"Trespassers will be prosecuted," says the sign. Or it used to - the sign, one of the few remaining uses of the word "trespass" is itself becoming rare!
I recall a speaker who had been brought up in a farming district telling how his father had solemnly warned his sons that the sign meant, "If you cross the fence, you might get shooted!"
A few years ago in the Tambourine area, I saw a farm gate with a sign, "Warning! Stay out! Trap guns set in this area!" Presumably, the "trap guns" were for wallabies eating the small crops. But humans had better stay out too or they might get "shooted"!
A trespass is an unlawful intrusion into someone else's property or rights. In fact, the original Greek word here would be better rendered "debts" - as in the New International Version, "Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors". We may compare this with Romans 3.23 where Paul depicts sin as "falling short of the glory of God" - not reaching God's intended plan for us, failing to fulfil God's rightful expectations of us.
Try as he would the little boy couldn't hit the bull's eye. So he thought for a bit. Then he took a sheet of blank paper and put it up for his target. Where his arrow landed he carefully drew his target - he had got a bull's eye!
We are inclined to do that. Our best effort becomes our standard - not "the glory of God". Or if we do look to a standard outside ourselves, it tends to be society's average and this leads us to a rather light view of sin - perhaps as a weakness in human nature. Nobody will worry about it unless it harms another person or infringes their rights.
We need to grasp that the will of God has to do with every relationship of life. As one writer puts it, "Every sin is a blow at the heart of God, and is part of the appalling debt that we incur with God. This is the debt that we cannot pay, and therefore must suffer the consequences or have the debt forgiven."
"Trespassers will be prosecuted" - or will they? There is an easy assumption today that the worst wrong is being caught. Our light view of sin results in a light view of its consequences. Paul wrote that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6.23), but we regard this kind of talk as old-fashioned and out-of-date. We need to grasp afresh that sin is serious and the debt of sin is costly, whichever way it is dealt with.
So - taking sin and its consequences seriously, what does forgiveness mean? Forgiveness means that the debt has been cancelled, that the creditor has taken the debt on him- or herself.
Think carefully about the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18.21-35). Until the debt was forgiven, the servant was held responsible and accountable for it.
It was quite beyond him. Even selling him, with all his family, into slavery in no way went near covering his debt. It is described as 10,000 talents. The footnote says "millions of dollars". There is a problem translating it into modern currency because, with inflation, it would soon be out of date. It was a debt so big that everything he had wouldn't cover it.
Now what happened to the debt when it was forgiven? Did it somehow mysteriously disappear? No - it was debited against the king's account. The king accepted the loss. It was no longer the servant's debt but the king's loss.
An old saying says that "to err is human, to forgive, divine" - as if God is under some sort of obligation to forgive us, since we seem to keep on doing wrong! Our light view of sin and its consequences leads us to a light view of divine forgiveness.
The Christian doctrine of forgiveness focuses on the work of Christ on the Cross. As we consider the Cross we see the Son of God bearing the costly consequences of our sins. Some eight centuries before, the prophet Isaiah had written, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53.4-6).
The Cross of Christ represents the cost of our forgiveness. Look at the cross - my sin is as serious as that! To accept God's forgiveness of our sins in Christ is to acknowledge that our debt has been paid by the Son of God himself.
But if we take forgiveness seriously, it must be evident in our manner of life. If we have no desire for newness of life, for the fuller expression of the Father's will in our life, if we have no inclination to be separated from sinfulness and to live henceforth for him, we shouldn't expect forgiveness. In particular, the recognition of our own need of forgiveness must express itself in a forgiving spirit towards others.
Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors."
Notice how important this principle was in the teaching of Jesus. In the Beatitudes - "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (Matthew 5.7). After giving the model prayer, Jesus says to them, "For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6.14-15). Those are rather strong words.
Peter's question in today's reading was how many times he had to go on forgiving his brother - seven times seemed suitably generous. I always find it curious to think of rough, abrasive Peter asking this in relation to his gentler approachable brother Andrew! Jesus' answer "seventy times seven" (as NIV margin, or "seventy-seven times" in the text) - was not meant to put an upper limit on our forgiving. Instead, it was to indicate that forgiving is to be a way of life. By four hundred and ninety times (if you want to take it literally) forgiving should be a well-established habit. But why forgive? Because we have been forgiven - forgiven immensely more than we are ever called upon to forgive others.
Again Jesus was giving a figure to make a strong contrast. A denarius was a day's wage for a rural worker. 100 denarii was a significant amount - but it could be repaid.
The story ends with the king very angry and ordering the servant to jail "until he should pay back all he owed." The amount owed was so exaggeratedly large that his final release would be quite out of the question. Now hear the sober conclusion of Jesus - "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart" (v. 35).
When we are unwilling to forgive, we are asserting our own comparative goodness. Yet the cost we bear is so slight in comparison to what God bears when, in response to our petition, he forgives us what we owe him.
We must add a couple of important observations. There are people in authority (like the king in the story) who, for the good of the society, have to exercise authority and discipline. Parents and teachers have important responsibilities here. And there are matters that must be brought to justice in the law courts. In laying on us the necessity for a forgiving spirit, Jesus was not releasing these people from their obligations - though he was saying a great deal about how such responsibilities are to be exercised.
Years ago I spent some time working in a sugar mill. Part of that time was in the costing section helping with a stock take. I recall a discrepancy of two tractor tyres. That, of course, was a serious matter. Appropriate action couldn't be avoided. The truth had to be established. Yet there was something in the attitude of my superior that troubled me as we went to investigate - an assumption of guilt, an arrogant and gleeful desire to "get them", a delight in having this bit of authority to wield over someone else.
In our praying, be open with God - he already knows all about you. Have the attitude of David In Psalm 139.23-24 - "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Be assured and comforted, The debt has been paid. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1.9).
Be willing to forgive others. We can't afford to carry hurts and grudges throughout our lives. They will poison us physically, emotionally and spiritually. Do we want to be forgiven? Then forgive!
