THAT LITTLE WORD AGAIN

In my previous post I looked at the prayer that God’s will may be done on earth AS it is in Heaven; today we might glance at the prayer that we may be forgiven AS we forgive others.

It seems, at first, much simpler than the previous AS:  a simple case of do as you would be done by. If you want to be forgiven, the least you can do is do some forgiving yourself. Let’s start with what’s to be forgiven. In all Gospels except Luke it is “debts”;  but many scholars think that the word Jesus used was the Aramaic hoba, which means both debt and sin. If this sounds odd, remember that in both Dutch and German the same word, schuld, is used for a monetary debt and to mean ‘guilt’; and in Dutch, therefore, the relevant line of the Lord’s prayer says: forgive us our schuld as we forgive our schuldenaren – literally our debtors, but in fact those who have schuld toward us. And let’s remember also that only a little over a century ago debt was considered so serious that an inability to pay it sent you to gaol. (Those who borrow from the Mafia are even to this day reminded forcefully of the need to pay both debt and vig.)

Are we God’s debtors? It seems odd: if God is love, and our relation to him is one of love, is it decent to express that in terms of debt? In the Old Testament, God put it very clearly to Israel: if you (plural: y’all) will love and honour me and keep my commandments, you will be my people and I will be your God. If you will not, I will turn my back on you and nasty things will probably happen to you. So it’s in one sense a transaction; and a transaction, agreed to by both sides, creates a debt. If this sounds one-sided, you can still find traces of the other side in the Psalms, when the Psalmist cries “Up, Lord, and do something!” And in Judaism arguing, even indignantly, with God is not considered outrageous.

With the coming of Christ there is a subtle change. It is no longer merely a matter of keeping commandments, but of a relation of profound intimacy with God: with the Father, in the Son, through the Holy Spirit. This is still simple, but where keeping commandments is simple on this side of complexity, the new relationship is simple far, far beyond complexity.

So what does that do to debt and schuld? It transforms it, or is meant to. Just as between great lovers the very thought of “owing” is inconceivable, so in the new relation of love between God and the soul it is (meant to be) inconceivable. Right, says God: but if you accept this, and you also accept that “what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me”, then the thought of “owing” between you and your brother must also become inconceivable.

But. But we still live in a sublunar and greebly world. So in the meantime, in the mean time – the time in the middle between promise and Parousia, the mean and ungenerous time of Auden’s “low and dishonest decade” --, there is forgiveness. It is the way-station to inconceivability. And we learn the HOW of forgiving by looking at the way we hope God will forgive us. Not a mean forgiving, that will go on reminding the forgiven of their nasties and my virtue; not a forgiving accompanied by stern lectures, demanding promises never to do it again; no, joyful forgiving with open arms, with a clean soft garment and a feast of rich veal from the fatted calf.

This takes a bit of learning. Most of the time we don’t even pray for our enemies, let alone forgive them. When did you last hear prayers in church for ISIS and its members? Forgiving is hard; forgiving and forgetting even harder. But the joy it brings is so enormous that the learning is worth every effort. Another of the Joys of Lent? 

Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, "The Return of the Prodigal Son"