Last week we began looking at God’s agenda for prayer through the lens of the Lord’s Prayer. We saw that according to our recent survey a lot of us are struggling with prayer. Many of us don’t pray at all and quite a number only pray two or three times a week. I suggested that part of our re-engaging with prayer is to get with God‘s prayer agenda, not just our own agenda in prayer.
God’s prayer agenda begins with lifting our eyes heavenward and praying from a place of relationship with Him, a place of concern for his glory, and a desire to see his Kingdom come into our lives and the lives of those around us.
When we begin with a heavenward focus to our prayers, it can really inspire and transform our prayer life. It also frames the rest of our prayers. We see our earthly concerns with the proper perspective through the frame of eternity. This helps us both to pray with faith and also to pray in the right way.
It’s in this light that the second part of the prayer moves from ‘you’ — God — to ‘us’ and our more earthly concerns.
:DAILY BREAD:
Jesus begins with the simple request to ‘Give us today our daily bread’.
There’s some debate about what ‘daily’ means. The Greek word is 'epiousios' and only occurs in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and Luke, and maybe once or twice outside the Bible, so scholars aren’t 100% sure on the meaning. Some have suggested it means, ‘Give us today our bread for tomorrow.’ I don’t think this works, given Jesus’ teaching not to worry about tomorrow. Seeking today’s daily bread is enough.
For most of us in Australia, this might seem a little strange given that the problem we struggle with is obesity, not starvation! Most of us have access to social welfare if we lose our job. Of course, for Jesus’ audience, living was often a daily hand-to-mouth affair. Casual workers were paid at the end of the day and there was no social safety net, so if you got sick or couldn’t find work or there was a drought, it spelled disaster.
Daily bread probably includes all our daily needs (as someone said, our needs, not our greeds). With the housing crisis and rising homelessness, I think praying for a roof over our heads is a very legitimate application of this model!
But for most of us, perhaps we need to seek a more spiritual application for this prayer. In fact, many of the early Church Fathers saw a more spiritual meaning to epiousios.
Origen, a 3rd Century theologian from Alexandrea in North Africa put it this way:
Since some understand from this that we are commanded to pray for material bread, it will be well to refute their error here and to establish the truth about the epiousios (supersubstantial) bread. We must ask them how it could be that He who commanded us to ask for great and heavenly favors should command us to intercede with the Father for what is small and of the earth, as if He had forgotten… what He had taught. For the bread that is given to our flesh is neither heavenly, nor is the request for it a great request…
In the Gospel according to John He says to those who had come to Capernaum seeking for him: “Amen, amen, I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles but because you did eat of the loaves and were filled.” One who has eaten of the bread blessed by Jesus and is filled with it tries all the more to understand the Son of God more perfectly and hastens to him. Hence his admirable command: “Labor not for the meat that perishes but for that which endures to life ever-lasting, which the Son of Man will give you.” … The “true bread” is that which nourishes the true humanity, the person created after the image of God.
We don’t need to take this to the same extreme as Origen, that thinking of daily bread as physical bread is wrong! But it does add a layer to the prayer because for all of us, our greatest need is for daily spiritual bread. We need that communion with Christ in prayer through the Word and by his Spirit. So if you struggle with your walk with God, can I encourage you to pray this - even if you just recite it, but recite it from your heart. “Our Father in Heaven, give us the heavenly bread that is Jesus.”
:RELATIONSHIPS:
Another reason to see the request for daily bread as spiritual is that Jesus very quickly slips into the spiritual matter of forgiveness.
‘Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.’
Jesus used the metaphor of debt a lot in regards to our relationship with God and how we should treat others. We owe God a debt we can never repay. We have a debt of sin, and Christ came to pay that on the cross. But I wonder if we also owe God a debt of gratitude as the giver of life that we can never repay. In any case, God graciously forgives us our sins, but there is a condition.
Jesus says to ask for forgiveness in the same way we have forgiven those who owe us something. This is so serious that at the end of the prayer, in vv.14-15, Jesus revisits it when he says, “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
That is terrifyingly explicit.
You might say, ‘But I thought God’s grace is free.’ And it is. But if you were around for our series on Galatians, do you remember when I said that we need to understand what we are saved from and saved to. We are saved into a Kingdom of Grace and we can’t continue to live by law, which is essentially what non-forgiveness of debts is.
Evidently Peter struggled with this concept as well, and Jesus told a parable in Matthew 18.21–35
" Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”
“I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle accounts, one who owed ten thousand talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt.
“At this, the servant fell facedown before him and said, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you everything.’ Then the master of that servant had compassion, released him, and forgave him the loan.
“That servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him, started choking him, and said, ‘Pay what you owe!’
“At this, his fellow servant fell down and began begging him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ But he wasn’t willing. Instead, he went and threw him into prison until he could pay what was owed. When the other servants saw what had taken place, they were deeply distressed and went and reported to their master everything that had happened. Then, after he had summoned him, his master said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Shouldn’t you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And because he was angry, his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he could pay everything that was owed. So also my heavenly Father will do to you unless every one of you forgives his brother or sister from your heart.”
There is no getting around it! And I wonder if sometimes we struggle with our spiritual walk because we’re hanging onto debts that people owe us. It may very well be that we have been grievously wronged — we are 100% justified. And yet the Kingdom of God, which we’re to pray for, is one of radical grace. God would be justified in sending every one of us to hell and the most righteous saint would have no grounds to object. But in his unconditional love and mercy God has forgiven us. How can we expect to receive his blessing if we continue in the opposite spirit?
Sometimes we hang onto relatively minor, if understandable, grudges. Get over it! Your soul is not worth it!
Sometimes we carry deep, deep wounds because of terrible things done to us. Forgiveness is still not a necessity, although it may be difficult. In such cases we need wise friends and counsellors who can walk and pray with us, and maybe professional help. But ultimately, Jesus is our healer, and that includes psychological and emotional trauma. We can trust him.
The prayer for forgiveness is a prayer for spiritual and relational freedom, both for ourselves in relation to God, and for the one who has wronged us.
:SPIRITUAL PROTECTION:
Finally, Jesus teaches us to pray for spiritual guidance and protection.“Do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
It’s an interesting prayer to ask God to not lead us into temptation.
My translation says the ‘evil one’. The Greek is ambiguous about whether Jesus means evil in general or Satan in particular. Both work and, in the end, we want to be delivered from both!
James 1.13 says, “No one undergoing a trial should say, “I am being tempted by God,” since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone.”
This word, ‘temptation’, can also mean, ‘testing’ or ‘trial’. Of course, Jesus also said that we would face many troubles and trials, so what do we do with that?
In the end, most commentators agree that this is a humble admission of our weaknesses and a prayer for deliverance. “Father, please remember we’re just dust. Go easy on us. Rescue us from evil.”
And don’t we all feel this at some level? Sometimes we face very immediate testing or temptation or attacks. We need God’s deliverance. Pray! There’s no doubt the world is becoming more hostile toward Christianity. Some of that is because of the evil done by so-called Christians, and some of it is just general rebellion against God. Either way, Pray!
:CONCLUSION:
This prayer reminds us that God is our provider, even if we live in a prosperous country. It reminds us that He calls us into relationships of radical grace and forgiveness. And it reminds us that He is our deliverer. In some ways it’s a hard way to pray. It calls for humility and courage. But it’s also a powerful way to pray because we are asking for God’s kingdom to be manifest in very practical ways in our lives.
If you struggle with prayer, last week I gave a challenge to just spend time with the first couple of lines of this prayer. ‘Our Father in heaven, your name be honoured as holy.’
A couple of weeks back, Fletcher introduced us to the Examen - contemplative prayer. This week can I challenge you to use this prayer as a framework for prayerful reflection, even if it’s only for five minutes at some point in your day.
What places do I want to see God’s kingdom come into, today?
What physical or spiritual needs do I need God to supply, today?
Who do I need to forgive, today?
What do I need to repent of and seek forgiveness for, today?
What do I need God to deliver me from, today?
And let’s see what happens to us!
