For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6: 14-15

Sometimes when I read these kinds of passages I think of a simple quid pro quo – if I forgive others then God will forgive me. A similar statement is in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore, I better start forgiving if I want forgiveness myself.

I wonder if there is another way to read this. I wonder if what Jesus is saying is that unless you forgive others you cannot truly be forgiven.

Perhaps Jesus is saying that forgiveness is not a kind of transaction, but rather a state of heart, or maybe a continual flow. In that flow forgiveness is not allocated or distributed upon the doing of certain things, but is simply and always there to participate in. As God does not ration forgiveness, neither should we. If we do, we limit our own capacity to truly receive it. Our hearts remain apart from this flow; they are still hard, too hard to receive it. To receive forgiveness requires being forgiving. Being forgiving naturally follows the receipt of forgiveness.

I think our lives show this. When one truly experiences forgiveness and realizes how much that forgiveness was needed, she is ready to provide it to others. He knows the state of things, our common human state of imperfection and our deep need for grace. Only when we extend forgiveness to others – and indeed even to ourselves – are we really ready to receive it. Our hearts have changed; we are in the flow.

God can and does forgive us by inviting us always into this flow.