I have been taught that it is not possible to love without first being able to forgive and that it is not possible to receive love without first being able to receive forgiveness.  I believe that is true.  This post marks the beginning of a series concerning love and forgiveness.

I begin with some profound words by scholar Dale Bruner* which continue to greatly influence my thinking:

“In the Second Table (or human side) of the Lord’s Prayer the order of petitions is instructive.  We pray first for food, then for forgiveness, and then for freedom and guidance.  There is sanity in Jesus’ sequence.  Sometimes in Jesus’ teaching the physical (or social) preceds the spiritual.  Starving persons need forgiveness, but they first need food.  A sick person needs eternal life, but in this Gospel the sick ask first for healing, and Jesus honors this human ‘first.’

‘Give’ and ‘forgive’ – these are humanity’s two great personal needs before God.  Please give us physically what we need in order to live like humans; then please forgive us spiritually those things that we do or don’t do so we can really live as humans – free of guilt . . . food is humanity’s priority need, but forgiveness is humanity’s profoundest need.” (309)

*Bruner, Frederick Dale.  Matthew: A Commentary.  Vol. 1.  Revised and Expanded Edition.  Grand Rapids:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.