Sins of omission and commission

There are a few variations to The Lord’s Prayer, particularly in the section about asking God to forgive our debts/trespasses/sins. Our new pastor has been leading us in the Lord’s Prayer, over the past few weeks, by using the phase “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” rather than the phrase “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” that had been used by our congregation for many years.

When I think about the differences between debts and trespasses, I am reminded of some differences between various types of sins. Most often, I suppose, we think of sin as an active transgression: something that we do that is wrong. Theft, murder, adultery, deceit, arrogance, violence, etc. All those things are included in the broad umbrella of trespasses. Trespassing has come to mean something rather narrow: namely stepping onto someone else’s property without permission (quite often to do harm or appropriate something that doesn’t belong to oneself.) But what of debts? Our pastor pointed out the limiting connotations associate with debts in which our mind thinks in financial terms. Forgive us our debts sounds like a college student reneging on a student loan that he owes and had made promises to pay. However, I think that the whole idea of debts deals, rather, with what we owe people in terms of basic human transactions: love, compassion, generosity, the fruits of the Spirit. Our prayer, “forgive us our debts,” is an acknowledgment that we often fail to share these fruits of the Spirit with others. Sin is not just an active transgression, at times like this, but also a passive inaction when we should have acted: something that we did not do that would have been right. The Book of Common Prayer captures this in the confession: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”

These sins have been called sins of omission (debts) and commission (trespasses). When we “commit” sins of omission we aren’t really committing anything at all. We actually are omitting to perform something that God would have us do. We fail to do something we ought to do through apathy, carelessness, lack of conviction, laziness or selfishness. If we consider the fact that God has given certain spiritual gifts, we actually sin if we fail to employ those gifts, practice and use those talents. In Jesus’s parable about the 5, 2 and 1 talents, it is the person who buried his talent and didn’t use it even slightly that was censored, punished and removed from the community or a relationship with his master. Burying his talent was a sin of omission: he had a debt to his master and refused to “pay” it by employing his talent.

If the sins of commission are more obvious, the sins of omission are more insidious. They lull us into a false sense of sinlessness. We can imagine someone objecting, “But I haven’t done anything wrong!” The question isn’t always whether or not one has done something wrong. More importantly is the question: What have I done that is right? How have I intentionally, deliberately and passionately embraced my calling? How fervently have I strained my ears to hear His voice, His whisper? How much have I expended myself to fulfill the one debt remaining (Romans 13:8), the love of one another, or “the carrying of each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) which is the fulfillment of the law of Christ? The sins of omission are so often linked with that cankerous spiritual malady, indifference. When we withhold grace, forgiveness, compassion, or mercy, we rob our neighbor of his very breath, we deny him food, drink, hope, friendship, meaning. This is no small insignificant thing. It is truly insidious because we will not find ourselves throw in jail because of it. There are no laws of the state that threaten us with imprisonment if we turn a blind eye to a neighbor in need. No, we may not be thrown into prison, but there is a Place we may very well be thrown out of. “And between us and you a great chasm has been fixed” (Luke 16:19-31).

It is best to pray that God would forgive us all our sins: both debts and trespasses.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.