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Please note:ÌýThis script cannot exactly reflect the transmission. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.

GILLY:ÌýGood morning and welcome to Guildford Cathedral on this Mothering Sunday. I am Canon Gilly Myers, Priest Vicar here at the Cathedral; and I am joined by our Cathedral choir of boys and lay clerks, organists, clergy and others to lead our worship this morning.

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The Church is in the season of Lent and our worship this morning is on the theme of forgiveness, as it’s found in the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’.Ìý We will hear two Bible readings which remind us that forgiveness is something which is fundamental to the character of God, and a sermon from the Bishop of Guildford, Bishop Andrew as he explores how we can know the ‘great love’ of God when we take part in the eternal cycle of forgiveness.

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There is nowhere more important a place for forgiveness than in our personal relationships with each other, with those we live closely beside and amongst. On Mothering Sunday we have a chance to remember those close relationships, particularly with those who have been or are parents to us, and reflect on the place of saying sorry, receiving forgiveness and starting afresh.

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Our first hymn this morning asks God, our parent, to help us and guide us through life, and reminds us that Jesus knows what it’s like to be tempted and to forgive.

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Let us pray.

God of compassion,

whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,

shared the life of a home in Nazareth,

and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself:

strengthen us in our daily living

that in joy and in sorrow

we may know the power of your presence

to bind together and to heal;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

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GILLY:

The Guildford Diocese was a created in 1927 and the building of this new Cathedral started in 1936. After building was suspended during the war, it started again in 1954 with a campaign to ask people to each ‘buy a brick’ each, and the completed Cathedral was consecrated in 1961. Here at the Cathedral, we welcome people who come to Diocesan services or to our regular worship, who come for family and children’s events or workshops, to look at art installations, hear concerts or those who want to see the architecture. It’s sometimes a bustling place full of activity, and at other times a very still and quiet place – in everything, the forgiving and boundless love of God is found working amongst us.

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We are led now by the choir singing ‘Laetare Jerusalem’ by Andrea Gabrieli. It’s a setting of verses 10 and 11 of Isaiah chapter 66: ‘Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.’

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CHOIR/ORGAN: Laetare Ierusalem (Andrea Gabrieli)

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GILLY:

Our first reading this morning is from Psalm 32. We are reminded of the reality of being forgiven by God – how we can be relieved of any sense of pain or guilt we may feel, and how our relationship with God can be restored.

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READER 1: Psalm 32 vv.1-11

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom theÌýLordÌýimputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried upÌýas by the heat of summer.ÌýThen I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to theÌýLord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress,Ìýthe rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding-place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.ÌýI will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in theÌýLord. Be glad in theÌýLordÌýand rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

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CHOIR/ORGAN/CONGREGATION: Dear Lord and Father of mankind

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GILLY:

Jesus forgave many people as they came to him for healing and restoration. From Luke’s Gospel, we here now some of his teaching to Simon, a Pharisee who invited Jesus to his home for a meal.Ìý An unplanned interruption by a woman caused Jesus to explain to Simon what forgiveness means.

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READER 2: Luke 7 vv.36-50

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

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GILLY:

Before we hear Bishop Andrew’s reflection on the theme of forgiveness, the choir sings ‘Remember not, Lord our offences’ by Henry Purcell – a simple setting of words from the Litany of the Book of Common Prayer; words which appeal to God to look favourably on us and spare God’s people from their sins.

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CHOIR/ORGAN: Remember not, Lord our offences (Purcell)

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+ANDREW:

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‘Forgive us our trespasses’, taught Jesus, ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us’.

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It’s an evocative phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, rather more so perhaps than its modern equivalent, ‘Forgive us our sins…’. Trespass speaks of a boundary line having been crossed - in this case, the line between right and wrong. Trespass speaks of forbidden territory having been trampled over or appropriated – in this context, territory forbidden for our own good. The sign ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ may not be quite as common today as in earlier decades, following the ‘right to roam’ legislation at the turn of the millennium. But here in Guildford, surrounded as we are with tracts of army land, there are plenty of places where you trespass at your peril.

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And what of those who trespass on our land? Not physically perhaps, but emotionally, psychologically – those who invade our space, carelessly or deliberately doing us harm in the process? Is the sign ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ an appropriate response to such invasions, or will that only inflame the situation further? Indeed, as those who acknowledge our own tendency to trespass – that ‘all we, like sheep, have gone astray’ in the famous words of the prophet Isaiah – isn’t it somewhat hypocritical to call down the full force of the law – or, more often, the full force of our bitterness and resentment – every time another sheep trespasses against us?

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Jesus, who taught us this famous prayer, was of course a master story-teller – and a number of its phrases were later illustrated by one or more of those stories. When we call on ‘Our Father’ we think perhaps of the beautiful parable of the Prodigal Son, where the Fatherhood of God is so movingly portrayed. When we pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, we’re reminded perhaps of the humorous tale of the friend at midnight, who eventually staggers out of bed to find bread for his noisy neighbour. When we pray ‘Thy Kingdom come’, we’re reminded of several of Jesus’ stories, many of them agriculturally inspired, which he prefaces with the words, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like’…

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But there is no phrase in the Lord’s Prayer more powerfully illustrated than this request to ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’. Matthew’s Gospel records one such parable, about a servant who is forgiven an enormous debt by his master but who then rounds on a fellow servant who owes him a tiny sum by comparison, and has him thrown into prison, much to his master’s disgust. ‘I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me’, says the king: ‘Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had on you?’ But whereas Matthew’s parable insists with the Lord’s Prayer that receiving forgiveness and granting forgiveness should always be two sides of the same coin, it’s in today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel that this theme really springs to life in the unlikely context of a dinner party held in Jesus’ honour.Ìý

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The host is a man called Simon the Pharisee, and along with Jesus and some other welcome guests, a trespasser has gate-crashed the occasion – a woman with a dubious reputation no less, who has proceeded to pour precious ointment on Jesus’ feet, watered by her tears and wiped dry with her hair. It is all thoroughly embarrassing – a disgraceful exhibition, as Simon sees it, with both the woman and Jesus himself sharing in the blame. But just as Simon prepares to have the trespasser escorted from his premises, Jesus tells another of his stories, which turns the situation on its head.

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We’re here in the world of debtors once again. But the message of this story neatly contrasts the mean-spiritedness of Simon, who is quietly confident that his life is on the righteous side of the boundary line, with the lavish generosity of the trespasser who knows that her life is a mess. Jesus isn’t here adjudicating on the relative sinfulness between the two of them; but he is recognising that ‘great love’ only grows in the soil of humility and gratitude. Self-righteousness and ‘great love’ are mutually exclusive, and always will be: because it’s only those who know they are forgiven much who will love much.

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‘Forgive us our trespasses’, taught Jesus, ‘as we forgive those who trespass against us’.

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It’s an evocative phrase, and one that challenges many of our modern-day secular assumptions. Ours is a world where the boundary lines are frequently contested, making trespassing harder to define.

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But there’s something deeply healthy and life-giving about Jesus’ call to acknowledge our trespasses and forgive the trespasses of others: indeed, in the title of a powerful little book by the late, great Desmond Tutu, there is ‘No future without forgiveness’. That’s not to condone the terrible damage that human beings can do to one another; and nor is it to promote a kind of Abusers’ Charter, encouraging victims of that abuse to keep on forgiving, keep on returning, rather than to seek the professional help they need. But regular confession of our own trespasses keeps us in a proper place before God and one another – a place of humility and gratitude and growth, which enables us to proclaim with the Psalmist, ‘Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven’. And knowing ourselves as trespassers helps us to be more understanding, more forgiving of the trespasses of others, even in time perhaps to become people of ‘great love’.

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And what is the greatest love of them all? Not the love of that woman who poured her precious ointment on the feet of Jesus. Not even the love of the best of mothers on this Mothering Sunday. But the love of a man hanging on a cross, with a sign metaphorically nailed above his head: ‘Trespassers will be forgiven’.ÌýÌý

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CHOIR/PIANO/CELLO: O love (Elaine Hagenberg)

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GILLY:

‘O love, that wilt not let me go’ – that setting of verses from the famous hymn by George Matheson was composed by Elaine Hagenberg.

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We turn to God now in prayer, bringing everything we have heard and reflected upon in our service so far, and offering up our petitions for the world, the church and ourselves to our forgiving God.

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THE DEAN:

We pray for all who are weighed down by burden of wrongs committed against them and those weighed down by wrongs done by them. We pray for those whose work and vocation is devoted to the mental well-being of others that they might exercise their responsibilities wisely and constructively. AndÌý we humbly pray for ourselves that when we find it hard to ask for forgiveness we may be shown the relief of laying down a heavy burden.

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God of compassion, you are slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness. We pray for those we have wronged and for your guidance towards how and when to seek forgiveness. We ask you to carry with us the burden of wrongs committed against us. Prevent hurt and bitterness getting the better of us and guide and direct us to those thoughts and activities in which we see light and peace. Through our gentle healer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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We pray for the places we live, study, work and relax. We give thanks for human companionship and pray for those whoseÌý relationships with loved ones are strained or broken. We ask that those who yearn for friendship might be discovered by those with much to receive. And as we pray for all with whom we share our lives that we may be agents of love and kindness. On this Mothering Sunday we hold in our hearts allÌý those for whom this day brings pain or sadness.

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God of love, in whom everything in creation is held. Please continue to shape humanity after the example of Christ. May our schools, places of work and study and all institutions be places of light and kindness. Strengthen all that makes for human flourishing. Withhold all that diminishes our shared humanity and give us the will and the way to see in others our own mother, sister, brother and father. We ask this for the sake of your son Jesus Christ, who gave his life that we might gain ours. Amen.

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We gather our prayers together as we say the Lord’s Prayer.

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ALL:ÌýÌýÌý

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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GILLY:

Our final hymn this morning reminds us that the love and forgiveness of God are wider and greater than we can possibly imagine; and that the sacrifice Jesus made for us all means that we can experience God’s love and forgiveness here and now, every day.

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CHOIR/ORGAN/CONGREGATION: There's a wideness in God's mercy

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+ANDREW:

May God the Father,

who does not despise the broken spirit,

give to you a contrite heart.

Amen.

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May Christ,

who bore our sins in his body on the tree,

heal you by his wounds.

Amen.

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May the Holy Spirit,

who leads us into all truth,

speak to you words of pardon and peace.

Amen.

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And the blessing of God almighty,

the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

be with you and remain with you always.

Amen.

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ORGAN: VOLUNTARY: 12 Stücke für die Orgel, Op . 80, No 5 (Ave Maria) (Max Reger)