Garth Hewitt

Forgiveness for Humanity – A Hymn for Lent

Loving God, can we have forgiveness for humanity

Can you forgive the whole human race

Can you help us start again, with a new kind of spirit

So peace, love and mercy become the human way

So forgive us for the genocides,

The slave trades and the holocaust,

Forgive all our brutal wars

For the desperate love of money,

Ethnic cleansing and the arms trade

For the racism, torture and the cruelty

Give us a new spirit – a spirit of hope

Give us a new way that’s making us whole

May we treat all with justice and with equality

So loving our neighbour becomes the human way

And loving our planet becomes the natural way

Forgive our generation for stealing from the future

Thinking we have the right to do whatever we want

Forgive us for plundering so much from the planet

Leaving climate carnage for generations to come

Give us a new spirit – a spirit of hope…

Forgive us for choking a living breathing planet

And filling the air with fumes

Forgive us for ending species that you have created

And leaving plastic to fill up the oceans

Give us a new spirit – a spirit of hope…

Need a revolution of love against the evil of empire

Need a revolution of love against capitalist greed

Forgive us for colonialism and stealing of land

Forgive us for our nuclear weapons

Give us a new spirit – a spirit of hope…

Loving God, can we have forgiveness for humanity

Can you forgive the whole human race

Can you help us start again, with a new kind of spirit

So peace, love and mercy become the human way

So loving our planet becomes the natural way

So a lifestyle of love becomes the human way

And loving our planet becomes the natural way

Words & music by Garth Hewitt

www.garthhewitt.org

Prayer at Lent

O God as we enter Lent

May we remember we are walking with you on a journey towards Holy Week –

May we pause and pray and meet with you.

Your teaching has been about the kingdom or community of God,
A way of life and a community that goes up against the empires of domination –

As relevant now as it ever has been.
The empires of greed favouring the rich and
powerful,
Instead of your way reflecting justice for all.

As you head to Jerusalem you are witness to this
on Palm Sunday
As you ride in with non-violence,
From one side of Jerusalem gentle and riding on a donkey –
From the other side the army of empire, injustice, greed and oppression.

As you turn the tables of oppression,

So the empire wants you killed

The powers who rule, crucify you: the sinfulness of the world kills you.

But on Easter Sunday God affirms you

And all you have done –

It is a rising again –

God’s community of love continues forever.

May we be in the community of love –
The community that is never silent
And so a community of the Gospel bringing justice and hope to all.

It witnesses to the wounded God –
It whispers of the generous God of love
We walk with the activists on the way
And we are encouraged to become communities
That are just and loving –

Communities that make a difference
Communities that reflect the light of the Gospel –

Do justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with God.

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Forgiveness for Humanity – A Hymn for Lent

Prayer at Lent