Forgiveness: God’s and Ours

Daily Office Devotional, Friday, September 29, 2023

Proper 20, the week of the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. David W Perkins, Th.D.

Daily Office Gospel, Matthew 6:7-15

7‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 ‘Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. 12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. 14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 984)

AM Psalm 88; PM Psalm 91, 92

2 Kings 9:17-37; 1 Cor. 7:1-9; Matt. 6:7-15

Today we celebrate the Feast of Michael and All Angels. (See below.)

David's Reflections

Today's Gospel gives us the Lord's Prayer, or the Our Father. You will find a different, briefer version in Luke 11. This prayer has been central in the worshipping life of the church at least since the early second century. We recite it each Sunday in the celebration of Holy Eucharist, and it appears in each office in The Book of Common Prayer.

One troubling piece of the prayer and the verses immediately following has to do with the link between God's forgiving us and our forgiving one another. Jesus consistently taught, as did the prophets of Hebrew Scripture, that our relationship with God is linked inextricably with our relationships with one another. We cannot claim to walk closely with God while at the same time maintaining physically or emotionally violent or exploitive relationships with others.

This Gospel provokes the question, "Do I have to forgive others in order for God to forgive me?" Perhaps the more basic question should be, "What does it mean for God to forgive me?" It means that God suffers the destructive power of our lovelessness toward Godself and our ignoring of God’s presence and our disobeying the divine will. God suffers it in such a way that robs it of its power to generate an evil response in Godself toward us. And, when we accept God’s offer of love, God relates to us with love and acceptance.

Oxford scholar, the late G. B. Caird put this quite well. ". . . the power of evil may be absorbed by innocent suffering and neutralized by forgiving love.”+

Former faculty colleague and friend Fisher Humphreys has written extensively about the cross as God’s way of overcoming our evil in love. He speaks of cruciform forgiveness. These lines offer a concise, articulate way of speaking about it.

The suffering of Jesus is the event in which the eternal Son of God,

having set aside the transcendence that insulates God from the painful effects

of human behavior and become incarnate, voluntarily embraced the most

outrageous consequences of human sinning as God’s way of forgiving sins.#

God's forgiveness of us has a transforming effect on us. The divine love cleanses us from the sense of guilt and shame and generates our gratitude and our repentance, enabling us to resist the very evil that created the need for forgiveness. One evil we resist is hostility and unforgiveness. It is not that we must forgive to somehow merit God's forgiveness; rather, it is that we forgive because we have been forgiven. But, we could say that when we practice forgiveness, that in itself takes us more deeply into the experience of God’s love and forgiveness. (See Jesus parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18.)

The wounding we receive from others certainly can and does create anger and distance. Only if we choose to remain in that angry and wounded place do we hinder our relationship with God. God is eager to pour love into our lives, but our resentment creates a barrier that interferes with our ability to receive. In the very moment we decide that we must let go of the one who has wounded and offended us, God's love enables us to live through the pain we have felt and to let our anger toward the offending person go.

Our forgiving another then becomes not our action alone; rather, we find God's love and God's forgiveness flowing through us to the other. Ernst Lohmeyer, a German New Testament scholar who perished at the hands of the Russians shortly after WW II, once said:

" . . . our 'human forgiveness' can and must be understood simply as a reflection of the divine forgiveness. . . . all forgiveness which we can give our debtors is only the effect of the forgiveness which we have experienced from God. . . . 'our forgiving' is not contrasted with God's as though it were something separate, but . . . this very forgiveness for which we ask and which we grant to our debtors comes from God himself, so that our action towards our debtors is light of his light, spirit of his spirit, love of his love." *

• Ernst Löhmeyer, The Lord's Prayer, trans John Bowden (London: Collins, 1965), pp. 182-183.

• G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine. Harper's New Testament Commentaries (New York: Harper, 1966), p. 157

• #Fisher Humphreys, Thinking About God: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 3d ed. (Covington, LA: Insight, 2016), p. 129.

Collect of the Day, Proper 20. the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 234)

Today we celebrate the Feast of Michael and All Angels,

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Michael.htm

Collect of the Feast of Michael and All Angels

Everlasting God, who has ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For stewardship of creation

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards

of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 259)

A Collect for Fridays

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (BCP, 123)

In the Order of Worship for Evening

Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, creator of the changes of day and night, giving rest to the weary, renewing the strength of those who are spent, bestowing upon us occasions of song in the evening. As you have protected us in the day that is past, so be with us in the coming night; keep us from every sin, every evil, and every fear; for you are our light and salvation, and the strength of our life. To you be glory for endless ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)

A Collect for Mission

Merciful God, creator of all the peoples of the earth and lover of souls: Have compassion on all who do not know you as you are revealed in your Son Jesus Christ; let your Gospel be preached with grace and power to those who have not heard it; turn the hearts of those who resist it; and bring home to your fold those who have gone astray; that there may be one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 280)

Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer