At the center of the Sermon on the Mount is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. Matthew's version contains two sets of four phrases. The first set of phrases (left side) focuses on some aspect of our Father’s perspective. The second set (right side) focuses on our current earthly needs. Each of these pairs will be considered separately in four different meditations—in connection with the remaining references to the ‘Father’ in the Sermon on the Mount. 

By connecting these two lines as a pair, we see how forgiveness (right side) is related to keeping our Father's holy name (left side). 

The prayer of a true adult son or daughter is concerned with how we honor, or dishonor the Father's holy name, especially in the way we treat our siblings in his family; for he is ‘Our Father’. Our responsibility for our Father’s name begins with those who have already been restored to his household—our brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the main ways Christians bring their Father's name into disrepute is when they mistreat their fellow believers (Med.#88). When such ‘offenses’ remain unresolved through a lack of forgiveness, many people leave the church. Likewise, such broken family relationships keep many non-Christians from coming to Christ.

Jesus' prayer itself reflects the Father’s concern about our treatment of others: Our Father… forgive us ‘in the same way as’ we forgive those who offend and hurt us. Thus, all disciples who pray this prayer link their own forgiveness with how they themselves were being forgiving towards others. And Jesus says that our Father will judge us, or forgive us according to the measure of judgment or forgiveness that we have shown to our brothers and sisters (Med.#19). But, as we saw in the previous meditation, mature believers obey Jesus not out of fear but out of a desire to be like their Dad.

This does not mean we can never make judgments about sin in our brothers and sisters. But we are to do so in the presence of the Lord Jesus, so that our own failings are exposed to the light as well. And if we must correct our brother or sister, we must do so in gentleness—fully aware of our own vulnerability, and always ready to forgive each one who has hurt us (Gal.6:1; Col.3:13, Med.#81).

Yet Jesus was not only talking about how we treat our fellow believers. He also expected us to be like our Dad in the way we treat the ‘ungrateful’, the ‘wicked’ and the ‘unjust’ (Med.#12). Since all human beings were created in their Father's image, even people who are still ‘lost’ are our siblings. In a modern application, Jesus is saying that our Father will judge us with the measure that we are judgmental towards Muslims. He will forgive us our sins/debts in the same way as we forgive those responsible for 9/11, or for other terrorist attacks. When Corrie Ten Boom was confronted by the guard whose cruel beatings had been responsible for her sister's death at the Ravensbruk concentration camp, she was unable to forgive him in her own strength. But when she asked her Father for the strength to be like him, the Holy Spirit gave her the power she needed to forgive her former enemy.

Such forgiveness is neither easy nor cheap. A victim of physical or sexual violence, if rushed into acts of forgiveness, can easily feel—or be made to feel—like she is the guilty one. Forgiveness for such abuse, when extended out of a sense of religious obligation, can leave the victim still feeling ashamed and focused on the abuser. This is not the forgiveness Jesus is talking about. His idea of forgiveness can be found in the Greek word for ‘forgive’ [aphes] used above. Elsewhere Matthew uses it to speak of disconnecting from someone's influence, or ‘leaving behind’ something. Because only God can truly forgive, the survivor needs to focus on his grace, his righteousness and his peace, before she can forgive. Only then can the survivor be ‘released’ from the desire for revenge, and so ‘leave behind’ any remaining bond to the offender.[ii] Such a release in righteousness requires bringing the dark secret into the light—in the peace-giving presence of Jesus, usually with the assistance of a trusted friend or counselor.

[i] In The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, which mostly follows Luke’s narrative order, the first two texts appear in Chapter 30, p.149; and the remaining two texts appear in Chapter 14, p.68.

[ii] Teo van der Weele, From Shame to Peace: Counseling and Caring for the Sexually Abused. Crowborough, Monarch, 1995: pp.113,117-8.