Congratulations! You all have been enrolled in my Bible 101
class. Relax, you do not need to take
notes and there will be no test. The best
case scenario… you will be able to answer a question or two on Jeopardy.
Each of the four
Gospels originally existed as independent works and copies of each circulated
throughout the early church. The Gospel
of Mark was written first. Scholars have
long recognized Matthew and Luke get much of their material from Mark, although
they often employ it with subtle changes.
There are instances when Matthew has material Luke does not and vice
versa. Such accounts are said to be
original to the author. There are also
times when Matthew and Luke share material not found in Mark, leading scholars
to hypothesis the existence of a now-lost gospel dubbed Q, the first letter in
a German word meaning ‘source’. John’s
Gospel was the last to be written and is wholly unlike the others. While the evangelist most certainly is aware
of the other three works (or four) he does not draw on them in the way Matthew
and Luke draw from Mark and Q.
The Lord’s Prayer
is recorded in Matthew and Luke, but is not found in Mark or John. This leads scholars to conclude it was
originally included in the Q work.
Matthew places the Lord’s Prayer in a bundling of Jesus’ teachings known
as the Sermon on the Mount, found in chapters 5, 6, and 7. One section of this sermon compiles some of
Jesus’ teachings on piety and prayer. In
it he instructs his followers to keep charitable acts private – “When you give
do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” He advises not to make a public display when
you fast. And he counsels his followers
to pray privately, unlike the religious leaders of the day who make long
prayers in front of others to impress them.
It is in this context in Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus teaches his followers
how to pray, using the words we now refer to as the Lord’s Prayer.
Luke’s presentation
differs slightly from this. He does not
include it as a part of his version of the Sermon on the Mount, which is much
briefer than Matthew’s. And rather than
include it as part of a more expanded teaching on prayer, Luke has it as a
response to a specific question:
Jesus was praying
in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to
him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
This introduction
raises more questions than it answers.
First, where was
this certain place Jesus was praying? The
previous chapter places Jesus at the home of Mary and Martha and while it is
possible he is still there, the text appears to suggest he is somewhere
else. It also does not record the
subject or the content of Jesus’ prayer.
And while Luke mentions John the Baptist taught his disciples how to
pray, he does not tell us anything about its content. Finally, Luke chooses not to identify the
disciple who makes the request, “Jesus, teach us to pray…” Perhaps the disciple is one of those minor
figures in the Gospel who never seems to merit a mention. It is equally possible this disciple is a
woman because, as a whole, the Gospels tend to downplay their involvement in
Jesus’ ministry whenever possible.
Regardless, we are deeply indebted to this person because without his or
her request it is possible we would not have the words for what is arguably the
most significant, meaningful prayer in human existence.
Let’s shift gears
from Bible 101 to Liturgy 101. We
Episcopalians are big on liturgy and there is a very good reason for it. It is called lex orandi, lex credendi, a Latin phrase which roughly translated
means “praying shapes believing.” If, as
we do in our worship, you pray the same words over and over again, week after
week, eventually it has an impact on who you are and what you believe. The words sink in. You become them and they become you.
In our home when I
was growing up we said a grace before dinner every night. The act of saying grace said something
important about life – before we eat we need to thank God – and the prayer
itself formed in us a core theology:
God
is great, God is good,
Let us thank him
for our food. Amen.
Lex orandi, lex credendi suggests the habit
of offering this prayer helped to lay the foundation of what I believe about
God and life. So let’s take a few
moments to consider how our faith is shaped by the daily act of saying the
Lord’s Prayer.
“Our Father, who
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
The first thing to
notice is the prayer begins with several words we no longer use in daily
conversation – art, hallowed, and thy. This, in an and of
itself, is bad liturgy because ever since the introduction of the first prayer
book, the service has always be written in the language of the people. Yes, there is a contemporary form of the
Lord’s Prayer in the prayer book, but lex
orandi, lex credendi – we have be shaped by a version dating back to the
Elizabethan era and no modern adaption has yet to supplant it.
The beginning of
the prayer shapes our belief in several ways.
Referring to God as Father
tells us God is personable – someone we can know and someone who knows us. And while some struggle with translating to
God their own experience of a less-than-desirable human father, most of us
associate God as Father with qualities such as compassion, care, wisdom, and
strength. Abba is the Greek word in the text translated as Father and it indicates an extremely close
and loving relationship. It could well
be translated as ‘Daddy’ or ‘Papa’, and while we don’t normally use such
intimate language to address God, due to the influence of the Lord’s Prayer,
this I suspect is how most people experience God’s nature. Countering this cozy familiarity is the
petition “hallowed be thy name”. It reminds
us there is something great and sacred about God – something completely beyond
us. “Art in heaven”. This suggests God lives or dwells in a place
different from us. Heaven is not
earth. It is something other and
something different.
“Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
This place where
God dwells operates differently than how things go here on earth. There is a different way of behaving there. Kingdom
is another one of those words from the past that does not correspond to
anything we experience today. I don’t
think speaking about God’s government
quite gets at it. Maybe it is best to
think of kingdom as being God’s society.
As such, the way things operate in heaven’s society serves as a template
for how things should operate in ours.
God’s society is oriented toward living out God’s will. The prayer states ours can be oriented this
way too. Pray it enough and you will
come to believe it. You will be
dissatisfied with anything on earth not reflective of what it is like in
heaven.
“Give us this day
our daily bread.”
While our society
is built on a foundation of self-sufficiency, the Lord’s Prayer states we are
in a position of dependency. We depend on
God for sun and rain and recognize all of creation is a gift not of our
making. But even more, in this day and
age we depend on one another in ways we seldom recognize. I went a grocery store two days after
Hurricane Irene made landfall in Virginia and was stunned to find mostly empty
shelves due to the disruption in our distribution and delivery networks. It reminded me, as the prayer book says, “our
common life depends on each other’s toil.”
Very few of us could make it on our own.
The Lord’s Prayer reminds us we are dependent on God and dependent on
one another.
“Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
This prayer affirms we do things that hurt
one another, that offend God, that damage God’s creation, and that mare the
image of God within each of us. Henri
Nouwen said, “Forgiveness is the
name of love
practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is
all people love poorly.” Learning to
love and learning to forgive are intricately related. Learning to be loved and learning to be
forgiven go hand-in-hand.
“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
This final petition
has been in the news of late because Pope Francis has approved a new version that
says, “Do not let us fall into temptation”.
He argues God does not direct us toward detrimental enticement. No matter what you think about this change,
the thrust of the petition Jesus teaches focuses on God’s guidance in our
lives. We rely God to lead us to those
places that are good for us and away from those that harm.
The more you say
the Lord’s Prayer the more you will come to believe it. And the more you believe it the more you will
be shaped by it. You will recognize
God’s closeness while acknowledging God’s sacred holiness. You will determine not just to wait for the
life to come, but work to make it present here and now. You will affirm our need for God’s goodness
and for each person’s contribution to the common good. You may struggle to forgive, but you will
always recognize it as the goal. You
will put your life in God’s hands and trust in the Holy One to guide you to
green pastures and still waters. Lex orendi, lex credendi – this is how
the Lord’s Prayer shapes us.
