SCRIPTURE READINGS
Twenty-fourth Sunday, September 13, 2026 

Biblical Readings Online Here 
(Year A in the three-year cycle of readings) 

Christians pray the Our Father daily, usually Matthew 6:12, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Luke’s version, 11:4, is less frequently quoted, “forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.” Sin as “debt” had become a common metaphor several centuries prior to Jesus. In accord with the metaphor, one’s sins were imagined as recorded as debts in a heavenly register, and forgiveness consisted in erasing the debts by good works, especially giving alms to the poor. There are of course other metaphors for sin and forgiveness in the Bible, e.g., a heavy burden that one prayed to be lifted from one’s shoulders; a register that one hoped God would not look at; the departure of the All-Holy God from the Temple remedied by the Day of Purgation (or Atonement). As sin could be conceived in different ways, so could forgiveness.  

In today’s Scripture reading, the Jerusalem teacher Ben Sira, author of the Book of Sirach, goes a step beyond the customary view that “wrath and anger” were dangerous sources of sin if “untreated” in the human heart. One’s anger cooped up in one’s heart could suddenly re-awaken and lead to violence. Leviticus 19:17 acknowledges this danger and suggests a remedy: “Reprove your neighbor openly so that you do not incur sin because of that person.” Ben Sira in today’s reading goes further, “Forgive your neighbor the wrong done to you, then when you pray your own sins will be forgiven. Do not nourish anger against another.” Get rid of everything that might hinder one’s relationship to God. Romans 14, the second reading, expresses something similar: Live not for yourself alone but for others and for the Lord.  

The gospel develops forgiveness even further. To Peter’s question how often we should forgive, Jesus gives no number and places no limit. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13 and 12:7 is a “dialectical negation” in which the speaker strongly denies one thing in order to emphasize its opposite, in this case the superiority of mercy. The parable of the compassionate king draws on how the world works, not on how God works. But the parable moves forgiveness to a social and kingdom-of-heaven perspective. Jesus’s “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” becomes the rule, not the exception. 

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.