For the last 8 months, I have been engaging in a daily ritual of prayer and worship with the Iona Community. The Iona Community is an international, ecumenical Christian movement based on the island of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. The community was founded in 1938 by Reverend George MacLeod when MacLeod brought together trained clergy and unemployed craftsmen to rebuild the Iona Abbey. The combination of clergy and laity living, working, and worshiping together created a foundation upon which the community continues to build. Today, members and associate members of the Iona Community are spread across the world, working and worshiping in local churches as they maintain a shared vision of a worldwide Christian community – God’s people together pursuing God’s justice and God’s peace.
During the pandemic, the Iona Community began sharing on YouTube their service of morning prayers, known as the daily office. The service includes a cycle of prayers, songs, and scripture readings from the lectionary used in the Iona Abbey. Much of the service is interactive, which allows worshippers from around the world to pray, read, and sing together. One of the prayers we pray daily is the Lord’s Prayer.
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your Name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins
As we forgive those
Who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial,
And deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
And the glory are your,
Now and forever.
Amen.1
I grew up with this prayer. I memorized it as a child in Sunday School. But I never said it weekly, much less daily, until now. Prior to the Iona experience, I only recited the Lord’s Prayer when it was included in Sunday worship because it seemed appropriate to the theme or because it had simply been too long since it had been part of corporate worship.
Praying the Lord’s Prayer daily has been a revelation for me. It has become something like Lectio Divina, an opening of the scriptures in new ways, allowing for new insight or for former insight to be remembered.
For me, the major revelation has been the word “and.”, specifically, the word “and” as it appears between the fourth and fifth petition:
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins
As we forgive those
Who sin against us.
At first, I thought that little word might be an addition to this particular rendition of an oft-used prayer. But then I found the “and” in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, both in Matthew 6: 9-13 and Luke 11:2-4, the two places the prayer appears in the New Testament. What’s more, the “and” appears to be in the original Greek, as the connecting word “kai.”2
It is a small word. Yet, “and” allows us to read the text “forgive us our sins” in the same time frame as “Give us our bread”- daily. As in “(For)give us today our (daily) sins as we forgive those who (daily) sin against us.”
To me, this is greatly significant! When I am praying the Lord’s Prayer, I am not only praying for daily forgiveness from God. I am also praying to daily be in an attitude of forgiveness toward others.
There is much that has been written about the juxtaposition of the two phrases of the fifth petition: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Some translations render the second phrase “for we have forgiven others”. Is God’s mercy dependent on our own? The biblical texts suggest “no.” Consider Psalm 103:8 (NRSV)
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
God’s mercy is assured. What then is intended here? Perhaps we can read this as instruction from Jesus – Jesus naming the way our forgiveness of others is intrinsically linked with God’s. In the words of one writer, “One who will not forgive cannot receive forgiveness; mercy flows through the same channel.”3 When that channel is blocked, for any number of reasons, it can be difficult for us to experience and extend forgiveness.
That is a challenging concept, especially if we consider the word “forgive,” which means to pardon or to release. That, to me, does not suggest that no wrong has taken place, no harm has been done, but rather that punishment will not be exacted. Accountability may be in order, but as a means of restoration, not retribution. Of course, none of this takes place by the virtue of the one being released, but instead by the virtue of the one doing the releasing, extending mercy. This is Divine forgiveness; it is also what Jesus asks from us as we live one with another
To understand how this is possible, we need to look again at the proximity of the two petitions and their connecting “and.” Consider the request to “give us this day our daily bread.” That is not a simple thing either. If we read that only from our context, where we are able to go to the grocery store and buy what we need, we may not grasp the weight of this request. However, if we consider the Israelites when they were lost in the wilderness, we see something different. The Israelites were totally dependent upon God for their sustenance. Manna from heaven was provided each day but was only good for that day, except on the Sabbath. Those who tried to save manna found it spoiled and inedible the next day. The people of Israel were absolutely dependent on God for their daily bread. (Exodus 16: 1-36, NRSV)
Imagine also this prayer being prayed by those, today, who suffer from food insecurity: those who run out of money before they run out of month, folks who are homeless, refugees, as well as those whose land has been struck by famine or has become a war zone. All of these circumstances come between God’s people and their daily needs. “Give us this day our daily bread,” read through this lens, is a prayer for a fundamental necessity arising from a state of deep need.
The petition related to forgiveness is just as fundamental. God’s mercy and forgiveness are essential to our lives and well-being. Our ability to receive God’s mercy and extend the same to others is just as essential. Forgiveness, like bread or other nourishing food, is something we need to truly live. And it is something for which we need to pray daily.
Prior to the Lord’s Prayer, the daily office of the Iona Community includes a litany that names a vision for the world and God’s people.
The world belongs to God,
the earth and all its people.
How good it is, how wonderful,
to live together in unity.
Love and faith come together,
justice and peace join hands.
If Christ’s disciples keep silent,
These stones would shout aloud
Open our lips, O God,
and our mouths shall proclaim your praise.4
This vision sets before us the world God intends, despite the way the world may appear or the way the world may feel on any given day. This vision reminds us of who we are and whose we are. We belong to God; we are meant for life together; we are intended to live together in love, faith, justice, and peace; and we are called to proclaim God’s goodness with and to one another. What’s more, as we proclaim this vision, we embody it. There is power in the spoken word that helps us to live into it.
Expressing this vision, or one like it, each day can help our hearts be conditioned for forgiveness. We might read a particular scripture, sing a meaningful song, or meditate on a work of art to keep this vision before us. This daily practice can prime the pump, clear the channel, or in the words of one of my favorite hymns, “tune [our hearts] to sing [God’s] grace.”5
Along with focusing on the vision of God’s good world and God’s desire for creation, our ability to tune into grace can be fostered by humility and confession. This is not necessarily on the part of another, but rather humility and confession regarding our own sins and shortcomings. We “all have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. “(Romans 3:23, NRSV) How necessary, then, to remember this in our interactions and relationships with one another.
The Iona Community’s daily office includes this prayer as well:
Trusting in God’s forgiveness,
Let us in silence confess our failings
And acknowledge our part in the pain of the world.
After a time of silent reflection, worshippers pray:
Before God, with the people of God, we confess to turning away from God,
in the ways we wound our lives, the lives of others, and the life of the world.6
A posture of humility allows us to seek and receive God’s forgiveness, but also to seek and receive a forgiving attitude toward others. It enables us to see more clearly the log in our own eye and, therefore, regard more graciously the speck in another’s eye. (Matthew 7:3 NRSV)
If confession really is good for the soul, perhaps we Protestants skip over it too easily. Most worship services I have been part of, if they include a time of confession at all, skip quickly to the words of affirmation or assurance of forgiveness. There is little time to consider “our part in the pain of the world” and to own our part in that pain. Perhaps there is a place to sit with our confession, not to wallow in it, but to face it in God’s loving presence. This might be accomplished through journaling, on a walk or a run, through music, dance, praying the scriptures, or in conversation with a spiritual director or trusted friend. We need not fear our own inward gaze for we are assured of God’s love and forgiveness.
Perhaps the most difficult part of this daily practice of forgiveness is in Jesus’ teaching from Mathew 5:44:” I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. (NRSV) Praying for our enemies, for those who do us or others harm, or even for those who simply annoy us does not feel natural. We may exclaim “no worries” to an oversight or slight from a friend; but we do not easily pray for those who have hurt us, harmed those we love, or stand in opposition to our values. And yet, Jesus calls us to pray for just these people, not to pray them around to our way of seeing or thinking, but to pray for them because God’s mercy enfolds them too. And besides, it is really good exercise for our hearts. It is easy to pray for those we love. It is much more difficult to pray for those for whom we feel animosity.
I would very much like to write here that praying daily for a forgiving heart gets quick results. But I know it is not that simple. Forgiveness can be a slow process, with starts and stops and flares of anger and lots of stuck places. The hurt and hard feelings we carry with us can become so much a part of us that we don’t realize we are still carrying them.
My connection with the Iona Community began many years ago when I attended a spiritual retreat at the Iona Abbey. It was an amazing opportunity and an experience that has enriched my life in many ways since then. One of the most significant ways was a lesson in forgiveness.
One afternoon, at the end of a retreat session, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling that I needed to release someone, to forgive someone in my life. This was someone by whose actions and choices I had been deeply hurt. But because it had happened many years before, I had assumed I was over it. It was water under the bridge. I had moved on. Except, I hadn’t.
That afternoon, the retreat leader told a story about a father who could not offer his adult child a blessing because of his own anger. Father and child parted with pain lingering between them. As I listened to that story, something broke within me, something broke open. I suddenly realized that while I had moved on, I had never let go. And this, at last, was my opportunity. It wasn’t of my own doing. I believe it truly was Divine. It was pure grace. My part in it was to be open to it and, when it came, to receive it with gratitude.
Forgiveness can be hard work. It is often painful, time-consuming, and can be beyond our personal ability to bring to fruition. Forgiveness can take an act of God to move hearts and minds, even our own. And yet, true release is made more likely by our daily orienting ourselves toward God’s mercy and love.
An old story is sometimes attributed to the Cherokee or Lenape people. An adapted version is below.
One evening, a man told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
“My dear one, the battle between two ‘wolves’ is inside us all. One is evil. It is envy, jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, forgiveness, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a moment and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The older man replied, “The one you feed.”7
This story reminds me to ask myself, “Which one do I feed”? Which one do I give my energy, my attention, my focus?
The daily practice of forgiveness has never felt more important to me than right now – in our society and in our church. We now live in a global community but are increasingly isolated. We communicate in memes and sound bites rather than conversations. We get our information from siloed sources with less and less patience to seek out the big picture or listen to different perspectives. We deal with differences of opinion by tuning out, deleting, or unfriending. We are losing our ability to deal with conflict in constructive ways. And we are marginalizing one another as friend or foe, with or against us, whoever “us” might be.
Into this, I believe, Jesus speaks. He teaches us about God’s mercy and instructs us to extend the same to one another. He speaks neither of who is right or wrong or of cheap grace. Instead, Jesus calls us to regard one another in the same way God regards us – as forgiven and beloved.
Living into this call will be messy and imperfect. There is a reason we are called to it anew every day. And yet, I believe that if we are faithful, if we seek to truly be ambassadors of God’s peace and channels of God’s grace, there will be more life and light. There will be more hope. And there will be room for more joy.
This is my prayer – every day.
Janet is an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren, having 25 years of pastoral experience before becoming the director of the Brethren Academy for Ministerial Leadership in 2017. She lives in Richmond, Indiana with her spouse, Simon Lambert, and a ginger cat named Tango. Janet and Simon have an adult daughter, Lauren, who is a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania. Janet is a member of the Manchester Church of the Brethren.
- The Iona Community, Morning Worship, https://www.youtube.com/c/ionacommunityonline.
- Greek Interlinear Bible, “Luke 11” (Scripture4all Foundation), 2020, www.scripture4all.org.
- Leander E. Keck, et al,.eds, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 1X (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, p, 235).
- The Iona Community, Morning Worship, https://www.youtube.com/c/ionacommunityonline.
- Robert Robinson, “Come, thou fount” (No 521 in Hymnal A Worship Book (Elgin, IL: Brethren Press, 1992).
- The Iona Community, Morning Worship , https://www.youtube.com/c/ionacommunityonline.
- The Spiritual Life, “Window To Spirituality: Two Wolves” (The Spiritual Life c 2010-2030. All Rights Reserved.), https://slife.org/two-wolves/.