Sermon delivered at All Saints Church, Penarth, on 7th July 2024
Prymer (Prayer Book), 1538
And fogyue vs our trespasses, as we forgyue them that trespas agaynst vs.
Luke 11:4
Greek original: καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν·
NRSV: 4 And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
Matthew 6:12
Greek original: καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·
NRSV: And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Vulgate, St Jérôme, 4th century: et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
Sermon:
Today we continue our series on the Lord’s Prayer. We have reached ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
Have you done any trespassing recently? Maybe you’ve been put off by one of those fierce signs which say ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’. Maybe you are involved with Just Stop Oil or XR – Extinction Rebellion. Maybe you plan to lie down on the M4 to stop the traffic. That would be a trespass.
My Dad used to make a rather weak joke about one of those notices, not about trespassing, but about fly-posting, or ‘sticking bills’. The notice threatened that ‘Bill Stickers will be prosecuted’. Dad said, ‘Poor Bill’. …
But it looks as though what Jesus wanted us to pray about wasn’t really just a question of slipping through someone’s fence like Peter Rabbit.
So what is the meaning of ‘trespass’ here, in this context? It’s
something done against, an ‘intrusion’, into someone else’s space; and then by extension, to do harm against them.
So it means basically, forgive us for the harmful things we have done, as we forgive those who’ve done things to us.
But what did Jesus mean by ‘as’? ‘As’ we forgive? Does it mean a condition, ‘…only to the extent that we forgive …’ (and if we don’t, then what?), or ‘…as we definitely do forgive’?
The Lord’s Prayer comes twice in the Bible, in St Matthew’s Gospel [6:12f] and in St Luke, [11:4f]. Neither version uses exactly the words which we now say. In St Matthew, the Prayer comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount – you know, about turning the other cheek and loving our enemies – and in Luke, it follows the parable of the Good Samaritan, that great story of unconditional love. The Samaritan didn’t think about whether the poor man who had been hurt deserved his help. He just saw his neighbour in need, and he followed the great Commandment to ‘love your neighbour’.
In both those places, where the Lord’s Prayer comes in the Bible, the words aren’t exactly what we now say.
In St Matthew, it says, ‘And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors’. In St Luke, ‘And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’.
Leaving aside the question precisely what it is we are asking to be forgiven, these texts bring us go back to the question whether there’s a condition, whether we can only ask for God’s forgiveness on condition that we forgive those who have ‘trespassed against us’.
If we look at the different texts in Matthew and Luke, in Matthew we find – ‘.. as we have forgiven..’, and in Luke, ‘for we ourselves forgive’, which translates Greek words which literally mean
‘.. for truly (καιγαρ) we do forgive’.
There are different tenses used. Matthew says, ‘as we have forgiven’ in the past, so maybe Matthew’s version is a bit conditional, that we couldn’t come to the Lord without clean hands, without having done to others what we are asking Him to do to us.
But there is definitely no conditionality in Luke’s version. Perhaps, although it reflects the ideas in the Sermon on the Mount, loving enemies, turning the other cheek, in Luke, it comes after the story of the Good Samaritan, which is about unconditional love.
But does the Bible really say that Jesus told us to pray to be forgiven for ‘trespassing’? The Greek words used in the two Gospel accounts don’t say this.
Depending on which translation you use, the thing to ask forgiveness for is ‘sin’, ‘debt’, ‘obligations’, what we ‘owe’ to other people, or just wrongdoing.
The word ‘trespass’ in English seems to have been first used early in the 16th century at the time of the Reformation, when the services were being translated from Latin so that they could be ‘understanded of the people’ as Art XXIV of the 39 Articles puts it. But really it has changed its meaning over the years.
‘Sin’ is the word used in some modern versions of the Lord’s Prayer – ‘forgive us our s…’ It’s the word used by Luke. The word for ‘sin’ means literally ‘missing the mark’. ‘Sin’ has a connotation of wrong-doing, missing the mark, as between us and God, not as between us and other humans. Sin is what separates us from God.
What if it has connotations of ‘debt’ or ‘obligation’? This would reflect the Jewish idea of debt relief, Jubilee, every 7 years. It is such a powerful idea. Think of the implications for justice between nations, for the rich as against the poor. Jubilee, debt relief, is the only real way that could lead to hope for long-term justice in the world. That’s a wonderful thing for us to pray for.
But – a final word – what about ‘forgive’ – forgive us, as we forgive? The word in Greek means to ‘let go’. Jesus is putting good psychological principles in the prayer. It is unhealthy to hang on to feuds and to bear grudges and resentment. Just let it go. Take it to the Lord in prayer!
And by the way – trespassers can’t be prosecuted: (in the law of England and Wales, just for trespassing, which is a tort, a civil wrong, and therefore only open to a private civil remedy, and that only if damage is caused. There is no public, criminal, remedy: no ‘prosecution’.)
Note
“To deter trespassing on to land, a landowner would often erect signage stating ‘trespassers will be prosecuted’. However, those with legal knowledge know that trespass was, in fact, a civil wrong and not a criminal offence, meaning trespassers could not be prosecuted.
However, the introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (‘PCSAC’) on 28 June 2022 makes trespass, in some cases, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment of up to four months and/or a fine of up to £2,500”. Quoted from https://www.hilldickinson.com/insights/articles/trespassers-can-now-be-prosecuted, q.v. for more details. It is still essentially the case that simply entering on someone else’s land is not an offence, provided no damage is done to property on that land.
hughdbryant 