Unpacking the Lord's Prayer (part 1)
Psalm 100; Matthew 6:5-13
What does it mean to “pray”? If you look in a dictionary you will likely find something like this: “to address God in word or thought.” Jesus felt that prayer was of such importance that his followers needed to be trained in it. On one occasion (in Luke 11:1), when Jesus was praying, one of his followers asked him to teach them to pray. Jesus responded by teaching them what has come to be called "The Lord's Prayer." In the Gospel of Matthew, (in 6:5-13) Jesus warned about the abuse of prayer and concluded by teaching them what we what was read today.
Jesus warned about hypocrites who pray in the synagogues and in the streets in order to receive the praise of others. The problem is not praying in synagogues or on street corners, but rather doing it to receive praise for doing it. Here Jesus is not saying something that most other rabbis of his day would not have said as well. Jesus also cautioned against “heaping up empty phrases” thinking that God would pay more attention if we are long-winded. “Don’t do that,” said Jesus; “God already knows what you need before you ask.” Then he instructed them.
Today, we begin a seven-part series of sermons on “Unpacking the Lord’s Prayer.” Those of you who have downloaded programs on your computer will know that sometimes the programs come in as compressed files because there is so much data in the program. Once downloaded to your computer they have to be “unpacked” before your computer can use them. I have a sense that the Lord’s Prayer is like a file that remains compressed in many of our spiritual lives and not usable. If we can unpack it we may discover that it means things and sustains us in ways we never before imagined.
I have a couple of special requests to make of you as we go through this series. Before we get to those, let me ask you: Did it seem at all strange when we read the Lord's Prayer from the scriptures? I am not suggesting that any such feelings might be caused by unfamiliarity with the prayer. We probably do not have a situation here like the two guys who were talking and one of them made a comment about prayer. The other scoffed: "If you're so religious, let's hear you say the Lord's Prayer. I bet you ten dollars you don't know it." His friend responded, "Yes I do: 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep'." The other friend said, "Wow! I didn't think you knew it!" and handed him a ten dollar bill. Our problem is not unfamiliarity; it might be because we are so familiar with the prayer that we don’t think much about it when we say it.
As long as I can remember, even when I was a child, I was puzzled about why this prayer was prayed so often in worship. Being told that it was a “model” prayer was not very satisfying since there are certain elements of prayer that do not seem to be included -- thanksgiving, for one, and intercessions for others, for another. When I was older, I learned that the meaning of several of the petitions may not be as clear as I had first thought. The translation of one of the petitions is only a guess. These matters become especially significant if we are to take it as a model for all our prayers. For a long time, it has seemed to me like a very particular prayer, for a particular -- not a general -- purpose. And if it is a particular kind of prayer, how did it get its central place in the Gospels, and why has it been -- through history -- the most consistently used element in Christian worship?
The primary purpose of this series of sermons is not to give you new information about this prayer – although I hope to do that; the primary purpose is to assist you in praying generally and in the praying of this prayer in particular. To that end, I have several requests to make of you. First, I would like to ask that you pray this prayer at least once a day between now and August 16th when we conclude the series. Second, I would like to suggest that you make notes each Sunday on the meaning of the petition we are examining—use the white space on the bulletin where you usually doodle—and then during the week try praying the petitions in a variety of ways using your own words. Third, I invite you to share your comments on the sermons on my blog where each of the sermons will be posted weekly. Share your prayer experiences and questions there so others may benefit. You may make your comments anonymously. I will try to respond to the questions in the sermons.
Our task this morning is to ask about the God to whom we pray this prayer. What does it mean to pray to God as “Our Father”? In the first century both Jews and Gentiles frequently addressed God as “Father.” The common practice in the synagogue was to address God as “our Father, our King.” Jesus adapts the address simply to “Father.” The Aramaic term “Abba” is translated as “Father”. The meaning is a child’s term of endearment like “Daddy,” “Mommy,” or “Da-da.” It is also a term that adults may use in addressing their fathers. This is the term Jesus used for his own personal relationship with God. For Jesus, “Father” was not a general term for God but one specifically meaning his own relation to God. Jesus did not reserve it for himself but also included others—“When you pray, say ‘Our Father.’” As children of God, we are “brothers” and “sisters,” not only of each other but also of Jesus, sharing his personal relationship with God. God as “Father” means one who loves, one who forgives, and one who knows how to give children good gifts.
Does the use of the term “Father” mean that God is male? If our spiritual ancestors, the Hebrew people in the Middle East, and their ancestors, had prayed this prayer before 5,000 B.C., the term of address would probably have been "Mother." But by 3,000 B.C. in the Middle East, matriarchal cultures had become patriarchal ones, so that the faith shaped and articulated by the Judeo-Christian tradition tended to be in patriarchal terms. Does this mean that God is male, or was it that “Father” was simply the way God could be understood in that culture? Is the God to whom we pray gender-inclusive or gender-specific?
A few years ago a great brouhaha erupted over the references to God as "Sofia" at an ecumenical convocation of women in Minneapolis. Sophia was the name of a goddess in some Gnostic religions in the first century, but “Sophia” is also the Greek word for the portrayal of God as “Wisdom” in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon and other places. In the Greek language nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter. Sophia is feminine, as is the word in Hebrew from which it is translated. The word for “Wisdom” as an image of God in the Bible is thus feminine, as is the word for “Spirit.” I suspect that the controversy in Minneapolis had more to do with attributing feminine characteristics to God rather than any pagan associations with the word. At one of the meetings, a bishop – not a United Methodist bishop, I might add -- was heard to exclaim, "To call God ‘Mother’ is to make God a sexual being." Now that particular bishop had children. I would like to have asked him, "Are not fathers also sexual beings? Bishop, where do babies really come from?"
While “Father” was the most common image for Jesus, he and Biblical writers used other images that portray God in feminine terms beyond “Wisdom” and “Spirit,” such as a Mother Eagle, a Mother Hen, a Baker Woman, and many more. Have we not come to a time when we can use feminine terms to refer to God? I think the point in this prayer is that God is addressed as a caring and nurturing parent. When you pray this prayer this week, you might try praying “Our Mother,” some of the time or “Our Father and Mother.” For some it will mean praying with loving parents as models; for others it will mean using language for the kind of parents they never had and for whom the very images are painful. In the case of the latter, it will be praying to God who is like a parent you longed for but never had.
We pray not only to a caring and nurturing parent, but we also to pray to “Our Father in heaven.” The phrase "in heaven" makes an important counter-point to the intimacy and familiarity suggested by “Our Father.” In the Old Testament “heaven” not only meant the sky it also meant that which was beyond the physical heavens, beyond the moon, sun and stars. Heaven was the abode of God. As Solomon acknowledged in his prayer dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem, “the heavens and heaven of heavens cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.” (1 Kings 8:27) In Christian theology “heaven” is the dwelling place of God and ultimately of all the redeemed. To say that God is “in heaven” is a reminder that God is beyond and greater than all our ideas and conceptions. We can no more comprehend the magnitude of God than we can comprehend the magnitude of infinite space. God is not one we can put in our pockets, restrict to a shrine, or contain within the walls of a church, but the God who is in heaven, a God beyond what we can conceive. Jesus teaches us to address God who is as close and as caring as a parent, but not one we can manipulate or contain within the limits of our minds.
When we pray this prayer to this God, there is power. Barb Jones, a Regional Minister (sort of like our “District Superintendent”) in the Disciples of Christ Church in Arkansas, tells about a time in seminary when things were going really badly for her family. She went to the dean, who happened to be an Episcopalian, shared her story and asked him to pray for her. He said, "Sure. Let's say the Lord's Prayer." And the two of them bowed their heads and recited the familiar prayer. After the Amen, Barb looked at the dean with a puzzled look as if to say, "Is that it?" She had expected him to pray specifically about the concerns she had just shared with him.
Then the dean said, "You don't get it, do you?" And Barb admitted that she didn't. The dean then explained his belief about the power of that particular prayer. He said, "In saying the Lord's Prayer we are saying the most powerful prayer known to humankind. That prayer has been prayed continuously since the days of the early church. People all around our world have prayed that same prayer day and night for two thousand years. And when we pray it, we connect ourselves to all believers everywhere and in all time. We pull together the collective power of all those prayers." Barb said she left feeling that she had really been prayed for.
I have often prayed this prayer with persons who were dying. Sometimes, even when they were unresponsive to everything else that was said, when I began to say the Lord’s Prayer, their lips would move and you could hear them repeating the words—this sometimes after days when it seemed they no longer had the ability to speak. There is something special in praying this prayer. It is not magic; it is the power of God in praying a prayer, as the dean said, that connects us to all believers everywhere and in all time.
As you pray this prayer this week let your attention linger on the words of address, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” and think about the God you are addressing. Give thanks to God, creator and sustainer of a vast universe beyond the farthest reaches of our minds, yet who is as close as a caring Father or Mother. To pray “Our Father” is to acknowledge that all of us are brothers and sisters, not just Christians but all people everywhere. Whether you are facing the routine tasks of the day, or life and death issues, this prayer is for you. Pray it in faith and confidence.
What does it mean to “pray”? If you look in a dictionary you will likely find something like this: “to address God in word or thought.” Jesus felt that prayer was of such importance that his followers needed to be trained in it. On one occasion (in Luke 11:1), when Jesus was praying, one of his followers asked him to teach them to pray. Jesus responded by teaching them what has come to be called "The Lord's Prayer." In the Gospel of Matthew, (in 6:5-13) Jesus warned about the abuse of prayer and concluded by teaching them what we what was read today.
Jesus warned about hypocrites who pray in the synagogues and in the streets in order to receive the praise of others. The problem is not praying in synagogues or on street corners, but rather doing it to receive praise for doing it. Here Jesus is not saying something that most other rabbis of his day would not have said as well. Jesus also cautioned against “heaping up empty phrases” thinking that God would pay more attention if we are long-winded. “Don’t do that,” said Jesus; “God already knows what you need before you ask.” Then he instructed them.
Today, we begin a seven-part series of sermons on “Unpacking the Lord’s Prayer.” Those of you who have downloaded programs on your computer will know that sometimes the programs come in as compressed files because there is so much data in the program. Once downloaded to your computer they have to be “unpacked” before your computer can use them. I have a sense that the Lord’s Prayer is like a file that remains compressed in many of our spiritual lives and not usable. If we can unpack it we may discover that it means things and sustains us in ways we never before imagined.
I have a couple of special requests to make of you as we go through this series. Before we get to those, let me ask you: Did it seem at all strange when we read the Lord's Prayer from the scriptures? I am not suggesting that any such feelings might be caused by unfamiliarity with the prayer. We probably do not have a situation here like the two guys who were talking and one of them made a comment about prayer. The other scoffed: "If you're so religious, let's hear you say the Lord's Prayer. I bet you ten dollars you don't know it." His friend responded, "Yes I do: 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep'." The other friend said, "Wow! I didn't think you knew it!" and handed him a ten dollar bill. Our problem is not unfamiliarity; it might be because we are so familiar with the prayer that we don’t think much about it when we say it.
As long as I can remember, even when I was a child, I was puzzled about why this prayer was prayed so often in worship. Being told that it was a “model” prayer was not very satisfying since there are certain elements of prayer that do not seem to be included -- thanksgiving, for one, and intercessions for others, for another. When I was older, I learned that the meaning of several of the petitions may not be as clear as I had first thought. The translation of one of the petitions is only a guess. These matters become especially significant if we are to take it as a model for all our prayers. For a long time, it has seemed to me like a very particular prayer, for a particular -- not a general -- purpose. And if it is a particular kind of prayer, how did it get its central place in the Gospels, and why has it been -- through history -- the most consistently used element in Christian worship?
The primary purpose of this series of sermons is not to give you new information about this prayer – although I hope to do that; the primary purpose is to assist you in praying generally and in the praying of this prayer in particular. To that end, I have several requests to make of you. First, I would like to ask that you pray this prayer at least once a day between now and August 16th when we conclude the series. Second, I would like to suggest that you make notes each Sunday on the meaning of the petition we are examining—use the white space on the bulletin where you usually doodle—and then during the week try praying the petitions in a variety of ways using your own words. Third, I invite you to share your comments on the sermons on my blog where each of the sermons will be posted weekly. Share your prayer experiences and questions there so others may benefit. You may make your comments anonymously. I will try to respond to the questions in the sermons.
Our task this morning is to ask about the God to whom we pray this prayer. What does it mean to pray to God as “Our Father”? In the first century both Jews and Gentiles frequently addressed God as “Father.” The common practice in the synagogue was to address God as “our Father, our King.” Jesus adapts the address simply to “Father.” The Aramaic term “Abba” is translated as “Father”. The meaning is a child’s term of endearment like “Daddy,” “Mommy,” or “Da-da.” It is also a term that adults may use in addressing their fathers. This is the term Jesus used for his own personal relationship with God. For Jesus, “Father” was not a general term for God but one specifically meaning his own relation to God. Jesus did not reserve it for himself but also included others—“When you pray, say ‘Our Father.’” As children of God, we are “brothers” and “sisters,” not only of each other but also of Jesus, sharing his personal relationship with God. God as “Father” means one who loves, one who forgives, and one who knows how to give children good gifts.
Does the use of the term “Father” mean that God is male? If our spiritual ancestors, the Hebrew people in the Middle East, and their ancestors, had prayed this prayer before 5,000 B.C., the term of address would probably have been "Mother." But by 3,000 B.C. in the Middle East, matriarchal cultures had become patriarchal ones, so that the faith shaped and articulated by the Judeo-Christian tradition tended to be in patriarchal terms. Does this mean that God is male, or was it that “Father” was simply the way God could be understood in that culture? Is the God to whom we pray gender-inclusive or gender-specific?
A few years ago a great brouhaha erupted over the references to God as "Sofia" at an ecumenical convocation of women in Minneapolis. Sophia was the name of a goddess in some Gnostic religions in the first century, but “Sophia” is also the Greek word for the portrayal of God as “Wisdom” in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon and other places. In the Greek language nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter. Sophia is feminine, as is the word in Hebrew from which it is translated. The word for “Wisdom” as an image of God in the Bible is thus feminine, as is the word for “Spirit.” I suspect that the controversy in Minneapolis had more to do with attributing feminine characteristics to God rather than any pagan associations with the word. At one of the meetings, a bishop – not a United Methodist bishop, I might add -- was heard to exclaim, "To call God ‘Mother’ is to make God a sexual being." Now that particular bishop had children. I would like to have asked him, "Are not fathers also sexual beings? Bishop, where do babies really come from?"
While “Father” was the most common image for Jesus, he and Biblical writers used other images that portray God in feminine terms beyond “Wisdom” and “Spirit,” such as a Mother Eagle, a Mother Hen, a Baker Woman, and many more. Have we not come to a time when we can use feminine terms to refer to God? I think the point in this prayer is that God is addressed as a caring and nurturing parent. When you pray this prayer this week, you might try praying “Our Mother,” some of the time or “Our Father and Mother.” For some it will mean praying with loving parents as models; for others it will mean using language for the kind of parents they never had and for whom the very images are painful. In the case of the latter, it will be praying to God who is like a parent you longed for but never had.
We pray not only to a caring and nurturing parent, but we also to pray to “Our Father in heaven.” The phrase "in heaven" makes an important counter-point to the intimacy and familiarity suggested by “Our Father.” In the Old Testament “heaven” not only meant the sky it also meant that which was beyond the physical heavens, beyond the moon, sun and stars. Heaven was the abode of God. As Solomon acknowledged in his prayer dedicating the Temple in Jerusalem, “the heavens and heaven of heavens cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.” (1 Kings 8:27) In Christian theology “heaven” is the dwelling place of God and ultimately of all the redeemed. To say that God is “in heaven” is a reminder that God is beyond and greater than all our ideas and conceptions. We can no more comprehend the magnitude of God than we can comprehend the magnitude of infinite space. God is not one we can put in our pockets, restrict to a shrine, or contain within the walls of a church, but the God who is in heaven, a God beyond what we can conceive. Jesus teaches us to address God who is as close and as caring as a parent, but not one we can manipulate or contain within the limits of our minds.
When we pray this prayer to this God, there is power. Barb Jones, a Regional Minister (sort of like our “District Superintendent”) in the Disciples of Christ Church in Arkansas, tells about a time in seminary when things were going really badly for her family. She went to the dean, who happened to be an Episcopalian, shared her story and asked him to pray for her. He said, "Sure. Let's say the Lord's Prayer." And the two of them bowed their heads and recited the familiar prayer. After the Amen, Barb looked at the dean with a puzzled look as if to say, "Is that it?" She had expected him to pray specifically about the concerns she had just shared with him.
Then the dean said, "You don't get it, do you?" And Barb admitted that she didn't. The dean then explained his belief about the power of that particular prayer. He said, "In saying the Lord's Prayer we are saying the most powerful prayer known to humankind. That prayer has been prayed continuously since the days of the early church. People all around our world have prayed that same prayer day and night for two thousand years. And when we pray it, we connect ourselves to all believers everywhere and in all time. We pull together the collective power of all those prayers." Barb said she left feeling that she had really been prayed for.
I have often prayed this prayer with persons who were dying. Sometimes, even when they were unresponsive to everything else that was said, when I began to say the Lord’s Prayer, their lips would move and you could hear them repeating the words—this sometimes after days when it seemed they no longer had the ability to speak. There is something special in praying this prayer. It is not magic; it is the power of God in praying a prayer, as the dean said, that connects us to all believers everywhere and in all time.
As you pray this prayer this week let your attention linger on the words of address, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” and think about the God you are addressing. Give thanks to God, creator and sustainer of a vast universe beyond the farthest reaches of our minds, yet who is as close as a caring Father or Mother. To pray “Our Father” is to acknowledge that all of us are brothers and sisters, not just Christians but all people everywhere. Whether you are facing the routine tasks of the day, or life and death issues, this prayer is for you. Pray it in faith and confidence.
6 comments:
GOOD MORNING MILO? I THINK WE MAY OF DESCUSS THIS ONE TIME BEFORE.
AS FOR ME I DON'T DO ANYTHING OF ENPORTANCE WITH OUT SAYING THE LORDS PRAYER, IT OPENS MY MIND TO SPEAK WITH MY LORD ABOUT WHAT EVER IS GOING ON. MY CHILDREN SOMETHING I AM GOING TO DO. OR SOMETHING THAT IS BOTHERING. I CAN NOT LAY ME DOWN AT NIGHT WITH OUT PRAYER. FIRST THE LORDS PRAYER TO CLEAR MY MIND, THEN PRAYER FOR THE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE. I GUESS THAT ABOUT SIZES IT UP FOR ME.
Milo, I look forward to hearing your sermons(or reading them during our vacation!) over the next 6 installments of The Lords Prayer. Jackie
Midge said: you sound just like one of Father Tim's good friends in Mitford, if you are familiar with the Mitford series by Jan Karon.
Sending along a prayer to Jesus via the internet works very well. A stick on the wet sand, a feather quill on birch bark, pen and parchment, and click,click,click-keyboard to cyberspace.
Isn't it funny, though, how God still makes us responsible for using Spell Check?
I think that Christ might have used the word Abba (Daddy) to convey the closeness, the familiarity that he felt toward God. But the gender implication of the word bothers me so, when I pray, I usaully say to myself "Our God who art in heaven . . . ." Looking forward to your other sermons on the Lord's Prayer, Tom
I especially appreciated your placing this prayer in context, that is, after the part about hypocrites. I recently had an insight during prayer about how my peevishness at a certain person for a certain behavior was intertwined with, if not grown out of, my failure to forgive my OWN self for a long-ago perceived hurt to this person. AHA! Insights are great....but, like writing in the sand, they only last so long. I soon noticed I was again peeved, just a little bit, but peeved indeed.
Now, here is the connection to "context" and "The Lord's Prayer:" What line immediately preceeds the line about "and lead us not into temptation? (the temptation to be peeved, or to hold on to ancient wounds, for example?)" Time's up, it's "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." FORGIVEN! Why is it so easy to forget this sometimes? I suppose that is human nature. Thank God that Jesus was both human and divine. This prayer reminds us of our closeness to divinity, and the freedom to be a new creation that comes from that closeness.
Dear Milo,
OK, you asked for it!
We have become intrigued after your challenge to pray The Lord's Prayer every day and to think about it as well.
We say prayers with our children every night. My son, after many years of "Now I lay me down to sleep", chose to say The Lord's Prayer instead. We have been talking about it every night with the kids as we put them to bed. After slogging through the "thy" and "thine" and "hallowed", the kids decided to create what they called a "Kid-Friendly" version. (Also known as The Lord's Prayer for Dummies)
Here it is.
Our God (Or Father or Mother)
Who is in Heaven
Your name is holy.
Your kingdom is coming,
It will be the same on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our physical and spiritual food,
And forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us out of temptation, but deliver us from evil,
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
Now, my daughter has a question for you, which could be an entire sermon...Just what does "Amen" mean, anyway?
Back to you.
Donna N.
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