Running Over

In the Lord’s Prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior included these words, “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” After the prayer He commented on this part of it: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:12, 14-15). The fact that this is the only part of the prayer that He elaborated on perhaps underscores its significance; our prayers should above all contain a request for forgiveness of our sins and a commitment to forgive others. On another occasion Peter asked Him, “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” The Savior’s answer was this: “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22). He followed this shocking requirement with a parable in which a servant was forgiven his debt of ten thousand talents but then failed to forgive someone else who owed him a miniscule amount in comparison. I think sometimes we hold back forgiveness because we want justice served; we want people that have hurt us to get what they deserve. But if that is our attitude, then we too will get what we deserve like this man in the parable. We have all been forgiven the equivalent of the ten thousand talents through the Savior, and if we refuse to forgive the hundred pence offense against us we will be left to suffer the punishment for our own debt on our own.   

                Brother Madison Sowell commented on the Savior’s comment to Peter this way: “Some of us—unwilling to accept that “seventy times seven” does not mean, in this context, a precise number—keep track of grudges, vainly nursing them and hoping that when the magic number of 490 comes along we can stop forgiving altogether. We forget not a hurt, we forget not a grudge, we forget not an offense.” He told a story from his mission illustrating this point: “After I had been in Italy for only four months, I was called as a senior companion to a brand-new elder, a “greenie” whom I’ll call Elder Brown. Proud of the linguistic skills that allowed me to enjoy a senior position after so few months in a foreign land, I looked forward to remaking Elder Brown in my own image—never minding that he was more handsome and more personable than I. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out exactly as I had planned. Elder Brown came from LDS pioneer stock and from a much more well-to-do family. His grandfather invariably included a twenty-dollar bill in his letters; I resented the perks that such extra cash allowed, even though my companion invariably shared his bounty with me. Elder Brown had belonged to a social fraternity during his freshman year—the type that never would have accepted a nerd such as I—and, unfortunately, his fraternity brothers had exposed him to a number of undesirable things, including risqué magazines. Then it happened. One afternoon during scripture study time in our apartment I caught him ‘reading’ (if that’s the right word) an unapproved magazine—you know, the kind with a centerfold. It was an Italian edition of Playboy. He had purchased it while on splits with another elder, and I was furious. I felt that Elder Brown had ruined my ideal mission. I seethed in righteous indignation, but, rather than rebuking my companion and then showing forth an increase in love, I chose to become an expert on his every fault, which I cataloged and reviewed with some regularity in my mind. After a few challenging months together, my junior companion was transferred, and it was at that point that I began my revenge in earnest.” Brother Sowell recounted how he subsequently spoke ill of this missionary wherever he got the chance, even after his mission ended. He continued, “A few years passed. Then one day Elder Brown appeared on my doorstep. He asked to come in. We spoke alone in my living room for over an hour. I asked what he was doing and learned that he was happily married and an extremely successful businessman and entrepreneur. Because of the way I had stereotyped him, I wondered about his activity in the Church. I was surprised to learn that he was not an elder (as was I) but a high priest and serving on a high council. He then stunned me by relating how his favorite high council talk was to share what he had learned from me while we were mission companions. He loved to tell young people preparing for missions how much better prepared doctrinally I—the convert—had been than he—the lifelong member—and how my example of gospel scholarship had inspired him to overcome his own shortcomings.” He soon found out that this former missionary companion knew of how he talked about him to others, but instead of being angry “he asked if I could ever forgive him for his youthful mistakes. I knew then that it was I who needed to ask him for forgiveness. In the pride of my heart I had sinned, and I had sinned in multiple ways—in judging unmercifully, in harboring resentment, in planning and executing revenge, and, perhaps most of all, in not allowing the possibility that a brother could change, improve, and repent.”  

Luke’s account of the Savior’s teachings, similar to the Sermon on the Mount, he included these words from the Savior about forgiveness: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” He then gave this beautiful imagery about how we should approach forgiveness: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:36-37). That is how we should forgive—with it “running over” and not measured parsimoniously or held back completely. If we want the forgiveness of the Lord we must find in our hearts again and again to forgive and let go, to love and look past weakness every chance that we get. For surely that is how the Lord views us, and if we forgive men their trespasses the Lord will ultimately forgive us ours.