I’m sure any of you who are reading this might be surprised at the words I have used in this phrase from the Lord’s Prayer. I had to listen several times to the video put out by the Church of England of the Lord’s Prayer to this phrase. The producers have made a deliberate attempt to use both traditional and contemporary language, in order to be inclusive and accessible to all.
Thinking about the word trespass, it conjures up someone walking across a lawn, or entering a forbidden building, and signs indicating “trespassers will be prosecuted”. For some reason it also makes me think of tripping up, or stumbling. The derivation is from the French, meaning to “pass over “and the Oxford dictionary meaning is to enter a prohibited property or land, but also to commit a sin or an offence.
For me trespass is a deliberate act, whereas sin is a more all encompassing term for acts of commission, that is doing something wrong, but also acts of omission, that is not doing something that we should.
We ask God to forgive us all those things we do, that we realise are wrong, and those we perhaps don’t realise until sometime later are wrong. And we also ask God to forgive us when we cross over the road to avoid speaking to someone, or we turn a “blind eye” or “deaf ear” to someone in need.
We could read the phrase – “as we forgive those who sin against us” – as being rather arrogant perhaps? “We forgive others so You should forgive us”. Or we could read it, thinking carefully about it, do we really forgive others?
Forgiveness.
It is a hard thing to do, and always needs a lot of prayer.
Prayer: Merciful and gracious Father. There is so much that we get wrong, and we are sorry. One of the first things we get wrong, is forgiving others. How can we deserve your forgiveness? We ask you to forgive us in the same way that we forgive others. But you are a merciful God, and you do not require us to earn your forgiveness, you give your forgiveness unconditionally, gracefully and freely. Thank you, Lord, for that saving grace. AMEN