The Rev Roddy Hamilton highlights the heart of forgiveness.

MANY generations of my family, and possibly yours, have a mantra: ‘Never let the sun go down on your wrath.’

Such wise words – truly! Sort it out now because hurt festers and grows arms, legs and wings.

Our worship allows for that weekly when we meet together. Confession is often quite early on in the service. I have criticised this in my head: we’re hardly in the door and we need to appease the wrath of God as soon as we can.

However, let’s think a little more about that. Much of what we seek forgiveness for is less from God and far more from each other. The person we long to be is often quite a distance from the person we actually are to our neighbour. We have a catalogue of failures and falls, of hurts and bruises within our human relationships. Thankfully the bible is full of characters who are less than perfect in that department too.

Because of that, we know God has not set us up to fail but asks us to recognise the times we do fail and seek a path to renewal. In truth that can be quite demanding. Yet we know that to be able to forgive can transform our relationships with each other which is the very essence of the gospel.

We have an institution already set up to allow that to happen every time we worship. It is not a case of simply saying sorry and moving on but rather the act of confession and receiving of forgiveness is where our relationships are transformed and the world shifts a little.

“The person we long to be is often quite a distance from the person weactually are to our neighbour.”

Some have said that the act of forgiveness is one of the most radical ideas ever created. Yet while acting on our technological ideas have sent us soaring, acting on our moral ideas has often still to get off the ground.

However, forgiveness breaks so many cycles that reduce us as humans. It breaks the inevitable idea of retaliation, of generational hurt, of prescriptive punishment, and liberates us from the idea that we inevitably and constantly repeat our history.

Our worship offers a space for that transformation, so might we make more of it in our worship? It is usually attached to the first prayer where the worship leader guides us through issues she or he has come across that week. But there is little response from the congregation other than an Amen.

Might there be a ritual created to make tangible this moment of recreation? Silence. The placing of a stone. The folding of paper that represents sins. A song sung together seeking forgiveness from each other? The new supplement to the hymn book God Welcomes All, offers a number of songs to help with this. Look beyond the theme of ‘Forgiveness’ which is focussed mainly on forgiveness from God, and perhaps stretch the relationship into the themes of ‘Hurt’ and ‘Human Dignity’ and ‘Healing’ which seeks the good of others too.

And, perhaps, following that ritual, it is then we offer each other the sign of peace for this is now a new community. Seeking forgiveness from each other, and the opportunities for new life that opens up, is the kind of community God grows in.

In recreating the community through forgiveness, perhaps we actually recreate the world. ¤

The Rev Roddy Hamilton is minister at Bearsden: New Kilpatrick.