“You forgive people easy things all the time. These are the ten-dollar debts we have going around. Somebody forgets your birthday or sends the card late, no big deal. I understand you are really busy. It just slipped your mind. There are all sorts of penny, one-dollar, and ten- dollar debts that we forgive all the time. In fact, we do it so thoughtlessly that a lot of times the forgiveness is just assumed. It’s assumed that if I forgot my friend’s birthday and I send a card late that he’ll forgive me. He’ll understand. I did remember; I did send a card; it just wasn’t on. time. So I can expect and assume that I will be forgiven.

13 1 Thessalonians
4:17-18 (RSV) You see this kind of forgiveness of the small stuff is easy. We understand this. We take this for granted. But the kind of debt that we run up with God, and sometimes with each other, calls us to have to redefine the entire understanding that we have about what forgiveness is all about. We know what it is to be forgiving and forgetting to send a card, but I have to ask myself what it means to ask for God’s forgiveness when I have done something to alter the life of someone else in a destructive way. And I’ve done that. So have you.

We’re not talking about the kind of things that get reported in the newspaper. We’re talking about the kind of things that leave wounds and scars and change people’s entire outlook on living based on what we have said and done or not said and not done.