Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris

“As we forgive those who trespass against us”

It can be difficult to forgive those who trespass against us; it is perhaps even more difficult to cancel their debts, which is what this petition of the Lord’s Prayer really says. When someone trespasses against us we can, especially if they apologise, smile magnanimously, say “Oh well, no harm done” and forgive them. It’s another matter if they owe us something, when they are not just trespassers but debtors: not only have they walked on to our land, they have killed our fatted calf and eaten it. Then we can’t say “No harm done” – where’s the calf? And however magnanimous we are, and even if they apologise, there remains in us the perfectly correct thought: “After all, they do owe me a calf”. We may not demand it back, but we would like it back all the same, and we wouldn’t say no if someone undertook to make them replace it. That may be forgiving those who trespass against us, but it isn’t what the Lord meant. To do what the Lord meant we have to make sure, as far as we can, that the calf is not replaced; because if the debt is cancelled, it’s cancelled: nothing is owed to us any more. As Stephen, the first martyr, said as they stoned him, “Do not let this sin stand” (on their bill or account); that is, scratch it out, cancel it altogether. Stephen was, I think, one of those saints who might have been rather hard to live with – he was definitely not the most tactful of Greeks. But his debts were cancelled, as he had cancelled those of his debtors.

“As” is probably the most awe-inspiring and frightening little word in the Bible. Kierkegaard said “if the command to love one’s neighbour were expressed in a way different from this little phrase “as yourself”, which is so easy to wield and yet at the same time has the tension of the eternal, then the command would not be able to overcome self-love as it does. This “as yourself” does not waver in its aim, but penetrates to the innermost hiding place where a person loves themselves. It does not leave self-love the slightest excuse or the tiniest escape-hatch.”

In the case of the commandment “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” the “as” is certainly demanding and inescapable. But it’s in other places that it becomes really alarming. The most obvious example is the phrase which opened this sermon; if we do not forgive our debtors, neither will our heavenly Father forgive our debts. And we call that fate down on our own heads by the word “as”: forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That little word is one which, to quote Kierkegaard again, though out of context, “wounds from behind”; it turns harmless statements or commands into two-edged swords. Another example that jumps to mind is Jesus’ prayer “May they be one in us as you are in me and I am in you” “That they may be one as we are one”; “Love one another as I have loved you”. We are to have the same relationship – yes, the same – with the Son as he has with the Father. But today, faced with the Lord’s Prayer, I want to concentrate on the second commandment: our relationship with each other.

It was bad enough – or, if you like, good enough – to be told that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. I wonder whether anyone has ever done it, with the single exception of the Lord. We certainly can’t do it by our own power, and that is why Jesus went on to even more impossible-sounding heights: we are to love each other as he has loved us; we are to love each other as God the Father loves God the Son; we are to be as perfectly one as the Blessed Trinity in whom there can never be the slightest hint of disunity.

That is the ideal for all our relationships. It makes our attempts at tolerance, reconciliation, inclusiveness and ecumenism seem pretty feeble. To misquote St Benedict, we lukewarm lovers should blush for shame.

St Silouan of Mount Athos said that the greatest height of sanctity was to love (or forgive) one’s enemies. I used to think this strange, as I haven’t any enemies, and would think most ordinary people are in the same position. But then my thoughts began to move in the direction suggested above and I realised how far-reaching this forgiving one’s enemies thing is. All debts, real or imaginary, are to be cancelled so that they no longer exist. No cause for disharmony must exist in me, in my mind, heart or actions. And since I am not God, I may not say “as” to my neighbours. It is sometimes easier to forgive one’s enemies than to cancel all debts in regard to a sort of person one can’t stand. I have to cancel that debt. The fact that I can’t stand that sort of person has to go. You can’t merely put up with a person when you have been told that, as far as you are concerned, the relationship to strive for is that of the Blessed Trinity. And that applies to everyone without exception, because God doesn’t make distinctions. All who want it may have the water of life, and have it free. This really is a serious business and I am the first person who needs to hear that. Love, not to the limits of human capacity, not even to the limits of the sacred human heart of Jesus but the love that is in God for God, a love so total that it is a Person. My love for my neighbour (and as Jesus told us clearly, everyone without exception is my neighbour) has to be such that it would, so to speak, breathe forth the Holy Spirit.

Impossible? Yes, of course it’s impossible. However much we love, however inclusively, if we love to the death, still that word “as” will rise up and condemn us. But it was the same Silouan of Mount Athos who heard from the Lord in a vision the words “Keep your soul in hell, and do not despair”. And the same Silouan who, following the ancient Orthodox tradition in which St Seraphim of Sarov stands out, taught that, if the highest Christian virtue is forgiving one’s enemies, the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. We know that the water of life which we are all offered already in this life is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit welling up within us unto eternal life which we will be given, and given free, if we want it, is, as I’ve said, the personal love of God for God; there it is within us, the impossibility made not just possible but real.

Behold what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are. That isn’t just God’s own love for us, it is God’s own love given us to use, to love with. Tradition and Scripture insist in chorus that God, if he gives the commandment which is impossible for human love to fulfil, also offers to give us the love which alone can fulfil it, his love for our use, his Spirit. Is that so very difficult to acquire? Yes, it takes a whole lifetime of unseen warfare, of spiritual struggle. Is it so difficult to acquire? No, we have only to desire it. When John of Panephysis was asked a question along those lines, “he stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said: “If you will, you can become all flame.”

May the fire of the Holy Spirit, burning within the Trinity and within us, enlighten and enkindle us until the day when we know as we are known, and love as we are loved.