In Luke chapter 11 we read "Once, on a certain day,
in a particular place (Luke isn’t exactly piling up the details here, is he?)
Jesus was praying. And when he had finished one of the disciples (details,
Luke, details! Which one?) said to him, 'Lord,
teach us to pray as John the Baptizer taught his disciples.'"
It’s a little bit
disappointing that we don’t have any record of what sort of instruction John
gave to his disciples. Perhaps it was something
like the Jewish prayer known as the Qaddish:
Magnified and sanctified be his great name in the world He created
according to His will. May He establish His kingdom during your life and during
your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, speedily and in the
near future. And say Amen.[i]
Again, it’s a little
disappointing not to know what John might have taught his disciples, but Jesus
took this opportunity to give to his own disciples a form and model of prayer
that they could pray. It is often pointed out that, despite what we
call it, this is not really the “Lord’s prayer”. This is the model prayer that Jesus, our
Lord, gave to his disciples, and by extension, to us. If we want to read the “Lord’s prayer” we
might look to the Gospel of John, chapter 17.
We should also note
that this is not the Lord’s Prayer (by whatever name we call it) that we are
immediately familiar with. If someone
should call upon us to pray – not mere to say or to repeat – the Lord’s prayer
we are likely to begin:
Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name…
which is how Matthew’s version of the prayer begins. Matthew’s version of the model prayer, which comes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, follows a warning against wordy and verbose forms of prayer – which is a little bit ironic since Matthew’s version of this prayer seems to be an expansion of the shorter and simpler version found in Luke’s gospel.
Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name…
which is how Matthew’s version of the prayer begins. Matthew’s version of the model prayer, which comes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, follows a warning against wordy and verbose forms of prayer – which is a little bit ironic since Matthew’s version of this prayer seems to be an expansion of the shorter and simpler version found in Luke’s gospel.
Luke’s version begins
simply, “Father.”
The longer phrase, “Our Father, who is in heaven” is
appropriate for communal worship settings; praying it thusly unites us and
focuses our combined attention on God who lives and reigns in heaven. But I like the immediacy and intimacy of “Father.” He is close, immanent – not far removed in
some distant, far away heaven. He is
present in every part of creation and he is here, as close as the breath upon
which those two syllables are formed, “Father.”
This is the personal
relationship with God that evangelical Christians speak of so often. This is the personal relationship that Jesus himself
had with the father, whom he addressed as “abba”
the Aramaic word for Father, both intimate and dignified. He is
the father of us all, collectively and individually. Your father, my father’s father, and my
father. [ii]
Father,
hallowed be your name
hallowed be your name
Though it isn’t my
favorite version of the bible, I do appreciate the way that the Living Bible
(paraphrase, though it is) treats this second phrase: “may your name be honored for its holiness.” Now in Semitic cultures, a person’s name is
so closely associated with the person as to be almost the same. That is the name IS (nearly) the person. In fact God is, to this day, referred to as
HaShem by the Jewish people – HaShem which means “The Name[iii].”
God is his name, and our prayer is that
his name would be honored, that God himself would be regarded as holy.
Our prayer is that we
might understand God in his holiness.
Our prayer is that we might know God’s holy name. Our prayer is also that others, everyone
everywhere would understand and recognize God’s holiness, that we might be so
awed by the presence and holiness of God that we would cease trying to use God
as tool to use for our own purposes, and instead find ourselves in his will.
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
This short petition, like
Matthew’s more elaborate, Your kingdom
come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” is a prayer for
the inbreaking of God’s divine rule into the present world. This is not merely a prayer that we might see
heaven someday in the future, but that God’s Kingdom would be as present in the
here and now as God is himself. It is a
prayer that the grace and mercy love of God’s peaceable kingdom would be
enacted in this world in this present time.
Not merely heaven when
we die, but let us, we pray, see something of that kingdom now. Let us see mercy. Let us know justice. Let us live in peace. Let us be blessed as we live under the sun
and upon the earth.
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
The first lines of this
model prayer are focused on God and God’s activities in this world. Our prayer now turns toward us as we live in
this world.
This next petition, as
simple as it sounds, has given exegetes fits for centuries. It is a phrase that exists nowhere else in
the bible (excepting the parallel passage in Matthew) and nowhere else in
ancient Greek literature (as far as we know.) Even the early Church Fathers who
spoke Greek as their mother tongue were not quite sure what to make of the
phrase.
A completely literal
translation of the term might render it as our “supersubstantial bread” but
that hardly clarifies things for us.
St. John Chrysostom (he
of the golden tongue) interpreted it as ordinary bread “bread for today: Just enough for one day….Here Jesus condescends to the
infirmity of our nature….[which] does not permit you to go without food….I
require necessary food not a complete freedom from natural necessities….It is
not for wastefulness or extravagant clothing that we pray, but only for bread
and only for bread on a daily basis so as not to worry about tomorrow.” [iv]
St. Jerome believed it
to be bread for tomorrow: “The word used by the Hebrews to denote supersubstantial
bread… means ‘for tomorrow’ so that the meaning here is ‘give us this day our
bread for tomorrow’ that is, for the future.” [v]
St. Jerome went on to say
that this supersubstantial bread is “bread
that is above all substances and surpasses all creatures” and connected it
to thoughts of the Eucharist, the communion bread which is the mystical body of
Christ.
Without dismissing
these more esoteric interpretations, however, I tend to focus more on the
ordinary bread – whether for today or for tomorrow as well. We need bread to eat. Granted, humankind does not live by bread alone,
but also by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, but we do need
physical bread. We have very physical
nutritional needs. And much of Jesus’
ministry was devoted to meeting the physical needs of those who came to
him. He fed their bodies. He cured their
illnesses. He provided for their needs. The Gospel – the good news – is not merely
the story of spiritual salvation, but also the meeting of physical needs. This prayer for our “supersubstantial bread”
is a prayer for social justice – for the elimination of want and poverty. Give us the food we need; give us the things
we need to sustain our bodies in this world.
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
After the meeting of
our physical needs – the bread – comes the meeting of our spiritual needs – the
words proceeding from the mouth of God.
It’s appropriate that the physical needs are met first. Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs
describes a progression of human needs beginning with the basic physical requirements
of human survival – air, food, water, shelter, etc. If these requirements are not met, the body
will die. And if a person is struggling to
meet these needs they will be unlikely to be interested in other, more
spiritual needs (equally necessary though they may be). William Booth, founder
of the Salvation Army, expressed it the simple phrase, “Soup, Soap, and
Salvation.” The physical needs must be
met before the spiritual concerns can be addressed.
But after praying for our daily bread – our physical sustenance – we move to the spiritual, to forgiveness, both vertical and horizontal. We pray that God will forgive us (the vertical between us and God) in the same way that we have forgiven those who have wronged us (forgiveness in our horizontal relationships).
But after praying for our daily bread – our physical sustenance – we move to the spiritual, to forgiveness, both vertical and horizontal. We pray that God will forgive us (the vertical between us and God) in the same way that we have forgiven those who have wronged us (forgiveness in our horizontal relationships).
But this is a dangerous
prayer. We pray that God will forgive us
in the same way that we have forgiven others.
It is reciprocity. If we want
good and right relationship with God, if we want a restored relationship with God,
then we must set about restoring the broken and damaged relationships with have
with our fellows. This is
community. This is fellowship. This is relationship. Do we want to live in peace with God in God’s
peaceable kingdom? Then we must live in
peace with our brothers and sisters.
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation.
Temptation here is a
somewhat ambiguous word which can mean something like “trials” or “suffering”
or “persecution.”[vi] This is a prayer for protection, both from
within and from without. We know that we
have enemies. We know that there are
struggles and difficulties in this life – and we pray for God to protect us
from and through them. (Though, like
Daniel’s three friends said just before being thrown into the furnace, “even if
he does not”[vii]
we will continue to follow him).
But never mind those difficulties that come to us in life, and never mind those enemies who might seek to do me harm, Lord, protect me from myself. I am my own worst enemy. My weak will and poor choices are more to blame than any persecutor or calumnious enemy. Lord, do not let me wander away from you. This is my prayer. Lord, protect me from myself.
And here is where the
prayer ends. That beautiful doxology, “For yours is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory forever and ever. Amen” is not found in Luke’s version of
Jesus’ model prayer, nor is it found in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew’s
gospel. It seems to have been added to
Matthew’s gospel as part of a liturgical use in a worship setting, sometime in
the 2nd century. Not that it’s
wrong; it’s a wonderful way to conclude the prayer, it just doesn’t seem to be
part of Jesus’ original teaching.
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation.
This model prayer is
intimate and immediate; it focuses our attention on our relationship with God and
on our relationship with others. It
seeks to address our physical and spiritual needs. This prayer is, in short, a succinct summary
of the Gospel itself. We pray it, not out of rote repetition, but in
sincere desire. So perhaps, turning to
Luke’s version of Jesus’ model prayer every now again will help us to focus
more clearly on what we are praying.
Matthew’s liturgical worship setting prayer is wonderful and the
memorization of it can only be helpful.
But to consider the shorter, blunter, more direct, more intimate version
recorded in Luke’s gospel can push us deeper into prayer which is communication
with the God is here among us and within us.
So let us pray:
Father,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us day by day our daily bread;
and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us;
and lead us not into temptation.
[ii]
Can we conceive of God as our Mother as well?
Certainly and rightly so.
[iii] See
for example Leviticus 24:11
[iv] Gospel
of Matthew Homily 19.5
[v] Commentary
on Matthew 1.6.11.
[vi]
The Interpreter’s Bible Volume 8, Abingdon Press, New York, 1952. Page 202
[vii][vii]
Daniel 3:18
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