Cottesbrooke: 8th Sunday after  Trinity.  25 July 2010
Help us O Lord to become masters of ourselves that we may become the servants of others. Take my lips and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, take our hearts and set them on fire.  Amen

I suppose that our reading from St. Luke today contains some of the best known, if not the best known words, in the whole of English Christian  literature.  The Paternoster. The Lord's prayer.  This is the  only formula for prayer attributed to Jesus himself has been subjected to a great deal of analysis over the centuries. 
There are the two versions: this one in Luke's Gospel and another in Matthew, broadly similar but differing in some respects.  Those differences, being the subject of much learned discussion which I confess I don't find particularly interesting. 
The Paternoster's  few brief sentences consisting of some sixty-six words are simple and can be understood by a everyone.  But when one starts to think and to analyze those words carefully carefully, there gradually comes the realization of the immensity of the message. There comes the understanding that the Lord's Prayer not only states all that a human being should ask from his Creator, but indirectly throws light on several fundamental questions about the meaning of our life, as well as our relation to God and the universe in which we live.  
Put simply, in this prayer we are petitioning God about a number of different things: that his name be hallowed, that his kingdom will come that his will should be done; then there are petitions about our needs: the daily bread; then that the trespasses / sins/ debts that we commit or incur should be forgiven and that we shall do the same to others. ; the petition that we should not be tempted by sin and in the end be rescued by God from the evils that surround us.  
We say it so regularly, however, that there is a danger that it becomes too familiar and its meaning that much less powerful. 
The Tyndale Version 
This morning I'd like to dwell a little on the forgiveness side of the prayer 
The Luke and Matthew versions differ slightly in that  Luke's says " Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us" 
Matthew says " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" 
Tyndale's version of St. Luke:  And forgive us our sins; for even we forgive every man that trespasseth us.
Jesus is here stating a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith: that we need to forgive, as God forgives us.    After  Matthew's version of the Paternoster Jesus goes on to spell it out: it is more explicit: "for if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you"    - and vice versa. 
Well that's clear then.  
It's the practical, day to day, application of forgiveness, however, that it much more difficult. 
Last week saw the 100 anniversary of one of Winston Churchill's speeches that is not so well known as his stirring wartime oratory, or at least not so much known until I notice it was mentioned in Parliament.  
In July 1910 he was Home Secretary speaking in a debate on crime and punishment. I first came across his  contribution when reading a book by the former Inspector General of Prison, Sir David Ramsbotham entitled "Prisongate"  in which he discussed what was wrong with the prison system n this country. What Churchill asserted a century ago was that 
"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilization in any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man  -  these are the things which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it."

I am sad to say that in 2010, we in this country have singularly failed to live up to those high ideals. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.  Everyday in the last two weeks-  I have been monitoring the media from time to time  -  we have heard stories about the inadequacies of the Justice System n this country. 
"A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state..."  How one has to ask did Jon Venables, who was sent back to prison last week, get into the position that he did. ?   The tabloids  -  and some broadsheets  -  are howling. 
 "Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" was in my view one of the most pernicious slogans coined by a mainstream politician.   As a result of it, we have doubled the prison population in ten years at enormous expense to the taxpayer.  And there's another trite slogan for you  -  "prison works".    Of course it works in one sense: locking people up does get them out of the way.  And if you lock up enough bad hats the number of offences will fall.    But that does not solve the fundamental problem of how to rehabilitate offenders.   In short we don't really do rehabilitation. We devise courses on anger management etc and cross our fingers.    
Well, let's say we don't do it very effectively.  We don't look for the treasure, as Churchill put, that lies in the heart of everyone.  The figures show that 49% of people released from jail re-offend within 12 months. In this respect we have dismally failed.  We dish out ASBOS; overworked and undertrained social services fail regularly, the police are seen as oppressive overburdened with paperwork; our leaders bemoan the situation
England..........., is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
On Friday I met a man who after 4 years inside is coming out of prison in three weeks time.  You'd have thought that he's be infused with a joyous, even end of term feeling.  But he wasn't; he literally didn't know where he was going: no one would tell him.  And he had no idea of what he was going to do with his life.  He felt an outcast, from his family and from society at large and may be  -  though we didn't talk about that -  from God.   He wept.
As I drove home, I remembered a poem that I'd been given: [ read Mr Nobody] 
What we have to do as Christians it seems to me, is spread that word and try to create a forgiving society.  And then do the practical things  -  the jobs,  the hobbies, the counselling, the friendship offered : in short the things that make it easier for prodigal sons to return to the fold.  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.  
Teach us good Lord to serve three as thou deserves, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds to   suffer and to ask for no reward save that of knowing that we do thy will.   
 




