The Model Prayer (Session 10)
Forgive Us
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. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ Matthew 6:9-13
Episode Summary
In this episode of Year on the Mountaintop, we come to one of the most familiar—and most differently translated—lines of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Why do some Christians say “debts,” others “trespasses,” and still others “sins”? These different words reveal several layers of meaning in Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, grace, sin, and life within the kingdom community.
Our debts are too great to repay, our trespasses have separated us from where we belong, and our sins represent the ways we have missed God’s mark—but Jesus presents forgiveness as the way those barriers are removed. The Lord’s Prayer not only assures us that God forgives and welcomes us into God’s family, but also calls us to extend that same forgiveness to others. In the kingdom community, forgiveness becomes a way of life—breaking cycles of debt, exclusion, resentment, and separation and offering a radically different vision of justice, equality, and grace.
