Sermon Archives
Favorite Passages: The Lord’s Prayer ~ Matthew 6:7-15 & Luke 11:1-4
I’m continuing my summer series of preaching on ten passages that are foundational for me. But when I shared with a few friends and family members that I was preaching on The Lord’s Prayer, they said, “Oh. Hm. Really?”
And I find that interesting, because I love the Lord’s Prayer. Truly, I think I say it at least ten times a day. It is part of my daily prayer discipline.
I make one variation when I’m praying it. I change the 3rd person plural “us” and “we” to the first person singular “my” and “me.” So it becomes very personal for me. It becomes “My Father” and “forgive me my debts as I forgive my debtors,” and perhaps the most profound line for me is “give me this day my daily bread” and “lead me not into temptation.”
You can do that with scripture. Although you always have to remember its original context and its original tense. That’s very important. It is important that Matthew and Luke remember Jesus giving his followers a corporate prayer.
There is a tendency in Christian faith to think it is all about the individual. I have heard it said “God has no grandchildren.” In other words, each person in each generation has to make his or her decision for Christ. I don’t belittle the power of the personal but I think we place too much emphasis on the personal, the individual, only about me and not about we. I am always reminded of the fact that in the Hebrew Bible (what we call the Old Testament) we read about the “chosen people” NOT the “chosen persons.” And the “chosen people” are not chosen to be separated from the rest, but “chosen” to be a witness to the rest of God’s universal care.
The Lord’s Prayer grounds me. It is so agitating and also so comforting. It reminds me daily of who I am and who I am not. It calls us to God. It points the way for us to follow: being part of God’s desire for bringing justice and equity to the land. It challenges us to be forgiving and to ask for forgiveness. The prayer shores me up for daily living - each day I need bread, sustenance, and I will get it. There is bread enough for all, daily. Each day I will face temptations to forget who I am and who we are and so I need to reconnect to the source of power, source of identity, lest I lose myself in evil.
We say it every Sunday. Perhaps you have grown tired of it or it just washes over you - you don’t think about it. But there is grace in disciplines that become second nature - almost like breathing. You don’t think about it but it is part of you.
I remember my step-grandmother, who after my grandfather died, moved into one room in an Inn that served her two meals a day; it was rather “Spartan”. Every morning she got up and washed herself and got dressed. She took pride in her appearance; she always looked good. She always took a walk. She always read her book on the front porch and always greeted the passersby. She always took her meals at the same time and watched the same evening TV show before always going to bed. This routine, and discipline, saved her, gave her form and function. I have always admired her and she remains a role model even though she died when I was 10. We are defined by our disciplines. We are defined by our prayers.
The Lord’s prayer isn’t in Mark’s gospel or John’s. In Matthew’s gospel this prayer is part of the “Sermon on the Mount” - the collection of Jesus’ teaching that Matthew put together in chapters 5, 6, and 7.
The setting of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke is different. A certain disciple sees Jesus praying and wants him to teach the disciples how to pray like John taught his disciples. Maybe the Lord’s prayer WAS a prayer of John’s that Jesus co-opted? I don’t know. Luke’s prayer is edgier. Thy kingdom come.” (period) … waiting for the apocalypse - the end time. In Matthew it is not just “Thy kingdom come.” It is “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”
Both Matthew and Luke mention “daily bread.” Both prayers stress the need to forgive although Matthew uses debts/debtors while Luke uses sins/ indebted to us. And they both have the request not to be led into temptation.
Jesus seems to be pretty clear - keep it simple.
“Our Father who art in heaven.” J. Phillip Newell uses these words: “Ground of all being, Mother of life, Father of the universe.” Neil Douglas Klotz translates it: “O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos.” We know that Jesus called God “Father” in Aramaic “Abba” which is really “Daddy.” The gender of God is not at stake here; rather it is the quality of the relationship. It isn’t formal.
The God of all creation, the mysterious other, the source of all - that which is completely beyond our fathoming, our understanding — is a mommy to us, a daddy to you. “Abba” //daddy, mommy// these names recognize intimacy, dependence, love, gentleness. I can think of no better sentence then when one of my children says (usually to get his or her way!), “I love you, Daddy.”
This opening totally disarms me - because it means that you and I can presume to crawl into the lap of God and place our head against God’s bosom. And this God is our daddy - OUR - which means we are family. We are brothers and sisters, not by blood but just because that is who God is.
We are offered a new definition of holiness (hallowedness) - the paradox of God being totally other and totally personal, relational, present. Like a mommy or a daddy. Can’t fix everything, can’t save you from scraping a knee, or falling off a bike, or getting cancer, or bumping up against disaster, or going through depression, or losing a job; this kind of holiness doesn’t work like that, darn it!
Faith will not protect you from harm. No matter how much I, as a daddy, want to protect and make everything smooth for my children - I can’t do it. And God either can’t do it or chooses not to; I don’t know. But what I love is that holiness is not distant. The very nature of God’s holiness is up close and personal.
And according to Matthew’s interpretation God’s will is that what goes down on earth is the same as what goes on up in heaven. Actually there isn’t a separation between here and there, the holy and the secular, the divine and the human. Kind of like Paris - heaven is on earth or should be. That is God’s will - not a dichotomy. But a unity.
“Thy will be done.” “God’s will,” now that is loaded. But let me clear it up. God’s will is not God’s deterministic, set action - that is silly. Was it God’s “will” that 6,000,000 Jews died in the Shoah? Come on. Was 9/11 God’s will? No. Was it God’s “will” that my brother Peter died of cancer at age 32. Please. Is it God’s will that you are facing some unimaginable horror right now? Nope. Was it God’s will that the enormous and grotesque sculpture of Jesus outside of that church in Toledo got struck by lightening? Hm, maybe…
God’s will is better translated as God’s desire, God’s yearning. God’s deepest hope for the world is reconciliation, forgiveness, unity, justice. That is God’s deepest desire for you and for me - that we know we are loved, that we are precious in God’s sight and called to be part of the revealing of God’s hope. We are to BE God’s hope - incarnate it, just like Jesus did. Show heaven on earth.
God’s deepest desire, God’s dream for the world is that no one goes hungry because we share. No one goes without because it is our instinct to give generously and spread the abundance even to those who don’t, in our minds, deserve it. See how that upsets the apple cart of our worldly expectations - that we get what we deserve. It is why we pray for our enemies and why there can be no such thing as a holy war or even a just war. None of that is God’s will.
And another thing that is very, very important - as Brian McClaren noted when he visited Cleveland last month - contrary to the way that Christian usually think about heaven being “up there” or “after death,” in the Lord’s prayer heaven is not where you get “beamed up” to (like Star Trek). Rather, the prayer asks to bring heaven down, to create the beloved community here.
And for those of you who care, the final image of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation is not of the believer rising up into the clouds of heaven. Rather, the New Jerusalem comes down and God dwells among humans wiping away every tear. Tell that to your “rapture” friends!
Our job as God’s children is to witness to heaven among us - yes, witness to heaven among us even if we are in the midst of a living hell. One of the Deacon prayer shawls is definitely a heavenly token, so too that phone call of concern, the card of remorse, the apple pie of joy. Heaven is subtle most of the time. We are to witness to another way, a better way, so we forgive and share - it is the heavenly way, the holy way.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” We don’t ask for more than we need. Oh, I fail to live into this. I always want more. Our whole culture is driven by the more. Nothing is ever enough - our whole economic system taps into our insecurity that we don’t have enough, or it isn’t good enough; and we are not good enough. But this prayer challenges that world view. There is enough, more than enough, and we learn the abundance of sufficiency.
As I was reading the Lord’s Prayer, something struck me as brand new - I had never noticed it before. I hope I can express it to you. “Forgive us our debts as we also HAVE forgiven our debtors” (past perfect tense - ongoing completed action) or “and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” (present tense - descriptive action) We already HAVE forgiven so God forgive us. We forgive everyone indebted to us (it is just what we do) - so God forgive us our sins.”
Our act precedes God’s forgiveness, or that is what I think I read. We understand the forgiveness of God by being forgiving. It is subtle but I think it is powerful - we understand God by being Godlike. God’s “forgiveness”… just a concept. But when I choose to wipe the slate clean and hold no grudges. When I forgive, when I could have rightfully demanded compensation, when I have given before receiving, I catch a glimpse of God and reveal the divine in me. It is not “God will forgive you if….” But as YOU forgive you will better understand what kind of God you serve.
“Lead us not into temptation…” Of course the biggest temptation is that we fall into the trap of thinking of God as the great and powerful Oz or Santa Claus who either is completely arbitrary or a doler of gifts to the good and coal to the bad. But not in this prayer, not in Jesus’ prayer - there is no determinism - just unfailing access. Temptation is not just about giving into some “bad” thing - like eating chocolate, or going to the porn site, or skimming money off the top, or taking that drink. The temptation Jesus is talking about is one of identity - we are tempted to forget who God is and who we are. It was this temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness - the temptation for Jesus was to forget who he was called to be.
And as a community we must never fall into the temptation that we presume to know more than we should: who the sinners are, for example. Or we believe that there is not enough to go around and therefore, some are not deserving. When we lose our identity and fail to see Jesus in the “other” - all sorts of evils follow. When we let fear dictate our actions - we are in trouble. Please Lord, deliver us from that.
So be careful when you pray the Lord’s Prayer. It is actually very dangerous. And the evil one, the powers and principalities of this and every age, don’t like it when you and I are freed from obligation, freed from guilt, freed from remorse, freed from thinking that we don’t have enough, freed from fear. Oh no, the evil one doesn’t like it at all when you crawl upon the lap of God and you call God “mommy”, call God “Abba” “daddy” and you rest your head upon the very heart of the Creator.
AMEN
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