The Lord’s Prayer #1 05/18/12
The Lord’s prayer is the Christian prayer, adopted by the Christian community and common to all denominations. It had already become embedded in the first century – referenced in the early Christian writing the Didache (in which Christians are exhorted to repeat it three times a day). It is one of two extended prayers by Jesus found in the gospels (the other is in John 17). The Lord’s Prayer appears in two Gospels, Luke and Matthew.
Luke 11: 1-4, is generally considered the earlier version because it is less elaborate. In Luke the context of the prayer is that his disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus' answer is a rabbi’s directive to his followers in line with his personal mission – “when you pray, say…”. Here is its content.
1. Father, Hallowed be your name
2. Your kingdom come
3. Give us each day our daily bread
4. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us
5. And do not bring us to the time of trial.
Matthew’s version (Mt 6:5-15) is more of a guideline rather than a directive - “pray then in this way…”. It includes two extra petitions that bring the number of petitions to seven – a holy number representing completeness –e.g. the seven days of creation. The additional petitions are 3 and 7.
1. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
2. Your kingdom come
3. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
4. Give us this day our daily bread
5. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors
6. And do not bring us to the time of trial
7. But rescue us from the evil one.
In Mt the prayer is incorporated into a more extensive teaching on prayer as part of the Sermon on the Mount. In the course of the teaching he contrasts meaningful prayer with empty phrases. He exhorts his audience not to pray ostentatiously like the hypocrites, nor to pray like the gentiles who talk too much. People tend to “blather” (battologein of verse 6:7) when they pray for different human reasons – because they don’t know what to say; because it is easier to keep talking than to listen; because they like to hear the sound of their own voice; to impose their will on God…
Jesus uses a word that underscores our relationship to the Father. Jesus’ unique use of the word abba (the Aramaic word for “daddy) as the form of address to God in the prayer embodies a simple direct relationship of trust. In Mark 14:36 Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane addresses God as abba. In the Lord’s prayer he invites his disciples into this same relationship. The fact that the original Aramaic word was incorporated into the Greek Gospels and Epistles indicates the desire of the writers to preserve this deeply evocative piece of Jesus’ practice and teaching. In Romans 8:14-16. (the heart of the letter) Paul says that “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” and that “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God”. This was written around 56-57 AD and shows that Jesus’ privileged use of the word “abba” had become characteristic of the early Christian movement.
This address transforms the tone of the prayer. It stresses the tenderness and trust implied in the relationship of parent to child. In the Lord’s prayer Jesus revolutionizes our relationship to God – he is shooting us a hot line! The prayer is also a “we” prayer. God is “our” Father. Even if a person prays alone, the prayer itself implies community with Jesus and with each other.
The first half of the Lord’s Prayer has remarkable similarities with the Kaddish used in synagogue worship. The Kaddish is taken from a conclusion found at the end of the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. This version and its ancient conclusion would have been familiar to Jesus’ followers and to Jesus himself:
“Magnified and sanctified be his great name. Amen. In the world which he has created according to his will. And may he establish his kingdom during your life and during your days and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time. Amen”.
This then was a standard prayer for the Jews. It was a prayer for God’s Kingdom, understood in terms of the liberation and restoration of Israel from all of its oppressors. The first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer echo it. What distinguishes the Lord’s Prayer is Jesus’ prefacing the prayer with the word “abba”.
By adding abba to the prayer Jesus alters its meaning in terms of relationship.
The first three petitions in the prayer are to do with God; the final four relate to our needs. This division brings to mind the ten commandments that are also divided in a similar fashion (the first four to do with our relationship to God, the last six on our own behavior).
The word “hallowed” is an old English word. It is a word that means “holy” and is often associated with the Latin word sacred. According to Girard, the sacred is imbued with violence and violence becomes the sacred. Hallowing God’s name could make God dangerous – but Jesus undermines this by calling him Abba. He removes the violence from God. Another meaning of holy is being advanced by Jesus. The original meaning of holiness is to “set apart”. By placing Abba at the beginning of the prayer, Jesus reorients our frame of meaning, the "generative construct" of our lives. The thing that is to be set apart from all else so coloring all else is a nonviolent Father God..
Matthew's third petition is that the Father’s will be done “on earth as it is I heaven”. The Hebrew understanding was that there were at least three heavens - the lower heavens where the birds fly; the highest heavens where God resides; and the third heaven where the angels are. The heavens were not perceived to be the perfect, eternal place that grew out of Greek philosophy. Rather they were anything that was in any way transcendent. It has been the immovably perfect Greek image of heaven that has been dominant in our culture. Rather the Hebrew heavens included the rulers of darkness, the powers and principalities. Jesus saw Satan fall from heaven. There was bad stuff up there. The heavens in fact mirrored the earth. What happens in the heavens reflects what happens on earth.
There are two manuscript variations of the Matthean text. One says “on earth as it is in heaven” the second “on earth and in the heavens”. In the second version both the heavens and the earth are awaiting transformation. The prayer perhaps says that the violence has to be removed from our understanding of God and the heavens in the same way that the earth needs to be transformed.
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