As we forgive

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

It is so easy to rattle off these words without a second thought, as we say the prayer that we have known at least since we first went to school, and, in some homes, even earlier. But is this just an automatic knee jerk response which pours out in response to the said first words of the prayer, words we can say without engaging brain, known by heart since childhood? Or is it something much deeper for us as we pray in the words Christ taught to his disciples. Rowan Williams comments, ‘Forgive us our trespasses is in some ways the hardest bit of the Lord's Prayer to pray, because it tells us straightaway that to pray is also to be willing to change.'

What did Christ have to say about forgiveness? He certainly forgave sins. Remember the paralytic, lowered down through the roof to be healed. Jesus said to him, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

(Luke5: 20) and the man was healed. He uses the same words to the sinful woman with the alabaster jar of ointment who anoints his feet, much to the horror of the other guests. “Your sins are forgiven.”

When Peter asks how often one should forgive, he is told not 7 but 77 times, in other words forever. There should be no limit to our generosity to our fellow men and women, just as there is no limit to God's generosity to us.

Jesus tells the story of the Prodigal Son. When the young man returns home penniless, filthy and humiliated, his father does not lecture him, but lifts up his robes and runs down the track to meet him, embraces him and weeps with joy. His forgiveness is so complete that he orders his servants to kill the best calf and prepare a feast to celebrate his son's return.

Tom Wright in his book on the Lord's Prayer, emphasises how unusual it would be for the honoured head of a family to run anywhere, let alone run with tears pouring down his face, it was undignified. Yet here he is hugging and kissing the youth. Even the boy's confession is hardly listened to, as the father gives instructions for servants to fetch the best clothing to dress his returned son and get ready the feast.

How many of us have been in the modern equivalent, as impulsive sons and daughters have used us like a money bank, returning penniless for the next loan a few months later after the car has been crashed, or the latest scheme has backfired. And how many of us ‘killed the fatted calf' in their honour? If you are anything like us, our response was “ you have had your share, no more. Now wait and earn the next lot yourself.” At the time we felt they needed to learn a lesson, but it certainly falls short of the generosity of God!

We are told of the Good Shepherd, who leaves the 99 to seek out the lost one. (This story always worries me as a farmer's wife; I hope the 99 were safely penned when he went off, or an even greater disaster could have overtaken the shepherd on his return!) We are told that ‘there will be more joy in Heaven over the one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous people who need no repentance.'

But so often with Jesus people's sins are forgiven without any recorded sign of repentance given or even asked for. Those long distance healings requested by relatives of the dying and deceased. Even Peter, who fled when the going got rough, is not asked if he is sorry. Although the threefold question, “Do you love me?” must have been more difficult to face than any confession.

However much of the Gospel stories and certainly the letters of Paul make it quite clear that repentance, or being sorry, is necessary for forgiveness. In Romans Paul says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

John the Baptist was baptising repentance and forgiveness of sins. Jesus himself tells the ultimate moral tale of the unjust steward who, forgiven his debts by his master, goes on to terrorise those who owe him money. His reward for his own lack of forgiveness is that he forfeits the forgiveness that had been offered and is held and tortured until his own debt is repaid in full.

We cannot earn God's forgiveness. It is God's gift to us in grace, but we must learn from his gift, how to forgive others or we have learnt nothing and not changed ourselves. But for many that journey may take a long time, for some even a lifetime.

For the Reverend Julie Nicholson, whose daughter was killed by a 7/7 London bomber, that gap could not be bridged at once. She left her job as a priest because she did not feel in all honesty that she could lead her congregation in the Lord's Prayer. In the rawness of her grief, it was impossible for her to forgive the bomber that took away the life of her daughter; therefore her own integrity demanded that she resigned from a leadership role. Far from judging or criticising her, I am sure most people admired her courage and her honesty.

Her actions should speak to all of us. If we continue to be embittered by anything in our past, we need to do something about it. Prayer for healing can help, by ourselves before God, or with the help of someone else. We don't need to like our enemies, but we do need to love them. As it says in the York course, it seems unlikely that even Jesus actually liked his executioners, but he does pray, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Perhaps when we pray this prayer we should be looking further afield than our own hurts and preoccupations, looking out to the world. “ Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us” could also be used to consider the sins committed by ourselves and every nation and culture against the fragile structure of God's planet and each other– a green prayer, a prayer against war, poverty, greed and materialism.

My mother always told me of her memories of the night Coventry was bombed in the last war. We lived in Loughborough 20 miles away, which was the turning point for the bombers, and she remembered wave after wave going over, and then the eerie glow of a city on fire. For my parents, forgiveness was impossible right up to their deaths. But only recently I came across this litany, which is inscribed on the altar in the ruins of the old cathedral of Coventry and is prayed every lunchtime in a brief service. It seems to me to be a fitting conclusion to this reflection:

The hatred, which divides nation from nation, race from race and class from class,

Father, forgive.

The covetous desires of men and nations to possess what is not their own,

Father, forgive.

The greed, which exploits the labours of men and lays waste the earth,

Father, forgive.

Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,

Father, forgive.

Our indifference to the plight of the homeless and the refugee.

Father, forgive.

The lust, which uses for ignoble ends the bodies of men and women.

Father, forgive.

The pride, which leads to trust in ourselves, and not in God.

Father, forgive.

Coventry cathedral has become a centre for Reconciliation. As we pray the Lord's Prayer may we too offer up to God the sins of all today for his abundant forgiveness and mercy.

Amen.