and I will live your human life and I will take the punishment for your rebellion on my person. I'm paying for your debt, so the slate is wiped clean. Now, come live in my kingdom."

So our part is to become members of God's household, people who have accepted God's forgiveness of our debts through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, and now choose to live under God's rule instead of in rebellion to it.

What, then, is this bit about "as we forgive our debtors"? Well, going back to the parable quoted above, the master was angry at his servant because the servant was forgiven by the master but wouldn't forgive another for a lesser amount. We are so much like this servant. Forgiveness is harder than it seems like it should be.

When I struggle to forgive, it's usually because the other person hasn't asked for forgiveness. But the older I get, the fewer apologies I get. Maybe my parents just made us apologize to one another all the time, I don't know.

Anyways, I have had to learn to sit under the waterfall of grace and ask God to help me forgive the same person for the same unapologized hurt over and over. John Piper suggests that our prayer should be "Forgive my failure to forgive X." The very thing I need forgiveness for is my lack of forgiveness

Another point Piper makes is that this prayer, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" shows us that God is willing to work within our own belief system. If we live in a world of karma, aka "payback is a bitch", then how can we go to God and expect him to extend mercy? If we live in a world of mercy, aka "Jesus takes the fall", then we are operating in Kingdom Economics.

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Today happens to be the first day of Lent. Here's what I've written about and during Lent.