September 08, 2014
The Lord’s Payer
When we say the Lord’s Prayer
in a congregational setting many of us are tentative about which translation to
use, whether it’s, “Forgive us our trespasses…” or “Forgive us our debts.…” Recently
I attended a Catholic church where we were collectively saying the Lord’s
Prayer when two times during the prayer the priest deviated from the text,
inserted his own words, and then picked up again where he left off in the
original prayer. I suppose the priest
may have been trying to personalize the prayer to his congregation, but I found
the revision disconcerting. This was not a situation of commentary, nor of
expository preaching, but rather re-writing. I wonder how the Lord feels about someone remodeling
His model prayer.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I would be in deep trouble. I never have accepted the Lord’s prayer as if it were a liturgy. If I had, I probably would have learned it in Aramaic. I use it like a template. After all, the disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray, not what to pray. If they had asked Him what to pray He would have meant it to be a liturgy. But even more, when He began to give them answer to how to pray, He said pray like this. He didn’t say pray this.
-----Please don’t think I’m saying that using it as a liturgy is wrong. Many great feelings get expressed during the reciting of the Lord’s prayer, just like many deep feelings are expressed through the reciting of the fifty-third Psalm. But still, their primary purpose is to be informative rather than to be liturgical.
-----When I began patterning my prayers to the template of the Lord’s prayer, I began seeing deep meaning in its structure. Immediate acknowledgement of relationship is striking. “Our Father.” Not just a father, but ours in a group setting, “Mine” when on my knees alone. We not only come with courage from the assurance of love, we come personally assured to a personal Almighty who’s taken us individually to be His very own children. Good start for a needy me! ------But the next four thoughts put my needs and myself into proper perspective. Each person in a relationship has a proper perspective within that relationship. My relationship with Char is from a husband’s perspective, and I notice that perspective by noting she is the woman to whom I’ve committed. I know my perspective with Erin because I know her as my daughter. I don’t have a professional relationship with her because I don’t know any “client” aspects about her. Our Father is in a very great and special place for a very important purpose, and He is perfect in all ways. This rather defines my perspective.
-----The third and fourth thoughts even more shape the perspective of my relationship with Him by them being framed as my request of Him, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” That is me asking that. Note that we are conformed to what we ask for. The very first of my requests, then, forms this framework of acknowledgement that all things I need are embedded within the nature of all things being to Him as He meant them to be, though they are not yet that way, but that they will eventually be that way. And that what meets my needs must be what He wants. This is less a “me too” request and more an “I want this.”
-----Not only is the Word of God and Jesus Christ our daily bread we need given, but so also are the shoes I wear, the car I drive, the things my friends and loved ones and enemies too, need. They’re all our daily bread. They’re requested in this mental framework of His kingdom developing by His will.
-----But the beauty is, they are all asked before addressing the fact I am a rotten sinner as much as is anyone else. This accentuates the completely beyond words glory of “My Father.” We are sinners by groaning nature, we are His children by grace, and He is going to have grace for us first by cracky. So He’ll wait for the apologies till later. And when we do get around to asking forgiveness, notice this template directs us to ask no more mercy than what we’ve shown. I love this God!
-----Of course He is not going to tempt us. But He can and does lead us into testing. Well, I’ve hoped I left my semester finals with my college days. So I ask Him to deliver me from evil rather than test my strength, because frankly, I do D’s more than A’s.
-----Finally, this thing about it being His kingdom, power, and glory forever really was a later add-on. My guess is that Jesus often prayed it publicly, so someone in the very early centuries added it to this template. Most important is that it is true.
-----The liturgy is charming. But the template is powerful.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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