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[Jesus said] “Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven … forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:9a, 12)
In Jesus’ family, forgiveness is a non-negotiable. What were the non-negotiables you were raised with? By non-negotiables, I mean the things that could finish the sentence, “In this family we …” Such as, “In this family at dinner time we try at least one bite of everything.” Or “In this family we go on trips in the summer,” or “We go to church on Sundays.” Non-negotiables are the fabric we work with, the water we swim in, the raw material we need to make a life. Change the non-negotiables and you change the family. So also, with God. To expect God not to care about forgiveness, is to ask God to be a different god, a god of our own making, and then to trust in that god, instead of the God and Father of Jesus.
There was an instance when Jesus’ first followers wanted to test this. “Is forgiveness really necessary in every situation?” they wondered. “What if you have a good reason not to forgive someone? Say, like, they did it on purpose? And even though you’ve told them how much you hate it when they do that, this is at least the seventh time they’ve done it, and they’re not even trying to change? What about then? There’ve got to be more important things than forgiveness, Jesus, like sanity, common decency, right?”
Jesus answers their question with a hypothetical story. It went something like this: there’s this king, see. And one of his servants owes him a ridiculously huge debt. The king tells him it’s time; it’s time to settle up. The guy pleads for patience. “Give me more time, please.” He actually thinks he can repay it? The king knows he can’t. But moved with compassion, the king forgives him. The guy is free. And the first thing he does is to find a fellow servant who owes him a debt—tiny debt by comparison. He starts to choke his co-worker: “Give me my money!” Gasping for air, the guy in the chokehold says, “Give me more time, please!” But the first guy refuses, throws him in prison. The king gets word of this. He calls the first guy back; he tells him, “I expected my forgiveness to begin to transform the way you see the world and the way you treat people. But clearly you don’t want that. So, I’m taking it back.” And he put him in prison until he should repay every cent. Then Jesus says to His followers, “So also will My Heavenly Father do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35).
Jesus assures us that in this family, no debt is too big to forgive because forgiveness doesn’t start with us, but with God. It’s God’s non-negotiable—not ours. Our forgiveness is just God’s forgiveness flowing through us. We’re participating in God’s life when we forgive. God’s life and God’s forgiveness are just two ways of saying the same thing. If I shut out God’s forgiveness, then I shut out God’s life. If you refuse to let God’s forgiveness flow through you, then you refuse God Himself.
Do you have someone in a chokehold of unforgiveness? It’s not too late, you know. Jesus told this story because He loves you. So, take a deep breath. Loosen your grip a little. And let God’s love flow through you, and to you, because He still wants you in His family. And in this family, we forgive each other.
WE PRAY: Dear Father, let Your forgiveness have its way with me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Speaker of The Lutheran Hour.
Reflection Questions:
- When has it been hard for you to forgive someone?
- When may it have been difficult for someone to forgive you?
- Why might forgiveness be a “non-negotiable” for the God and Father of Jesus?
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