My church asked that I write some reflections on the Lord’s Prayer for Lent. I have provided a translation
and seven reflections with questions which can be used for a journal of
personal reflections and one’s prayer experience. Below are the
translation and Reflection 1. I will post the other six over the following
weeks of Lent.
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The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
Like good disciples, Jesus’ disciples asked their Rabbi
Jesus to teach them a prayer that expressed his concerns – just as John the
Baptist taught his disciples (Luke 11:1).
The prayer that Jesus taught them is the model for all followers of Jesus.
Pray, then, this way!1
Our Father, who is in heaven,
Your name be made holy!
Your kingdom come!
Your will come to be, as in heaven,
even on earth [itself]2!
Give us today our bread of the day!
And forgive us our debts3
as even we [ourselves]4 have forgiven our
debtors!
And do not let us cross over to
temptation,5 but deliver us from the
evil [one]!6”
Notes on Translation
This is a new translation to give fresh insights for this series of
reflections. You might wish to compare it to your favorite
translations. Here it is formatted to show that, after the invocation
addressing God, there are three petitions on behalf of God and then three
petitions on behalf of ourselves. This basic structure of first God then
people roughly parallels the Ten Commandments and the Greatest Commandment
(first love God, second love you neighbor).
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1. Exclamation marks have been included to show the imperative mood (commands).
They are not necessary in a format of petitions but are included here to
indicate an emphasis that could be missed.
2. “Itself,” is added, but captures the emphatic phrasing in the Greek.
3. “Debt” rather than “trespasses” is more accurate, since it can refer to a
moral debt and better communicates that all sin leaves a negative result as
explained in Reflection 6.
4. “Ourselves” is added, but captures the emphatic phrasing in the Greek.
5. A more literal rendering is “do not carry/lead into,” but this is an
idiomatic way of asking for help that is explained in Reflection 7.
6. “Evil” here has the definite article, “the evil” so it is probably used as a
personal noun for “the evil one” as in Matt 13:19, 38 and probably Matt.
5:37. See Reflection 7.
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Reflection 1: The Invocation: Our Father in heaven
It is good to pause on the first word, “our.” Jesus
taught his disciples a communal prayer,
not a for-me prayer. We come out of the womb focused solely on ourselves,
and too often we go to the grave with the same preoccupation. The prayer
for Jesus’ followers immediately teaches us we must reach out beyond
ourselves. We are called to a new life-orientation. Jesus’
followers serve others (Mark 10:42-45). Being Jesus’ follower is not like
participating in an individual sport. We are a team, a corporate
identity, like an organic, living body. We care for each other (Hebrews
10:25). We intercede in prayer for each other.
I had a godly grandmother who turned a closet in her house
into a prayer closet. She taught me one way to pray the Lord’s
Prayer. Whenever she had been hurt by someone or had bad feelings toward
someone, she would go into her prayer closest and pray the Lord’s Prayer.
However, she would replace the first-person plural pronouns (our, we, us) with
the name of that person. After praying it that way, she felt reconciled
in her heart to the other person.
“Our Father in heaven,” in distinction from our parents1
on earth, launches us into the unfathomable depth of God’s desire for
intimacy. “In heaven,” is a way of picturing the sovereignty of God
spatially. Doing so overwhelms me. I am but a speck in the town of
Boone, which is but a speck on Earth, which is but a speck in our solar system
(1.3 million Earths would fit in the Sun), which is but a speck in our galaxy,
and so on to the ends of the cosmos. Yet, somehow, the Creator of all
this desires a family-like relationship with me, with you. I cannot
comprehend it. All I can do is worship in response.
This Creator condescends (“comes down”) to us. The
Creator humbly seeks to relate to us like an ideal parent to a beloved
child. This Creator walks and talks in the Garden of Eden. This
Creator encounters people individually. This Creator becomes incarnate in the flesh. This Creator
humbles Himself to death on a cross. A “god” like this could not be
respected in the pagan world. Such a god was not comprehensible in that
world. The pagan world wanted powerful gods on their side, sometimes
against others. However, the true God loves me and you. The true
God does not loftily remain above the chaos and suffering in our lives.
Our Lord and God understands our pain, sorrow, and suffering and
willingly enters into it with us. Jesus tells us to say, “Our Father” and
realize what that means.
Journal Reflections
1. What does Jesus’ assumption of
praying communally for others mean to you?
2. Try replacing the first-person
pronouns with the name of someone with whom you are having difficulty.
Does that help you to be better reconciled to that person and to God?
3. I get a kind of “brain freeze”
when I try to imagine how something so insignificant in time and space as
myself can be loved by my Creator. How are you moved when you realize
that Jesus tells you to pray to your Creator as “Father”?
4. During Lent we reflect on the
unimaginable humility and compassion of the Creator of all becoming flesh among
us. What is your response? How does this impact your prayer life?
Prayer quote:
“What a person is on their knees before God in secret, that
is what they will be before people: that much and no more.” (Fred
Mitchell, Royal Exchange, p. 24. Edited for gender neutrality.)
Note:
1. I have used “parent(s)” because our culture does not
assume the patriarchal/matriarchal distinctions of the original audience.
Although the biblical culture had this distinction, the Scriptures also portray
God with what they would consider feminine attributes, such as mercy and
compassion. Whenever we speak of the undefinable God, we, like the
biblical composers can but only use the frail metaphors of our time and place
like father or parent.
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