The Pater Noster or, Our Father, or The Lord's Prayer is chock-full of theology. Unfortunately, we have become so familiar with this all so important prayer that we recite it uncritically. Perhaps, one habit that we might acquire is to pray and meditate on it more mindfully and in sections as illustrated below. Perhaps praying and meditating on the Our Father in daily sections.
1. "Our Father who art in heaven"
In the address, we call God "Our Father in Heaven," literally in the Greek "Abba" or "daddy." This pulls our attention in two directions. On the one side, calling God our Father assumes an amazing intimacy with The Creator and Ruler of the universe and that can prompt us to praise and thanksgiving. We have this intimacy, not because God is, in general, the parent of all humanity (although he is), this is the gracious gift of Jesus: He knew he was God's only begotten son, but he tells us to pray, "Our Father."
We who are far away from God, guilty and broken, are now invited into Christ's own family; we are rust adopted by God. We can praise God for more than forgiveness. in Jesus, we are lifted up--in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the process of theosis, or divinization; becoming like God--into fellowship with God.
This profound intimacy is balanced by it's opposite: the God who has drawn us so close is outside of us, "in heaven". God is always beyond our control, greater, wiser and more powerful than we are. Wonder flows as we remember the One who spread out the heavens, who guides all creation to his own glory and who mysteriously called each of us into existence.
As we call out to Father, remembering that God is in heaven may stun us to speechlessness--a kind of silence that is a prayer of praise in and of itself. Praying the Our Father, especially this clause of it, can help us to reflect on our own relationship, turning us to pray for new life and deeper knowledge of Him.
2. "Hallowed be thy name."
Having called out to the beloved and mysterious God, we make our first request: Jesus has us pray . that God's name may be "hallowed" or "made holy". In biblical terms, the name of God points directly to Hod's essence--and of course nothing could be more holy. When we reach this part of the outline, we take time to ask that God be honored in us and everywhere. we may offer praise and thanks for things that do reflect the holiness of God--places and instances where God is known and honored, where love and peace and justice prevail. Or, we may think of things in our lives that do not honor God and ask for help. We ask God to make us fit followers of Jesus, people who can rightly bear his name.
3. "Thy kingdom come."
In the second petition, we ask that God's kingdom may come, and we face the same paradox: God is surely King of all creation already. The problem is that we do not live like God's citizens. Reaching this point in the Lord's Prayer we spend time reflecting on and praying for God to reign more thoroughly and visibly in our lives.
But what do we pray for when we pray for the kingdom? Scripture guides us to include a number of things. The kingdom is made up of people who acknowledge Christ as Lord so we pray for more or come to faith and for those in the church to really live under his rule--for mission in terms of discipleship and evangelism. Our King fed tre hungry, healed the sick and cared for the outcast, so we ask God to make God to make these priorities ours too. We also pray with the early Chirstians, Maranatha, or come Lord, come into the world and into our lives. As we turn to reflect on our lives , we ask God to shine in our relationships, or our work and our churches. We need to bring all of life before our Lord, asking him to reform it according to his sovereign intentions.
4. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
In the third petition we ask for for God to do what God wants done. By praying this we acknowledge that God's plans are more important than ours. This petition is paradoxical, like the earlier ones, since surely God guides the world with or without us. Mysteriously though, in God's design we are made partners in his planning. Because of this partnership, this clause can lead us to confident intercession. In Jesus' teaching and his actions we learn in detail what God's will looks like. Then we can pray for God to heal the sick or feed the hungry or to bring justice and peace, we can say "Thy will be done! I am confident that this is your will because you said so yourself." This is no guarantee that God will do what we ask, but it does prompt us to pray in the spirit Jesus seems to intend. We pray for our lives, our churches and the world to look more like what God intends and for God to overcome every kind of opposition to his kingdom of love. This clause is a wonderful opportunity for self examination."O Father, do not let me get to the point where my will is done. Break my will. Deist it. No matter what happens, let my life be governed not by my will but yours."
5. "Give us this day our daily bread."
After three petitions about God we turn to ourselves. The fourth clause starts with the very human simplest human need: we need food to live, and bread is a a basic as it gets. No concern is too small for God. To care about or too great too manage. We take time to ask for food, clothing, shelter, work relationship. If we are well provided for we can pray for those who are not. Jesus' point is that God wants to provide for whatever we need, so whatever we need should be part of the conversation.
This petition gives us both a permission and a challenge. We are permitted to bring our mundane personal need to God in prayer. Actually it is more of an invitation: Jesus commands us to pray for our bread. He wants us to acknowledge that we are always dependent on God for everything. But we are also challenged to simplicity, not luxury; we are not praying for daily cake. Jesus gives us a measuring stick: we should pray for what is really good for us and for the world.
6. "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
From the practicality of bread, we turn to intangible spiritual needs: in this petition we pray for forgiveness. We admit that we have done wrong, and we ask God to restore us. We take time to seek reconciliation too God and neighbor. It takes effort to look at our lives and courage to admit to actual faults, even in prayer.
Here we also pay attention as well to the harm others have done to us and we talk to God about forgiving them, since we ask for forgiveness as we forgive others. The "as we forgive" is a conditional clause. We as to be forgiven, only to the extent that we forgive others and, that, as we pray, that if we do not forgive, the let us not be forgiven. When we critically think of what we are praying for we recogniize that praying the Pater Noster is dangerous if we refuse to forgive others. By asking God to forgive others , we too, take steps toward forgiveness.
However, forgiveness is not pretending that no harm has been done--that is denial. Nor does it mean that the painful feelings melt away--that is healing, which may come much later. Forgiveness is when you have been harmed, but you actively, prayerfully lift the sentence and decide not to exercise your right to prosecute or avenge. Praying for forgiveness is about living into what is already true, recognizing and accepting the forgiveness that Christ offers. In Jesus, we are already forgiven, but the Lord's Prayer keeps us honest: every time we pray we admit that we bring nothing to the relationship but our debts--every time we pray we take a little step toward receiving grace with confident trust.
7. "And lead us not into temptation."
This may seem puzzling since the letter of James says that God never tempts us, but modern translators point out that temptation can be translated as "trial." Thinking of temptation we ask God to guide us, leading us away from any things that us away from the way of Christ. Thinking of trials, we ask God to mercifully spare us. And, if we are so blessed as to have no trials or temptations--and there are few of us who are so blessed--it is an excellent opportunity for those who do.
"The flesh" and "the world" and "the devil" can be construed as the negative influences of the worst of societal influences on our character and behavior: consumerism, greed, lustful envy and the desire for approval and power are good examples. Human existence is basically good. Christ came in the flesh and incarnation all theology points us to the goodness of our creation in the "imago Dei"' in themage of a God. But, we also recognize that this Imago Dei can be distorted through or deviation toward apparent rather than real goods.
8. "But deliver us from evil."
Praying for this means asking God for protection from all things that worry us. If we feel uncomfortable, this petition reminds us that God is constantly preserving us from countless troubles that we do not even notice. And, of course, we remember that the Pater Noster is corporate: "deliver us" we pray, and so we take time to lift up the millions around the world who are really in danger.
Danger could be anything: flood, famine, war or poverty. Martin Luther, and we might too pray, "Protect us from every bodily evil and woe to the end, however that all this rebound to the honor of your name, the increase of your kingdom and the accomplishment if your will."
The familiar ending to this prayer, "for the kingdom and the power are yours, now and forever," is not found in the earliest New Testament manuscripts or in the Latin Vulgate used in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless. We can approach this doxology with an attitude that what we want is for God to answer or prayers in a way that brings glory to his own kingdom, that means concluding with the praise that we began with in our prayer.
So, perhaps, one way that we can grow closer to God this Lenten season is to more critically pray, affirm, reflect and meditate on this all so important prayer through which we so often and cavalierly breeze by.
No comments:
Post a Comment