Our Father in heaven

"And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,

As we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

- Matthew 6:7-15

Starting last Monday, we have been reading the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew's Gospel. We began with the Beatitudes, teaching the blessings of discipleship. Then You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world - Jesus' metaphors for the value of discipleship to the world. Next, the fulfillment of the Law: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill." Then He addressed His understanding of several statutes; against murder: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder;'" against adultery: "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not commit adultery;'" regarding vengeance: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'" Jesus deepened our understanding of these statutes to include the inner life of discipleship. In yesterday's reading, He moved on to discuss spiritual practices in the light of His gospel and the inner life: in almsgiving, prayer and fasting. He taught, "Do not be like the hypocrites" -- religious practice that is only for outward show to others. When praying, He taught His disciples, do not be like the hypocrites. "For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." Today's reading follows these words on prayer.

"And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. " My study bible emphasizes that Jesus counsels not against repetition per se but vain repetitions. What He is saying is that we are to develop a personal, intimate relationship with our Father that deepens within us, and is sincere. He emphasizes the Father's knowledge of us before we come to pray. Therefore, the question must be asked, what is the purpose of prayer?

"In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name." "Our Father" really establishes this relationship to begin with. We note Jesus' emphasis to His disciples. It is not just "My Father in heaven" but "Your Father in heaven" -- and here, we pray to "Our Father." Therefore adoption is collective, for each of us, all of us, in this prayer. He is Son, but so are we children by adoption, included. "Your name" is also linked to family, to house. The "name" is like that of a king, in which all things in the kingdom belong. This name is hallowed, holy. It is an acknowledgement in the prayer of just what place God occupies, the Father in heaven. It is at once intimate, and yet speaks of God's "set apartness," "specialness."

"Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." From the hallowedness, holiness, "set apart" nature we acknowledge, we take it a step further. This kingdom we pray to come into the world -- and the will of its ruler, Our Father in heaven, we pray be done in the world, just as it is in heaven. So the prayer begins not with a request for the things God knows we need, but a request that our Father extend Himself and His kingdom and His reign into our world. It is a kind of request for blessedness, that this holy reality also be a part of our worldly reality. The verb in the Greek that is translated "be done" is rooted in the word for being born -- that God's will should come into being in the world. It reminds us of what it is to be reborn in spirit, and the action of God this entails.

"Give us this day our daily bread." The Greek word translated as "daily" is a very special word, that seems to have been coined specifically for this prayer. The Greek word epiousios literally means "above the essence" or "supersubstantial." My study bible says, "The expression daily bread indicates not merely bread for this day, taken for sustenance of life; it is bread for the eternal day of the Kingdom of God, for sustenance of our immortal life. It is living, 'superessential' bread." That He is the Bread of Life, of course, is what Jesus will teach us about Himself.

"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." The work of the Kingdom so often includes a kind of mutual reciprocity -- our need and dependence on relationship in a certain sense. That is, what we wish to receive from God we also learn to give ourselves. Reflecting again the greatest commandments (which we have been discussing in the past several readings), my study bible notes, "We request God to be to us as we are to our neighbors." It's an interesting kind of reversal going on in this prayer: instead of merely praying a list of requests for what we want, we begin by asking God to extend Himself and His kingdom. So we also request God's action, forgiveness, as we first imply a condition -- that we extend such forgiveness ourselves. Again, I'll quote a note from my study bible: "Debts refers to spiritual debts: when we sin, we 'owe' restitution to our neighbor and to God." To forgive, in the Greek, is to "let go" or "send away" -- to release.

"And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." Following the forgiveness of debt, sin, we ask also to be freed from the temptation to sin. These temptations are from "the evil one." It is another sense in which we pray for God's kingdom to come, God's will be born again, to come into being in the world as it is in heaven. My study bible says, "Thus we pray that great temptations, tests beyond what we can bear, should not come our way."

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Here again, as there will be repeatedly in Jesus' teachings throughout the Gospels, is the emphasis on reciprocity. The word for trespass means a "falling away" - it indicates a kind of misstep, even a rather unconscious or non-deliberate act. It tells us of the attitude that we must have toward such "trespass."

Overall, we can think of this prayer, the Lord's Prayer, as having an emphasis on what we want from God, and the life that God has to share with us. There's not an emphasis on the material here: even our "daily bread" is in essence one with the substance of the Kingdom. It is comparable to the prayer in which we ask for God's will to be manifest on earth as it is in heaven. It sets conventional notions of prayer upside-down - we don't pray for the material but rather for God to come to us in full manifestation, always in the act of becoming, being born. When we ask for forgiveness, moreover, it's not just about what we desire, but done with the condition that we, first, are forgiving. So, the fullness of the Kingdom, always becoming, the action of God in our lives and our world, is what we desire. And we are, in some sense, called upon first to "be like God" -- to have an attitude ready to let go, in order to receive. This prayer - like so much of Jesus' teaching - actually holds within it an overwhelming message of how great we are in God's vision of us and God's relationship to us as human beings. We are called first to be like God, we pray for nothing less than God's kingdom and will to be born into our world, for holiness to come to us. We pray not for mere material things, but for God's spiritual reality to be constantly manifesting, becoming, with us, in our world, for the fullness of that promise to us. It puts us in a position where we are prepared to accept the fullness of this holy nature, and be like God. There could be no greater crown than this, no deeper reminder of what we are created to be in His image. We are His by adoption, in the fullness of that promise of eternal life, the "eternal day of the Kingdom of God." We pray for all of this to manifest here, with us, in our lives, in our world, in all of its abundance, and its promise of constant "becoming." Jesus will teach, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).