Trespasses

You may have seen at a level-crossing gate a notice saying, “Trespassers will be prosecuted” or “No trespassers”.  To trespass means to go where you ought not to go, and there are two reasons why trespassers must keep off railway lines.  First, they might cause an accident to a train; and secondly, they might get injured or even killed themselves.

Now, when we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses”, we mean by trespasses, not, going where we ought not to go, but doing what we ought not to do.  In other words, trespasses is another word for sins, and by sins we mean all thoughts, words and acts which are wrong in God’s eyes, including not doing what we ought to do.

The damage done by sin

Some of the sins we commit injure other people, but all of them injure our own souls.  The first thing sins do is to make our souls dirty, so that, instead of being clean like a new icicle sparkling in the sun, they are like the slush in the street when the snow is melting and the mud has got into it.  The next thing sins do is to weaken our souls so that we find it more and more difficult to love God and to do what is right.  The more often you commit a sin, the easier it becomes and the less you mind.  And thirdly, sins blind people’s souls so that they do not see that they are sinning and do not realise what the condition of their soul actually is.  They will say to their parish priest, “I have nothing to confess because I have done nothing wrong”, and they really believe it.  Their minds may be full of angry or unkind thoughts, they may say nasty things about other people, they may tell lies, break promises and have nothing to do with God, but because they have not knocked anyone over the head in some dark lane, they think that they have not committed any sins at all.

Categories of sins

Venial and mortal sins

All sins are serious because all sins separate us from God.  Small sins, or venial sins as we call them, take us only a little way from him; but big and deliberate sins, or mortal sins, cut us off from him altogether.  This is because, when we sin, we are against God and for the Devil.  We leave God’s side and go over to the side of the forces of evil.  And if people are against God when they die, they will be against him after they are dead.  And the place where the souls of people go who are against God and who are not sorry for their sins, we call that place Hell – that place of endless misery where God is unseen, unfelt, unwanted and unknown; where, so far as they are concerned, he does not exist at all.  So sins, which begin by separating us from God, can end by separating us from him for ever, unless they are taken away by forgiveness.  So you can see how sins put our souls in danger.

Sins against God, other people and ourselves

All sins are against God, but some are also against other people or oneself.  We can sin against God in particular, for example, by staying away from church.  The reason why we go to church is to honour God, and therefore to stay away is to refuse to honour God.  We then put ourselves in the position of the people in the parable who said that they did not want the Lord to rule over them (Luke 19:14).  We can sin in particular against other people by telling lies about them so as to give them a bad name, or by leading them into sin by setting a bad example.  We can sin in particular against ourselves by being sulky or greedy or conceited.

Sins of thought, word, deed and omission

Sins can also be divided up into sins of thought, word, deed and omission.  All sins start as thoughts, but they may go on to being something said or done.  Let’s take as an example the sin of anger.  There is the angry thought, or the angry word, or again the angry deed such as striking someone.  Omission means not doing what we ought to do.  We ought, for example, to say our prayers every morning and evening.  If we leave them unsaid, it is a sin of omission.  Another sin of omission is not helping at home when we ought to.

The importance of forgiveness

But all sins are against God, all sins separate us from him, and all sins injure our own souls.  That is why it is so necessary that we should have our sins forgiven and taken away.  You can see how important this is by the fact that Jesus, in giving us the Lord’s Prayer, has told us every time we say it to pray for forgiveness: “Forgive us our trespasses”.  And that is what we shall be thinking about next time.

SUMMARY

1. Trespasses means sins, that is, all wrong thoughts, words or acts, including not doing what we ought to do.  Sins separate us from God and injure and endanger our souls.

2. Some sins are ‘venial’ or small sins; others are ‘mortal’ or big and deliberate sins which cut us off from God altogether.

3. All sins are against God, but some are also against other people or oneself.