Date:
July 25, 2010, Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: The Rev Dr James D Kegel
Please pray with me:
ETERNAL SPIRIT, EARTH-MAKER, LIFE-GIVER, SOURCE OF ALL THAT IS AND THAT SHALL BE, FATHER AND MOTHER OF US ALL. LOVING GOD, IN WHOM IS HEAVEN:
THE HALLOWING OF YOUR NAME ECHO THROUGH THE UNIVERSE! THE WAY OF YOUR JUSTICE BE FOLLOWWED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD! YOUR HEAVENLY WILL BE DONE BY ALL CREATED BEINGS! YOUR COMMONWEALTH OF PEACE AND FREEDOM SUSTAIN OUR HOPE AND COME ON EARTH.
WITH THE BREAD WE NEED FOR TODAY, FEED US. IN THE HURTS WE ABSORB FROM ONE ANOTHER, FORGIVE US. IN TIMES OF TEMPTATION AND TEST, STRENGTHEN US. FROM TRIALS TOO GREAT TO ENDURSE, SPARE US. FROM THE GRIP OF ALL THAT IS EVIL, FREE US.
FOR YOU REIGN IN THE GLORY OF THE POWER THAT IS LOVE, NOW AND FOREVER. AMEN.
A Lord’s Prayer for Compline, New Zealand Prayer Book.
Last summer in the Holy Land, our group visited the Church of the Pater Noster in Jerusalem. The building dates from 1872 when a French princess built a cloister on top of Byzantine and Crusader ruins and dedicated it to the Lord’s Prayer. There are nine-two different versions of the prayer around the walls of the church in various languages and dialects and new ones keep being added. Most of us took pictures of the English version, but there were others who photographed the Norwegian or the German or the Lithuanian. I noticed an interesting thing about the English translation. One of the original tiles had been chiseled out and replaced. I went back in my photos and found the picture I had taken almost forty years ago. That one had a tile of “which” that was later replaced by “who.” I suppose that means that most of us no longer pray, “Our Father which art in heaven,” but “Our Father who art in heaven.” The German prayer is interesting, “Vater unser im Himmel.” This is the good Catholic—and Lutheran—translation. The German Reformed switch it to “Unser Vater im Himmel.” I do not know why and I do not suppose it makes much difference. Of course, my mother used to cringe when singers would sing Malotte’s Lord’s Prayer which uses debts. She would always mutter, “Lutherans say ‘trespasses’.”
Roberta Smythe was telling me of her experience as a supply pastor at Bethesda Lutheran Church recently. The congregation has a contemporary service with a house band. The songs and service are in modern language and modern style until it comes to the Lord’s Prayer. She asked them why they did not use the newer version—which has been around since 1973, I believe. I suppose even with keyboard and trap set and clergy in casual clothes, it is uncomfortable to say different words for the Lord’s Prayer. I do not know what your reaction was to the New Zealand Lord’s Prayer? The last time we prayed it, someone said, “Send it back to New Zealand!”
The Lord’s Prayer is very dear to us. Most of us learned it as children and part of the baptismal vow that our parents and sponsors took was that we learn it. Time was when everyone knew it. I remember an assembly at our high school. It was a memorial service for a beloved teacher who died. After eulogies and testimonials, one of the leaders started to pray the Lord’s Prayer. The entire assembly prayed the words together. The Baptists said, “Debts.” The Roman Catholics stopped after, “Deliver us from evil.” The Presbyterians said only one “Forever,” and Episcopalians and Lutherans “Forever and ever.” But the gathering of students and teachers prayed this prayer together. Those days are gone. I now suggest to couples getting married that they print out the words to the Lord’s Prayer in the bulletin because so many people are not familiar with the words.
In our Gospel this morning, we read how Jesus taught his disciples this prayer. Apparently John the Baptist had taught one to his followers and Jesus’ disciples wanted him to do that too. Jesus tells them, “When you pray, say.” Then follows what we have in Luke, a version which is somewhat different from what we have learned although some of the later Greek texts add the more familiar phrases. It seems that Jesus is giving the disciples a prayer to memorize and use liturgically and devotionally. In Matthew’s version, the prayer is given as part of a teaching on prayer and is the fuller version that we expect. In Matthew, however, the Lord’s Prayer seems to be less something memorized and recited than a model for one’s own prayer life. Both are valid and important.
When we use Jesus’ prayer as a model we can see that our prayer begins with God. We begin our prayer with adoration, with acknowledging God’s power and love. When we use the term “Father” for God, it acknowledges God as personal and relational. God is not an impersonal force far from us, but a loving, caring parent who wants us to bring our needs to God. Of course we have only human language to use and a model built only on human relationships—God is Father but better than any earthly father, God is like a mother who nurtures and sustains. We do not know the original Aramaic Jesus used in this prayer. What we have is a Greek translation of that prayer in our text. Perhaps the word was “Abba” as Jesus used elsewhere, that most intimate form of address. Luther reminds us to when we pray calling God “Father” it is to encourage us to believe that God is truly our Father and we are God’s children and we pray in complete confidence just as children speak to their loving father.” Jesus explains prayer in much the same way to his disciples in our text: if we get good things from our earthly father how much better may we expect from God. If we have been disappointed by our earthly parents, we may still rely upon God who will never disappoint us.
In prayer, we begin with adoration recognizing God’s holiness and power. We pray that we would keep God’s name holy and making sure we do not misrepresent God’s Word. We pray for God’s rule recognizing that God’s kingdom comes even without our praying for it, but we ask that it may come to us.
Along with adoration comes confession. Yes, Jesus puts this at the end of his prayer—“forgive us our sin, our debts, our trespasses,” but we know that before we are able to approach the throne of grace, we must confess our sins. God is faithful and just. God will forgive the contrite heart. The model of the Lord’s Prayer asks that God would not hold our sins against us and because of them refuse to hear our prayer. But then in both Luke and Matthew there is the very hard saying, “Forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us,” and “forgive us our debts as we also have forgive our debtors.” There seems to be no option in Christian prayer to hold on to our own grievances and grudges while asking God to forgive us. The New Zealand words are priceless: “in the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.” We hurt others and we are hurt by others.
Of course in our prayer there is supplication. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Give us food and clothing and shelter—“everything we need for this life such as food and clothing, home and property, work and income, a devoted family, an orderly community, good government, favorable weather, peace and health, a good name, and true friends and neighbors” the Catechism puts it. We pray for others and we pray for ourselves. God wants us to bring our needs to God and keep on praying, being as importunate as the friend who goes at midnight and asks for three loaves of bread. We must not give up on God. And we pray “Lead us not into temptation; save us from the time of trial.” We pray that our testing never be beyond our endurance that no suffering of this present time may ever compare with the glory we await. As a collect used in comforting the bereaved puts it, “Grant that no clouds in this mortal life may hide from us the light of your immortal love.”
And finally our prayers end with thanksgiving. We say “Amen” knowing that God has heard our petitions. We pray with confidence because Jesus taught us to pray. Jesus taught words which we memorize and repeat and none could ever be better—in whatever translation or version we use. We pray using the words as a model bringing our specific needs—three loaves of bread because a neighbor has suddenly come to our house; fears for our health, worries about our family, uncertainty about finances, indecision. We name our needs and God will give us what is best for us. How much more and better will God give us than we can ever imagine or name; how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
Remember the Lord’s Prayer and pray it. It is a translation, so the version does not matter so much. It does not matter if we pray it silently, out loud or sing it. Say it in German or Norwegian or Lithuanian if you can. Use it as a model for your prayers. Gdo wants you to pray and gives you the prayer. Amen.
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