The Biblical prophet Daniel, about whom no mistake is ever recorded, is found in the book that bears his name “confessing my sin and the sin of my people” (Daniel 9:20).
This is how grace acts in times of national and international tragedy—not for “me and mine” but for “us and ours.” Grace doesn’t say, “It wasn’t my fault: I kept myself pure from disease,” or “I’m not responsible for the sins of my ancestors.”
Grace moves us to accept responsibility for our neighbor’s faults and the bigotry we inherited from great-grandparents; to pray for the generational sins that have endured in every nation, tribe and people. In this, we begin to fulfill the Biblical counsel: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2)
The heart renewed by grace is freed to admit responsibility even for mistakes transparently not its own in some specific, legal sense, for grace always moves toward the first personal plural—to “we,” to “us,” to “ours.” As those bought by the blood of Jesus, we’ve come to realize that nothing human is foreign to us[1]: my neighbor’s sin might well be mine tomorrow. It’s our pride and ignorance that makes us pray as the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people” (Luke 18:11).
Grace teaches us our place among the broken and the wounded.
So, “Lord, teach us to pray.” And stay in grace.
–Bill Knott
[1] Edward G. Robinson