Forgive Us Our Sins

One of the things I truly love about Trinity is the variety of liturgies with which we worship. The early, middle, and late services on Sunday all have their particular characters, and weekday services like Taize and Healing and Morning and Evening Prayer add extra dimensions of liturgical richness as well. The use of Rite I and Rite II gives us a variety of traditional and contemporary expressions for prayers that have been shared by Christians in many centuries and many languages. One of the best examples of this constructive variety is the Lord’s Prayer.

The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples was recorded first in the Greek language, of course, in which the Gospels were written. In the Western Church, where Latin was the dominant language, the prayer was for centuries best known in that form. During the Reformation prayers and liturgies were translated into local languages, including English. English has changed quite a lot from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century, and the Lord’s Prayer has been translated and re-translated into different versions in that time. At Trinity, we use an older translation at the early and late Sunday services; the current translation is always used at the middle service and sometimes at weekday services too.

In the newer translation of the Lord’s Prayer we pray “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” For a number of people, this is one of the more noteworthy changes in the translation. Some of us grew up praying “Forgive us our trespasses.” Others of us grew up in churches where the Lord’s Prayer was traditionally said “Forgive us our debts”; that wording is also used, for instance, in the famous Malotte vocal setting of the Lord’s Prayer which is sung both in concert and in church. We might, understandably, wonder why there are so many ways of translating this basic petition of a basic Christian prayer.

But the difference in wording reflects more than just a difference in translation: it also represents a difference in gospel tradition. Both the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke record Jesus’ teaching the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples, and there are some major variations in the two texts. In the verse about sins, Matthew uses the Greek word opheilemata, while Luke uses hamartia. Opheilemata comes from a root meaning “obligation” or “something that is due,” and we usually translate it into English as “debt.” Harmartia comes from a root meaning “to miss the mark,” as in archery, and it carries further connotations of going out of bounds or straying from the path; it finds a good equivalent in the English words “transgression” or “trespass.” The versions of the Lord’s Prayer used in worship draw from both the Gospel accounts: the version that says “Forgive us our debts” reflects Matthew, the version that says “Forgive us our trespasses” reflects Luke, and the current version that says “Forgive us our sins” uses a more general word to reflect both.

These are not just differences in terminology, however; the different terms express different understandings of just what sin is and how sin affects us. Sin as “debt” indicates something we lack, something we ought to have but don’t, something that is missing from us and makes us less than we could be. That is a profound understanding of sin, drawing attention to the many ways in our lives in which we genuinely want to be good but find ourselves unable to do it. St Paul gives poignant voice to this reality of human experience in Romans 7 when he writes “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” Sin is not just “doing bad things,” but is the tragic situation of desiring the good and being unable to accomplish it.

But sin is also the experience of trying to do the good and having it go wrong. That is expressed more in the notion of sin as “trespass,” of going out of bounds, of starting out in a good direction but then veering off into unintended consequences. “Trespass” indicates being too full of ourselves, stepping out where we really know we shouldn’t go, making decisions that go beyond the pale of our real time and place and responsibility to the realities around us. It is classically represented in the Genesis story of the fruit of the tree of knowledge: the woman desires the fruit because it is a delight to the eyes, and good for food, and will make one wise — all of which are good things in themselves! — but taking the fruit before God gives it is a terrible breaking of trust in her relationship with God. Sin is not just our inability to do good, but is also our overreaching.

And if sin has these two aspects, then forgiveness must have these two aspects as well. When I pray “forgive us our debts,” I think of God making up what is lacking in me, like the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 18 where the king cancels the debt of the slave, simply making up the loss out of his own royal treasury. I think of God forgiving the debt of my sin as God empowering me through the Holy Spirit to do the good I am not able in myself to do. And when I pray “forgive us our trespasses,” I think of God bringing me back to the path, like the parable Jesus tells of the shepherd who goes out into the wilderness to find the one sheep that has strayed. I think of God forgiving the trespass of my sins as God working in me through the Holy Spirit to regather my overreaching and guide me into right pathways and lead me in the way that is best for me to go — even if I myself might think another road looks more attractive. When I pray “forgive us our sins,” I try to keep both those meanings in mind, and I find great comfort and strength in the double image of God making up what is lacking in me and leading me to the next good possibility.

And of course there is more to this clause of the Lord’s Prayer than just the petition for forgiveness: Jesus also tells us to pray that we be forgiven “as we forgive those who are indebted to us, those who trespass against us, those who sin against us.” That same making-up-what-is-lacking and regathering-of-overreaching that God gives to us is what we are called to give to each other. The forgiveness with which God empowers us also empowers our forgiving those around us. We live this out in everyday life as we bear one another’s burdens, as we use our strengths to help others’ shortcomings, as we allow our shortcomings to be helped by others’ strengths, as we keep our boundaries healthy and respect the boundaries of others and gently but firmly restore boundaries when they have been crossed. We are forgiven precisely in the act of forgiving, as we and God work together to make up what is lacking and regather what is overreached and grow the next potentiality for justice and peace and love.

All that meaning in so few words! Debt and trespass and sin and forgive — words that resonate with worlds of significance in our lives in the Spirit. As is so often the case in prayer, we need many words to reflect all the aspects of meaning we seek to express in our relationship with God. As we pray together the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer in our liturgies, I invite you to be mindful of all these meanings, and pray for the joy of forgiveness with all your hearts.