My first memories of reciting the Lord’s Prayer in worship take me back to the tiny country church my family had been part of for generations, West View United Methodist Church in Augusta County, Virginia. I have no record of exactly when that church was built, as records were lost or misplaced when the church was decommissioned and sold due to its membership waning and dying off over the years. I do know that my great-grandfather was responsible for replacing the steeply-pitched metal roof in the mid-twentieth century, as well as helping hand-dig the basement which would become the fellowship hall for the congregation. My great-grandparents and my grandmother both lived within eyesight of the church in the sleepy, quiet community west of Staunton, Virginia. My father was raised in this church. I was baptized there as an infant. It was there that I first heard the ‘old, old stories’ about Jesus and there where I first sang the hymns of my faith. And it was, of course, there where I learned to recite the Lord’s Prayer with my family and friends each Sunday morning. As United Methodists, we asked God to ‘forgive us our trespasses.’ Everyone in the small sanctuary would say these words each week as if there was no doubt in the text and no other way they should be spoken. It was ritual. It was tradition. After all, it was the Lord’s Prayer, right?
When I arrived in Greenville, North Carolina many years later as a new graduate student in the School of Music at East Carolina University, finding a church was the last thing on my mind. I had to navigate living on my own for the first time in my life, far from my family and friends. I had to figure out how to get around a new town. I had to focus on my studies and my responsibilities to the university. I had a world of other concerns that kept me from even realizing I was no longer ‘churched’ for the first time in my life. Sunday mornings became my time to wash my laundry, tidy up my apartment, and go grocery shopping for the week ahead.
After several weeks of classes, a fellow graduate student approached me. This student, Bill, was much older than me, and had gone back to school to pursue his masters degree later in life. He served as the Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, which was conveniently located just blocks away from the School of Music. He invited me to come and play guitar for their early worship praise band on Sunday mornings. At first, I thanked him for the offer but politely declined. Bill was persistent. After several more weeks he reiterated the invitation, combined with an offer to pay me to play guitar for their praise band. Now we’re talkin’, I thought…
The first morning I joined the praise band for worship, I was nervous but also confident I would fit in just fine. It had been a while, but I was generally very comfortable in a church setting. The people were very nice, and for all the world they looked just like the Methodists from back home. They even had weak ‘church coffee’ - there’s nothing like a weak cup of coffee to remind a mainline protestant of home. The service began, and the music was well within my abilities. The format was familiar, and the sermon was well-preached and reminded me of any other Sunday morning message I’d ever heard. It wasn’t until we came to the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer that I felt a little discomfort. The entire service up to, and then again following, this prayer could have passed for any other worship experience I’d ever had back home with the Methodists. The one difference that felt altogether unsettling, although such a small difference, was the word ‘debts’ where the word ‘trespasses’ should have been. Methodists, and I’ve come to learn most all other mainline protestants, ask God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Presbyterians ask God to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” What a strange difference…
When I left Greenville, North Carolina to move back home to the Valley of Virginia, I took with me a masters degree, a heavy student loan debt, and a new church membership. I was officially a ‘Master of Music,’ officially broke, and officially a Presbyterian. In the three years I spent in North Carolina, I had completely fallen in love with the theology and practice of Presbyterian worship and fellowship. What an unexpected gift God had given me in the midst of my graduate studies to open me up to a new way of thinking about my faith, as well as to plant me within a community of faith that I still miss deeply and think of fondly every day.
As time moved on, I would use the skills I’d cultivated in school and at First Presbyterian, Greenville, to pay off those student debts. I’d continue my work within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from the time I left Greenville until this very present day. My home church in the sleepy little community just west of Staunton, Virginia, however was not doing so well. With waning membership and many in the community aging and dying, the church couldn’t sustain the debts of paying for property upkeep and sustaining a pastorate. Ultimately the church closed, the property was sold, and the congregation disbanded. There may have even been a ‘No Trespassing’ sign installed on the door at some point. My own parents were still part of this congregation when the end came. Finding themselves in need of a new church, they began visiting my current church, Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church, just a few miles east of Staunton. They love it, and have felt so welcomed and ‘at home’ since their first Sunday, with one exception. Following their first time in worship with us, my father asked me, “What’s the deal with the Lord’s Prayer? Why do they say debts instead of trespasses?”
At some point, we have to acknowledge that certain traditions are just that - traditions. There may be other ways, better ways, worse ways of doing things, but the way we do the things we do often stems from pure tradition. I don’t know when the first Presbyterian ever decided we’d stick to ‘debts’ using the language most closely associated with Jesus’ prayer from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6: 9-13). I don’t know when Methodists, or whoever it was before them, decided the word ‘trespasses’ had a nicer ring to it. Whoever they were, they were likely inspired by the Apostle Paul who wrote to the many churches concerning the ‘trespasses’ of our sinful nature, how we are all dead in our sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2), and how the free gift of grace is not like the trespass of sin (Romans 5). The more Reformed we are, traditionally speaking, the more interested we are in acknowledging the debt we can never repay on our own for God’s grace and salvation in Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection. The more sensitive we are to not associating a financial obligation to our relationship with God, the more likely we are to speak of our ‘trespasses’ against God instead of our ‘debt.’ At the end of the day, however, there is no real argument to be won. Both are right. Both are fine. They are simply different.
To those who feel as if they are buried under the weight of staggering debts, believe me, I’ve been there. And I loved the idea that God wouldn’t hold any kind of debt against me. To those who feel like they’ve been wronged by others and know they’ve wronged God by their own behaviors, believe me, I’ve been there too. I also love the idea that God doesn’t hold any of my sins against me thanks to his amazing grace and Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for me. Either way, the Lord’s Prayer reminds me that Jesus really is Good News, no matter how you slice it.
I pray you’ll find comfort reciting the Lord’s prayer in whatever tradition you practice. I pray you’ll know the peace that Jesus meant for it to bring. And I pray you’ll live forgiving others who trespass against you or owe you any debt, just as God has forgiven you. Thanks be to God!
J.M.D.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name, your kingdom come,
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”
Matthew 6: 9-13, NIV