Intro
In 2004, a man by the name of Frank Warren created “PostSecret.com”, in which people can
write on a postcard about secrets they are carrying and feeling guilty for. The idea originated as a
project for an art exhibit but within 7 months he had already acquired 2,000 postcards. Every week
he receives secrets in the form of postcards from around the world. The website is still up and
receiving new postings every week from around the world. (http://www.postsecret.com/)
If you could write a confession about something in your life…perhaps hidden… what might it be?
And who would you send it to?
Jesus offers us a different solution. We are continuing in our series entitled: Soul Matters: Shaping
life around the Lord’s Prayer. Let’s read aloud together:
Matthew 6:9-13
"This, then, is how you should pray:
"'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'
As we’ve noted… Jesus is teaching us how such prayer is not about how we get God to serve our
will….but how we bring ourselves into the proper orbit around the will of God.
Last week shifts to our more specific needs…begins with material needs…”our daily bread”
Today… “Forgive us our debts”
The original language includes the word “AND” after daily bread…because that is how it actually
reads. In the same way we realize our lives depend upon daily food…provisions…so we depend
on being continually forgiven. Many of us are conscious of our need for daily bread, but are
utterly unconscious of our need for daily forgiveness.
If “Your will be done” is the most central and challenging….
“Forgive us Our Debts” is the most fundamental to any such relationship.
The Greek word being used refers to debts…but in the common way in which it was used to speak
of moral debts. And as such… our “debts” refers to violating a moral obligation… and now
facing the consequences of justice.
Those who have recited this prayer over the years may recall that this is one of the phrases that is
often translated differently between translations. Often it is “trespasses.” A trespasser has
violated a boundary and now faces the consequences.
Both debts and trespasses are accurate synonyms for the word sins, which is what Jesus is
addressing here. [1]
There are many Scriptures which describe sin…and many ways we could try to define it. Let me
offer this broad description:
Sin refers to our rejection of God’s loving authority and nature... a self imposed autonomy from
God which leaves us in bondage to our own will… and destined for the outer darkness outside the
orbit of God’s good and eternal will.
So the first thing we need to grasp for our souls to live in this prayer...is that…
1. We are sinners…
Will Willimon says a friend visit his attorney wife at work in a bankruptcy court. As the court
begins, before the particular case is to be heard, the bailiff cries out, "All debtors rise."
That's us.
But that may be hard to hear…and even harder to really grasp.
We are so confused with what it means to be sinners.
We as moderns need to embrace these words more than most that have gone before us.
Not because we are more guilty… but because we don’t know what to do with it.
We as moderns have repressed the self-serving nature within us. Our culture is working hard to
remove moral judgment from our lives. (It’s a bit ironic that when the NFL had to use replacement
referees… our country nearly came apart because not all the rules were being followed….calls
were being missed.)
We consider the word “sin” out of fashion. We know there’s a problem….but we feel we can
find a more sophisticated way to understand it.
We may say, “I don’t feel that way … I don’t feel like I am really much of a sinner. I know the
Bible teaches this…but I just don’t really feel it. It feels like an outdated way of thinking about
people.
But John says …
1 John 1:8-9 (NIV)
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness.
John says, in essence, beware you will not want to admit it. It is natural to deceive yourself on
this. You will hide from yourself how self-centered you are, you will hide from yourself how
much evil there really is in there.
How?
• We like to be in control - – play the “judge”
Will Willimon
“To reach out for forgiveness means that I am not the sole author of my life story. Nothing
assaults the contemporary understanding of our lives more than to ask for forgiveness. Indeed, in
putting forgiveness on the table for consideration, I have now learned that it is precisely my sinful
desire to be the sole author of my life that creates my debts. So we are asked in this petition to
come out from behind our facade, to become exposed, vulnerable, empty-handed, to risk
reconciliation to the one who has the power to forgive us.” [2]
C.S. Lewis
“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge.
For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a
kindly judge. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on
the Bench and God in the Dock.” [3]
Philip Yancey, a writer who has invested much of his life exploring these issues, was contacted by
a television producer after the death of Princess Diana to appear on a show and explain how God
could have possibly allowed such a tragic accident.
“Could it have had something to do with a drunk driver going ninety miles an hour in a narrow
tunnel?,” he asked the producer. “How, exactly, was God involved?”
From this, Yancey reflected on the pervasive nature of the mindset that our actions are
actually an indictment of God.
Such as when boxer Ray “boom boom” Mancini killed a Korean boxer in a match, the athlete said
in a press conference, “Sometimes I wonder why God does the things he does.”
In a letter to a Christian family therapist, a young woman told of dating a man and becoming
pregnant. She wanted to know why God allowed that to happen to her.
In her official confession, when South Carolina mother Susan Smith pushed her two sons into a
lake to drown, she said that as she did it, she went running after the car as it sped down the ramp
screaming, “Oh God! Oh God, no!...Why did you let this happen!”
Yancey raises the decisive question by asking,
“What exactly was the role God played in a boxer pummeling his opponent, a teenager
abandoning her virtue, or a mother drowning her children?”
We’ve demanded to get our own way…but we don’t know what to do with the consequences.
We’re want to be in control… and try not to answer to anyone.
• We like to focus on extremes – label and lament the most dramatic “evil”
One of the reasons that sin doesn’t always resonate is not really new. It the simple art of casting it
out upon the really obvious wrongs or evil people among us.
> If we focus on the most evil of actions…we can ignore the evil within us.
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were masters of this. They would identify the prostitutes,
drunkards, and tax collectors in the same way. (Today...tax collectors at best.)
As long as we look at Bernie Madoff, the financier whose massive Ponzi scheme defrauded
thousands of investors of billions of dollars. … we don’t have a problem with greed.
As long as we look at James Holmes, the loner graduate student who opened fire at a midnight
showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado, killing twelve and wounding dozens
more….we don’t have contempt and the desire to harm others in us.
But while there are aspects we can’t relate to…there is no aspect that is not at some level
within the potential of the human heart. [4]
> We live on the same continuum.
Jesus… “He who is without sin…cast the first stone.” Not her sin…but the same sin nature.
And they dropped their stones … beginning with the oldest.
One’s self assessment is always easier if we don’t get too close to the reality of good… the
reality of God. If we can leave God or Christ out of the picture… we may not identify with being
one of the really bad people.
The problem is that we can become too shallow. If we only look at some outward performance…
we may feel convicted…that there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
That’s why Jesus pressed beneath the surface of the soul… and raised the law of love … the
spirit of the commandments… to reveal the real condition that we all must face.
Consider the Ten Commandments. Ten basic boundaries to honor human life.
We might think …”Those are such basic boundaries for being a good person… I’m sure I’m no
violator of those.”
The truth is that when I look at the heart of each…I realize that I have violated every one at least
in spirit. [5]
In truth … even the Ten Commandments indicts me….and perhaps you as well. For we are
sinners who need forgiveness.
Of course, when shootings like that in Colorado unfold…another course of discussion is naturally
that of outside forces. We quickly begin to reduce the problem to something external that
needs to be fixed: we need gun control. We just need new laws. How could the school
administration have not seen the signs? How could parents have not been more aware? All of
these can serve to limit what’s inside us….but James Holmes is in a jail cell facing himself. And
at the end of the day…so are we.
• We like to focus on excuses – cultural, family, biological influences
In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the provocative title, Whatever
Became of Sin? His point was that sociology and psychology tend to avoid terms like “evil,” or
“immorality,” and “wrongdoing.” Menninger detailed how the notion of sin became the legal
idea of crime and then slid further from its true meaning when it was relegated to the
psychological category of sickness.
We have confused influences with responsibility.
As we learn about cultural influences…and biological influences… we see what are essentially
“dispositions”… but we relate to them like “determinations”.
It was in my family...my genes…my culture.
We have come to view ourselves merely as suffering misfortune … to be pitied… never judged.
I don’t think the most vital moral distinction is between good people and bad people… I have
never seen people as proving to fit either category. Rather, I think the issue may be more about
those who assume personal moral responsibility in life….and those who won’t.
We tend to think…
"My biggest problem in life exists outside of me and not inside of me."
In Psalm 51 David says something very radical. It's counter-intuitive to a culture that tends to say
that we all are the result of what our experience has made us. David says,
Psalm 51:5 (NIV)
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
David is saying that his greatest problem in all of life is not the result of what he has suffered in
the situations and relationships of his life. Rather, David is saying that his biggest problem is
internal and was there before he had any of these experiences! And David gives this deep and
internal problem a name - sin.
We need to awaken to the reality of sin.
Why? Because it is that very nature that destroys us.
Think about it this way. It's the evil that is inside of you that either magnetizes you to the evil
outside of you or causes you to deal with the evil outside of you in a way that is wrong.
It's only when you begin to accept that your greatest problem in all of life is not what has
happened or been done to you, that you begin to get excited about the rescuing grace of
Jesus Christ. It's only when you begin to accept that your greatest need is something you came
into the world with, that you will begin to hunger for the help that only God can give you.
Personal experience – a moment during college years… most exposed to guilt I had ever known.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t done countless things I knew were wrong…but this time… the
consequences were significant and open.
It became a moment of grace…sheer grace.
In that moment of conviction… I never felt closer to God
The freedom we claim…that of doing whatever we want…is really the freedom to be lost. In that
moment of being exposed to truth…I felt found.
What we need is forgiveness…and that is a second truth we must grasp…
2. We can be forgiven
In this statement… “Forgive us our debts”… Jesus is not simply calling us to face our sin…but
also to face the forgiveness at hand.
Forgiveness is profound. It declares God’s desire to be reconciled with us…to deal with the
debt while still bearing justice. [6]
It’s tragic that we take that lightly.
As N. T. Wright says…
“Instead of genuine forgiveness, our generation has been taught the vague notion of `tolerance'.
This is, at best, a low-grade parody of forgiveness. At worst, it's a way of sweeping the real issues
in human life under the carpet.” [7]
To declare that God forgives is unlike any other forgiveness.
The offer of forgiveness and reconciliation only has meaning if the one extending it holds
good intentions and potential.
> The significance of forgiveness depends on the positive significance of the one who we are
being forgiven by.
Example: A child wants to be forgiven by their parents because they want to be accepted by the
source of their life…. And all the more of those parents are a source of care and good intent.
John 3:16 (NIV)
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.
> God loves us (has good intentions)… and desires eternal life for us. So giving his son as a means
to reconcile is good news because of his intent and the potential he holds.
Jesus… “I came that they might have life… and real and abundant life.” He came to forgive but as
a means to restore us..
This is the life giving power of forgiveness which Christ has come to bring…in his sacrificial
death.
1 John 2:1-2 (NIV)
“…we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins…”
Christ is described as an advocate. An advocate is a legal representative.
In all countries, the national leaders can declare war and also surrender and achieve peace.
You don’t have a referendum on war. We don’t have a popular election to decide whether we are
going to go to war or not or decide whether we will surrender or not. You have a relationship with
the national leaders so that they have the right to do that and, of course, if they make a bad move
we are all involved … if they make a good move we are all involved.
In ancient times you had the idea of a champion. Here were two great armies coming together
and sometimes rather than have the battle and have lot and lots of people killed each army would
put forth a champion. In the old days they even had a word for this in the ancient Greek, an
Archegos. If your champion … or Archegos… had victory you were treated as if you were the
victors.
And of course the one we often use most nowadays is a “power of attorney”.
What does Jesus bear? A plea for mercy? No. It does not say he is the pleading one…or the
persuasive one. It says, “Jesus Christ the righteous one.” Jesus Christ is not asking the Father to
ignore justice. Jesus Christ is fulfilling justice. He is fulfilling the Law. The advocacy of Jesus
Christ was the Father’s idea.
We read in 2 Corinthians 5:19 - “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.”
Again, in John’s words…
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” - 1
John 1:8-9 (NIV)
If we claim to be without sin….we are deceiving ourselves… lost from truth and reality.
He is faithful and just….and WILL forgive us our sins…
> If we confess our sins.
Does this suggest we haven’t been forgiven?
God has reconciled us as family… we have come home… we are no longer lost. But being
reconciled with God as our Father means we now have a relationship to keep current in honesty
and daily reconciliation.
3. We need confession to remain in the light
“Forgive us our debts” is in essence a confession of our moral violations… our sin.
There are some forms of what we might call “confession” which veer off mark a bit.
Confession of our sin is not a psychological game where we simply denounce ourselves and then
repeat….and then make penance through admitting again.
It’s not about simply regretting something about ourselves. It’s rooted in relationship to the
other.
It’s not about the regret we feel when we get caught…and the consequences.
It’s not just about the behaviour. Confessing is more fully expressed when it can admit the root.
…heart of the problem.
> We are only restored at the depth of what we acknowledge.
Confession is coming out into the light of truth.
It is that which brings us out of the darkness of hiding… out of the bushes… and into God’s
presence.
Not always easy. Most of us have some dimensions of life we are more comfortable confessing….
But some areas of life we want to keep in the darkness. The truth is that we begin by deceiving
others. In sense, truth is still in you, even though we may not be telling it. Then something very
dangerous happens: we begin to believe our own story. Deceiving, blinding yourself.
> This is the really tragic part… because our only link to reality is truth. When we deceive
ourselves, the truth is not in us, we’ve separated ourselves from what’s real. Because he is the
real God, when we lose our link to reality, we’ve lost our link to God. Our deception keeps us out
of the light where life is. Confession brings us into the light. [8]
Psalm 51:1-3, 6, 10 (NIV)
Have mercy on me, O God…Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I
know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. …Surely you desire truth in the
inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place… Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
God wants truth in the inner part of life.
“Confession and forgiveness help establish the boundary lines of truth. Within those lines,
the true self is freed to rise up in new life and to continue to grow in right relationship with
God and others.” [9]
David knows that when we get the unspoken stated...it is regaining truth and getting the repressed
out. It is cleansing.
We are not just admitting our sin; we speak it out in order for that sin to be removed from us.
God invites us to be honest…to come openly…and confidently.
Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help us in our time of need.
CLOSING
Today I want to close by inviting to respond as fellow sinners.
I want to give each of us an opportunity to be honest with God for the next couple minutes. Many
of us know there are some things in our hearts that are in conflict with God. Let’s take a couple
minutes to be honest with God…to confess the truth.
You may want to come and take communion. Needless to say…. it’s a meal for sinners.
Let us remember…Capital punishment is never administered to marginal offenders of the law. As
we come to these elements which represent the body of Christ broken for us…and the blood of
Christ poured out for us….we should be reminded of the severity of our sin. Jesus didn't die
because we were marginal offenders of God's law. He died because we have committed the most
serious offense of all - rebellion against God. He dies a Capital punishment because we are Capital
offenders.
Resources: Tim Keller, James Emery White, John Hamby
Notes:
1. Regarding the word translated “debt”…
Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains
παράπτωμα (paraptōma), ατος (atos), τό (to): n.neu.; ≡ Str 3900; TDNT 6.170—LN 88.297 sin,
trespass, transgression (Mt 6:14; Mk 11:25; Ro 4:25; 5:15–20; 11:11; 2Co 5:19; Gal 6:1; Eph 1:7;
2:1, 5; Col 2:13)
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New
Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
New Bible Dictionary
“Loans in Israel were not commercial but charitable, granted not to enable a trader to set up or
expand a business but to tide a peasant farmer over a period of poverty. Since the economy
remained predominantly agricultural up to the end of the Monarchy, there developed no
counterpart to the commercial loan system already existing in Babylonia in 2000 BC. Hence the
legislation contains not mercantile regulations but exhortations to neighbourliness. The same
outlook persists in Ecclus. 29. The background changes in the NT. The debtors in the parable of
the unjust steward (Lk. 16:1–8) are either tenants who pay rent in kind or merchants who have
goods on credit. The description of sins as debts (Mt. 6:12) is a Jewish commonplace which Jesus
employs, not to characterize the relationship between God and man as one between creditor and
debtor, but to proclaim the grace and enjoin the duty of forgiveness (Lk. 7:41f.; Mt. 18:21–27).
Wood, D. R. W., & Marshall, I. H. (1996). New Bible dictionary (3rd ed.) (268). Leicester,
England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory –
And forgive us our debts—A vitally important view of sin, this—as an offense against God
demanding reparation to His dishonored claims upon our absolute subjection. As the debtor in
the creditor’s hand, so is the sinner in the hands of God. This idea of sin had indeed come up
before in this discourse—in the warning to agree with our adversary quickly, in case of sentence
being passed upon us, adjudging us to payment of the last farthing, and to imprisonment till then
(Mt 5:25, 26). And it comes up once and again in our Lord’s subsequent teaching—as in the
parable of the creditor and his two debtors (Lu 7:41, &c.), and in the parable of the unmerciful
debtor (Mt 18:23, &c.). But by embodying it in this brief model of acceptable prayer, and as the
first of three petitions more or less bearing upon sin, our Lord teaches us, in the most emphatic
manner conceivable, to regard this view of sin as the primary and fundamental one. Answering to
this is the “forgiveness” which it directs us to seek—not the removal from our own hearts of the
stain of sin, nor yet the removal of our just dread of God’s anger, or of unworthy suspicions of His
love, which is all that some tell us we have to care about—but the removal from God’s own mind
of His displeasure against us on account of sin, or, to retain the figure, the wiping or crossing out
from His “book of remembrance” of all entries against us on this account.
Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the
Whole Bible (Mt 6:12). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
2. Willoman describes forgiveness as noting our lack of control
The prayer asks us to ask to be forgiven. That takes us out of control. It means that we are
suddenly at the mercy of someone else's account of our lives rather than our own.
To be out of control can mean many things, but for Christians it means we must recognize our
status as creatures. We don't create our lives; we are not the sole authors of the stories that
constitute our lives. Rather to be out of control means we must recognize that we are characters in
God's story. Moreover when we deny our storied character we live in fundamental contradiction to
who we were created to be. That condition is what we must learn to call sin.
Prayer is the essential practice, the gift that God has given us to help us rediscover the joy of being
a creature, of being out of control.
For example, if an acquaintance gives you a gift you had not expected, you find you are in an
awkward situation. If it is a gift which, in receiving, you realize that you really want, that you do
not wish to refuse, you feel at a disadvantage. This, after all, is an acquaintance, not a close friend,
and this person has given you a gift that you did not know you wanted but which you now "need."
Many of us immediately seek to give something in return because we know gift giving and
receiving is a game of power and we fear "owing" the gift giver. Is it any wonder we hate God
since we fear One who gives and for whom there is nothing we can give in return? All God asks in
return is that we enjoy our worship of our true Lord.
To reach out for forgiveness means that I am not the sole author of my life story. Nothing assaults
the contemporary understanding of our lives more than to ask for forgiveness. Indeed, in putting
forgiveness on the table for consideration, I have now learned that it is precisely my sinful desire
to be the sole author of my life that creates my debts. So we are asked in this petition to come out
from behind our facade, to become exposed, vulnerable, empty-handed, to risk reconciliation to
the one who has the power to forgive us.
Willimon, William H. (2008-08-01). Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & the Christian Life (p.
81). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.
3. C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock," God in the Dock (Eerdmans: 1970) 244.
4. Consider the The Ten Commandments
1. You shall not worship any false god.
Do I put God first…or allow nothing else to rule me?
2. You shall not make a graven image.
Do I allow anything to become an “idol” of undue honor or worth?
3. You shall not take the name of YHWH in vain.
Do I dishonor God in the way I think or speak of Him?
4. You shall not break the Sabbath.
Do I cease all my activity to rest in my dependence on God?
5. You shall not dishonor your parents.
Do I honor my parents as bearing a sacred role?
6. You shall not murder.
Do I carry contempt for others...a desire for their harm?
7. You shall not commit adultery
Do I look at others with lust?
8. You shall not steal.
Do I take what is not rightfully mine to have or hoard?
9. You shall not commit perjury.
Do I deceive others?
10. You shall not covet.
Do I jealously desire what other’s have?
5. Charles Spurgeon says , “Look at an acorn. What do you see in the acorn? He says, I know it is
counterintuitive and I know it doesn’t really make sense, it doesn’t seem to be true but if you think
about it you will know it is true. When you look into an acorn you will see an ocean of wood. Let
me show you that. He says, first of all inside the acorn is a tree, a huge tree. And every single bit
of that tree is in that acorn all scrunched up. In other words, there is not one thing on this huge tree
that is going to come out of the acorn that is not in that substance. It's in there. And that is counterintuitive.
Not only that, but on the tree that is in there are thousands of other acorns. And each
acorn is another tree which means that inside that acorn is not only another tree but one thousand
other trees and each one of them is a thousand other trees and he says, one acorn has the power to
cover the entire world with an ocean of wood. That’s how much power is in there. But if that
acorn falls on the pavement, within a couple of days it rots. All of its power goes to nothing. It
doesn’t mean that the power is not there. To see the power, to understand the power, it has to
actually fall on the soil; it has to get watered and so on. And Spurgeon would turn around and say,
“what do you think murder is?” “What do you think it starts with?” Murder has to start with the
thought that says “I wish that person weren’t here. I don’t like that person”… it starts with a
grudge, it starts with selfishness, it starts with pride, it starts with self-centeredness. What do you
think that is? He says, “in your heart, that acorn cup of your heart, there is and ocean of evil, and if
you just happen, by God’s grace, to have fallen on pavement … if you have happened, by God’s
grace, not to be in a situation where that evil is really being fertilized, if … you can’t see how
much evil is in there it doesn’t mean that it is not there.
6. Scriptures that tell in what way God is willing to forgive those who seek His mercy;
Micah 7:18-19: “18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the
remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will
again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the
depths of the sea.”
Jeremiah 31:34 God says; “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no
more.”
Psalm 103: 8-13
The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not
always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his
steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our
transgressions from us. As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion
for those who fear him.
7. N. T. Wright
Instead of genuine forgiveness, our generation has been taught the vague notion of `tolerance'.
This is, at best, a low-grade parody of forgiveness. At worst, it's a way of sweeping the real issues
in human life under the carpet. If the Father in the story had intended merely to tolerate the son, he
would not have been running down the road to meet him. Forgiveness is richer and higher and
harder and more shocking than we usually think. Jesus' message offers the genuine article, and
insists that we should accept no man-made substitutes.
Who does he think he is? they quite naturally asked. The obvious answer is: Jesus thinks he's the
Kingdom-bringer. Jesus isn't just a `teacher'; he is making an announcement about something that
is happening; and he is doing and saying things which explain that announcement and demonstrate
that it's true. `My child, your sins are forgiven'; and he heals the man's paralysis. Jesus sits down to
eat with tax-collectors and sinners, acting out the open welcome that Israel's God extends; when
he's challenged about this undignified behaviour, he tells a story about a father who threw his
dignity into the dustbin and ran down the road to welcome his disgraced son. Healings, parties,
stories and symbols all said: the forgiveness of sins is happening, right under your noses. This is
the new Exodus, the real Return from Exile, the prophetic fulfilment, the great liberation. This is
the disgraceful Advent of our astonishing God.
N. T. Wright. The Lord and His Prayer (Kindle Locations 421-427). Kindle Edition.
8. Regarding the role of honesty in our spiritual life, Brennan Manning writes:
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted, "He who is alone with his sins is utterly alone. It may be that
Christians, not withstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in
service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur
because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do
not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a
sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from their fellowship. We dare not be
sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered
among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that
we are sinners!"'
At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe
we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven. As a
result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss.
- Brennan Manning, "The Ragamuffin Gospel", p134-136
9. Adapted from words by Andy Comiskey
