Lord's Prayer Series / Debts and Debtors

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

How did Jesus’ communities understand debt?   I believe they understood it all too well, especially through the lens of social justice.  They were the peasant underclass, racially profiled, unfairly taxed, and constantly oppressed by the Roman Empire's occupation of the land and it's people.  Colonized and persecuted. 
Systems were created so that these communities couldn’t thrive.    A debtor’s system.
 

Today, we still live within a debtor’s system. 
The owners and the owing.
The have and have nots.
The winners and losers. 
The powerful and the powerless. 

The creation of debt in it's many forms or in any form is injustice. Jesus’ followers experienced this. They acquired their daily bread only to have it taken away again. 
People today still experience these debtor systems. 
Health care systems.  Housing and homelessness.  Economic injustice.  Food injustice.
Living wages. Education systems. 
Systems of unfairly owing something not equal to the ability to thrive.   

It's hard to know exactly what Jesus said when teaching his followers to pray.   I would think that Jesus' followers would hear a prayer for debts and debtors and recognize the need for forgiveness.  Perhaps literally and figuratively.   Forgive us our debts and debtors is a cry for justice.  Perhaps a prayer of lament. 

When I hear the prayer "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."  I think of how that prayer includes me and my actions.  
I pray: 
Forgive us our debts.  The debts that we have helped to create, that even unintentionally, oppress our neighbors.   Forgive us when we chose inequality over equity.  Forgive us when we chose apathy over empathy.  Forgive us when we chose power over truth.
I pray:
Free us of our debtors. The debtors that we ourselves have created that control our own actions.
Free us of selfishness and greed.  Free us of resentment.  Free us of self-doubt.  Free us of outsized expectations and outsourced validation….

I have always struggled with the phrase, 'forgive and forget'.  I think that is a myth.  Forgiveness requires self-awareness.  Forgiveness also does not mean that we allow systems of hurt and harm to continue for ourselves or for others.  Forgiveness should leave no one owing.   
So when we practice forgiveness and the freeing of debts, we can then give love as if we have love to lose and give grace as if we have more than we need ourselves.   
Lead us into forgiveness God, breaking the cycles of hurt and harm.  Allow Your grace to cross the threshold of our hearts, enabling all to thrive. 

​My Lord's prayer continues...
​Our God, 
Who's art is heaven,
Holy is your name.
     Holy are you, Holy am I, Holy are we together. 
May Your radical Kin-dom come,
     A Divine collaboration between us, 
     In the here and now, and in the ever after. 
God, let us create space for You everyday,
     Your presence is essential to our lives. 
Lead us into forgiveness, breaking the cycles of hurt and harm. 
     Allow Your grace to cross the threshold of our hearts,
     Enabling all to thrive. 
​

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