Our Father in heaven

 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."  So He said to them, "When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us day by day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one."

And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for  a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him''; and he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'?  I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.  So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?  Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"

- Luke 11:1-13

Yesterday, we read that it happened, as He was alone praying, that His disciples joined Him, and He asked them, saying, "Who do the crowds say that I am?"  So they answered and said, "John the Baptist, but some say Elijah; and others say that one of the old prophets has risen again."  He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Peter answered and said, "The Christ of God."  And He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day."  Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.  For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father's, and of the holy angels.  But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the kingdom of God."

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples."   Today the lectionary skips forward into chapter 11 (yesterday's reading was Luke 9:18-27).  We note that at the beginning of yesterday's reading, in which Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus was also praying when His disciples came to Him.  So, first of all, this is something essential to the Gospels.  All along, there is the "punctuation" between events of Jesus at prayer.  He is setting His example for us.  About this request of the disciples, "Teach us to pray," my study bible says that it expresses the universal longing to be in communion with God.

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name."  My study bible says that the Father-Son relationship within the Trinity reveals our potential relationship with God.  We are also children by adoption; or rather, sons, because in the Jewish tradition, sons inherit.   My study bible says that as "'sons of God,' the Christian is called to love, trust and serve God as Christ does the Father."   Father tells us of relationship; this isn't only about who our Creator is, it's about our growth within the embrace of salvation and communion - an active relationship.  We know about the sacredness of the name of God from the Jewish tradition, which isn't even mentioned here (rather, we address "Our Father"), its "hallowed" quality, meaning the utmost sacredness of God the Father.

 "Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  The Most High God is the One whose kingdom we enter into via relationship; we pray that this kingdom manifest itself fully in the world.  In relationship to God the Father, we seek to know and to do God's will.  In yesterday's reading, we noted how in the Jewish tradition, a name indicated what someone or something does.  Here, to do the will of God is to manifest God's name in the world.

"Give us day by day our daily bread."  My study bible points out that "daily" is a misleading translation of the Greek word here, which is epiousios.  Epiousios is a word coined for the Gospels, and it means literally "above the essence" or could also be expressed as "supersubstantial."  The expression daily bread thereby doesn't just tell us about bread for today or for a worldly sense of nourishment.  It's the bread for the "eternal day" of the Kingdom of God.  This is the nourishment of the soul.  My study bible says, "This living, supersubstantial bread is Christ Himself.  In the Lord's Prayer, then, we are not asking merely for material bread for physical health, but for the spiritual bread of eternal life (John 6:27-58)."

"And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us."   My study bible notes that the request to be forgiven here is plural, thereby directing us to pray always for the forgiveness of others.  This is a sense in which we aren't focusing on personal sin alone, but rather a kind of community short-coming, the ways in which the kingdom isn't fully manifest, in which God's will isn't fully "done on earth as it is in heaven."   The term debts is a way of understanding spiritual debts.

"And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."  My study bible says that God tempts nobody to sin (James 1:13).  Temptations are from the evil one, the devil.  A note says, "Temptations are aimed at the soul's giving in to the sinful passions of the flesh (Romans 7:5).  No one lives without encountering temptations, but we pray that great temptations, tests beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13) should not come to us."

And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for  a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him''; and he will answer from within and say, 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you'?  I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs."     Here is an illustration of what it is to be persistent with a "friend."  My study bible says that the Church Fathers interpret midnight as both the time of our death and a time of great temptation.  It notes, "The friend is Christ, who, as our only source of grace, provides everything we need."

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?  Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"   The words ask, seek, and knock in the Greek are given in a form by Jesus that implies constant action:  "Keep asking," "keep seeking," "keep knocking" would appropriately imply what He's saying here.  My study bible suggests, "God responds when we persistently ask for things that are good."  Bread, fish, and an egg are all images of life -- they symbolize the gift of the Holy Spirit (see John 14:13-14, James 4:3).

Jesus uses elements necessary for daily life to make a point about the things that are necessary for our spiritual lives in today's reading.  We pray for our daily bread, in the English.  But, as noted above, this word translated as daily is "epiousion" -- roughly translated we could say it means "atop the essence" or "more than the essence," something implying a substance beyond what we know in a worldly sense.  This added dimension gives us the understanding that we're talking about something more than feeding the body, but also feeding the soul and spirit.  In some sense this word is a picture of the Eucharist.  More than that, as my study bible has pointed out, this is the bread for the Kingdom of God.  In the final verse, we note that Jesus speaks of the great gift of the Holy Spirit.   The clear implication is that this is the thing for which we are constantly to keep asking, and seeking, and knocking.  With that understanding, all our notions about asking God for something come down to the recognition that He's speaking to disciples, to people who are committed to the life that He offers, the desire to serve God and to participate in this Kingdom.  In that context, prayer becomes the means by which we communicate with the One whom we wish to serve, in whose graces we wish always to live, in whose Kingdom we wish to dwell.   This puts us in mind of Solomon's prayer that was pleasing to God, when Solomon became king, succeeding his father David:  "Give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil."   We note God's reply:  “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice,  behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you.  And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days."   (See 1 Kings 3.)   As disciples, we pray for the discernment of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit.  This is the great gift with which we will be rewarded, which we truly seek in order to discern how we might conduct ourselves properly as disciples.  How do we know what serves the Lord?  What serves the Kingdom?  What is the wise choice in life?  This is the gift for which we are encouraged to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking.   Once again, not for the first time in Luke's Gospel, it is the great mysteries that we are to desire to enter into (see the reading in which Jesus gave the Parable of the Sower).   Tomorrow, as the lectionary has it, we will skip into chapter twelve, where Jesus will tell us to "seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Luke 12:31), thereby giving us a New Testament teaching that parallels the example of Solomon's prayer and the Lord's response to it.  Let us commit to a prayer life of loving relationship with God, in which we seek to bring God's kingdom into the world, to find God's will for ourselves -- and in which a loving Father embraces us and knows what our needs are, on every level.  In our modern world, we hear a lot about the "mind-body-spirit" connection, and this is often presented to us as a new idea, or a "new age" concept we sorely need.  All we have to do is take a look at Christ's teachings to understand this connection has never been missing, but is part and parcel of Christianity,  affirmed and reaffirmed in the early Councils of the Church which declared both the divinity and humanity of Christ.  In our faith, all things -- including our bodies and the material world -- are created inseparable from the glory and wisdom of God, the true gifts we pray for.  Our Lord, incarnate as human being -- both man and God --  teaches that in every sense.  The unity of all of it is love.