One of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer readily comes to mind when we hear the Scripture readings today and it is: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” So, whenever we pray the Our Father, we are asking God to forgive our sins, our wrongdoings, as we strive to forgive others their offenses against us. In the passage from Sirach, he warns emphatically: if you want your own sins to be forgiven, you better forgive your neighbor’s injustice. And the gospel story presents a stark contrast between a king’s deep compassion for his servant who owed him a huge amount of money and that very servant’s shockingly harsh treatment of a fellow servant who owed him a mere fraction of that amount. The simple moral of this story is that if we want the Lord to forgive our sins and shortcomings, we must follow suit and extend that forgiveness to others. To forgive someone is not to issue blanket immunity for their offense, but it is to rise above the meanness, the unfairness, the wound inflicted, and to do what the Lord does for us… and that is forgive.