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!

 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 be 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, as He was alone praying, that Jesus' 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 ahead (as it will tomorrow as well) in preparation for Ascension Day.  In the West, Ascension Day this year takes place on Thursday, May 30th, while for the Eastern Orthodox, Ascension is on June 6th.  In today's reading, we're given the prayer Jesus has left the Church.  My study bible says that the request, teach us to pray, expresses a universal longing to be in communion with God.  We remember, also, that many of Jesus' disciples were first disciples of John the Baptist, referenced in this request to be taught prayer.

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.  Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  My study bible explains that the Father-Son relationship within the Trinity is a revelation of our own potential relationship with God.  Christ, as Son of God, grants us also the privilege of calling God Our Father by the grace of adoption (Galatians 4:4-7).  As a "son of God," each believer is called to love, trust, and serve God as does Christ.  It's also noted here that God isn't our Father because God is our Creator alone; rather He is Father to those in a saving and personal relationship, a communion that comes by the grace of adoption (see John 1:13; Romans 8:14-16). 

"Give us day by day our daily bread."  Daily is a rather misleading translation of a word in Greek which is unique to this prayer, epiousios.  Epiousios literally means "above the essence," or "supersubstantial."  It speaks of bread but with an additional substance or essence as part of itself.  The expression daily bread, my study bible explains, indicates not merely bread for this day (or for earthly nourishment), but it is the bread for the eternal day of the Kingdom of God.  That is, it is for the nourishment of our immortal soul.  The living, supersubstantial bread, my study bible says, is Christ Himself.  In the Lord's Prayer, therefore, we're not asking simply for material bread for our physical health.  We are asking 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."  In this corporate prayer ("Our Father" as opposed to "My Father"), our request to be forgiven is also plural, which indicates that we pray for the forgiveness of others as well as ourselves.  Indebted refers to spiritual debts (see Matthew 18:21-35).  Note also the mutual nature of forgiveness; as we practice forgiveness, so we will realize the forgiveness we also desire (Matthew 6:14-15).

"And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."   My study bible notes here that God tempts no one to sin (James 1:13), and that temptation comes rather from the evil one, the devil.  Temptations are aimed at the soul's giving in to the sinful passions of the flesh (Romans 7:5), or to our own selfishness alone, to a way which does not consider God's way for us.  John Chryssavgis teaches that "passions are our inner wounds, those deep marks in the space of our heart that require healing" (In the Heart of the Desert: the Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, chapter 8).  My study bible adds that 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."  My study bible tells us that this parable is a demonstration of God's faithfulness to those who are in need and who pray with persistence.  Patristic commentators interpret midnight as both the time of our death and also a time of great temptation.  The friend is Christ, who, as our source of grace, provides the things we need.  This is also a similar encouragement to the parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8). 

"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 be 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 verbs here which are translated as ask, seek, and knock are more accurately translated from the Greek as "keep asking," "keep seeking," and "keep knocking."  My study bible says that God responds when we persistently ask for things that are good.  Bread, fish, and an egg are all images of life, and they symbolize the gifts of the Holy Spirit (see John 14:13-14; James 4:3), which here are given absolute emphasis as that for which we should fervently pray.

We note the emphasis on the gift of the Holy Spirit, and this makes it clear that Christ is speaking to His disciples.  That is, He speaks to those who fervently desire this gift, the spiritual gifts of discernment and wisdom, the gifts which allow us to truly develop the spiritual side of ourselves, our souls, and our capacity for growth in discipleship to Christ.  It is poignant to consider that Jesus teaches us to address our prayer to Our Father in light of this.  Just as He is Incarnate Son via the grace of the Holy Spirit, so we, too, are enabled to become "sons" (as heirs, both male and female) through this gift of the Holy Spirit.  It is as if we are encouraged to pray every day for rebirth, growth, new gifts of life, as symbolized by the bread, fish, and egg in Christ's examples given here.  What we pray for, then, primarily is the gift of sonship, of adoption by Our Father and into "our Father's" house and kingdom as God's children.  The whole prayer emphasizes our growth in discipleship, desiring that God's will be done and God's kingdom come to our world as it is in heaven.  Ultimately, the prayer is a kind of guidance for how to get there.  We give up the "debts" others owe in terms of our hurts and the things we perceive have diminished us through harmful acts of others, to God.  We leave God as arbitrator and judge -- and ultimately as the One who rewards us, gives us true selfhood and identity, helps us to grow in stature as those who seek to be "like God" -- or, in other words, God's children.  That which the world sees as diminishment:  an unkind word, an insult, thievery, taking something away from us, doing us harm, becomes something for which we seek God's recompense and guidance to address, rather than our own understanding of vengeance.  This is what forgiveness is:  it is putting things in the hands of God, seeking God's way for ourselves in response in this world, and asking for the gifts of the Spirit to help us to become who we need to be in response.  It is in this way that we are children of God by adoption, that we seek to bring God's kingdom to this world, and to live God's will for us.  This does not mean that justice is ignored; God may direct us to use the law appropriately and also to extend mercy where it is better done in such a way.  Forgiveness is not merely a practice, as seems to be so frequently taught, of overlooking the harm done to us.  On the contrary, rationally speaking, forgiveness isn't possible unless we fully understand our hurt or harm.  But it is a way of saying to the One whom we worship that we seek Christ's way of handling the hurts, the justice countenanced by our faith and not merely from solely a worldly perspective, and that we also seek the healing help God provides for whatever it is we think the world owes us.  To live in this way of discipleship is therefore to become more fully dependent upon God -- and let us remember God the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus proclaims here we should continually keep asking, seeking, and knocking.  This is our focus and emphasis, our guiding light as disciples.  It is this for which we fervently pray, and this which creates, in turn, who we are and who we become throughout our lives.