The Lord’s Prayer
Luke 11:1-13
Our gospel text this morning from Luke is a very familiar one.
In fact, we pray the Lord’s prayer each Sunday in worship.
And we often conclude meetings with the Lord’s prayer.
Because it is so familiar to us, it can become a remote saying, rather than an actual prayer.
It is important to look deeply into Jesus’ teachings with respect to every word that Jesus teaches the disciples to pray.
First of all, why Father?
The Holy Scriptures, which at that time only included what we refer to today as the old testament, had many metaphors for God.
God is the Defender in Psalm 84, the Fort in Psalm 18, A Fortress in Psalm 94, a King in Psalm 145, the Light is Psalm 24, and a Rock in Psalm 28, just to name a few.
But Jesus addressing God as Father, brings a relationship of closeness and endearment to our Lord God.
God as a Rock has strength, but it would be difficult to elicit an emotion of love from rock.
Jesus addresses God as Father, and then goes beyond our concept of an earthly father, to describe God, as is written in other ancient manuscripts, as “Our Father in heaven.”
Jesus then gives reverence to God.
Jesus says that God’s name is hallowed.
What exactly does that mean?
To hallow God’s name is to pray for the kingdom and for the doing of God’s will.
It is the affirmation of God’s sovereignty in an eschatological hope.
And to unpack the word eschatology for anyone who may not be familiar with it, it means the end times.
The Lord’s prayer is a prayer of a community living in an eschatological atmosphere, and this is properly what the church is when it prays this prayer.
If we study the Lord’s prayer in the language Jesus spoke it, we would find that the verb used in this address is spoken in the passive voice.
The passive imperatives are the language of prayer.
Use of the passive was an act of reverence and is an illustration of reference to the reverence of God.
The name of God implied his nature and power.
To hallow God’s name means to recognize and accept his nature and its demands, and the full answer to this petition presupposes the eschatological consummation.
In the interim, it is in every sense a “missionary” prayer, for it implies the spread of the knowledge of God’s name until all people hold it sacred.
As we continue through the prayer, passed the address, we come to the petition.
“Thy kingdom come.”
What does this really mean for Jesus’ disciples and what does it really mean for us?
For Jesus’ disciples, it meant that they no longer wanted to be ruled by an earthly king.
A king who’s mission was to gain wealth and prestige for himself.
A king who was interested in his own gain.
A king who often cared little about the people beneath him.
We also await the rule of God.
We are tired of the oppression of Kings like Sadam Hussain and Yassar Arafat.
We want God to rule our lives because God is love.
We want God to rule our lives because God is interested in our needs.
We want God to rule our lives because God knows our hearts and our desires.
In Jesus’ next petition to God, Jesus asks for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We know by the teachings of Jesus what God’s will is.
God’s will is for us to love God and love our neighbors.
We know who are neighbors are by Jesus’ instructions of the good Samaritan.
When Jesus begins petitioning God, he changes his verb tense from passive to active.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Do it now.
Don’t wait for a law to be passed.
Don’t wait for the next year to begin.
Don’t wait for a new day to start.
Do it now.
Right now.
Give us Lord, what we need to get us through the day.
Jesus is not just praying for bread, but in that word bread, Jesus is praying for everything we need to sustain life.
Jesus could have said, give us bread, rice, corn, milk, grain, vegetables, fruits, fish.
But in this one word bread, Jesus summed up all that we need.
Again, if we go back to the original word that Jesus used, its connotation meant all that was necessary for real life.
And without giving you a lesson in Aramaic grammar, the verb for give us this day is in the aorist tense, which means continually, each and every day, and at all times.
We could easily read into and between the text, knowing that Jesus is the bread of life.
Jesus could be referring to so much more.
Jesus could be referring to Holy Eucharist.
Jesus could be referring to healing and the needs of every human being.
Know what you are praying when you pray the Lord’s prayer, and pray it with meaning.
Understand each and every word to its full potential for your life and know that it contains everything we need.
In the next petition, Jesus teaches us that we are to forgive others and God will forgive us.
Whether our language is sin, debts, sins, or trespasses, the connotation has the same meaning.
Whatever we do that has wronged God or wronged our neighbor, we are to ask for forgiveness and to forgive.
God delights in our repentant hearts.
God graciously and abundantly forgives.
Forgiveness does our hearts good.
If we look at the flip side of forgiveness, we do ourselves great injustice and harm which can manifest itself in illness to our physical and or emotional health.
God’s abundant grace given to all who forgive turns to judgment for those who will not forgive.
Luke’s reading of the next petition implores God to not bring us to the time of trial.
Here again, Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer employs an eschatological urgency of the coming of the trials and gnashing of teeth in the last days as witnessed in the accounts of Revelation.
Luke’s request has a sense of raising us up on the last days to save us from the torment of those who do not believe in the risen Christ.
In other translations from the Aramaic, we read deliver us from evil or deliver us from the evil one.
Both these translations have a sense of the here and now.
Deliver us each day from temptation.
Keep us from harm’s way of the tempter Beelzebub.
Shield us from the wickedness he will try to have us do.
Bring us not into the power of sin, iniquity, temptation or contempt.
Let the good impulse have dominion over me, but not the evil impulse.
Lead us not into sin or temptation…let not the evil inclination have sway over us.
Protect us from the imminent dangers that will prove to be a test.
Guard us against the devil.
Keep us from harms way of the antichrist.
Deliver us from the evil one.
Whether evil comes from other people, inner impulse, circumstances, or the enemy finally disclosed, prayer for deliverance is appropriate and we may be asked to be spared the final, overwhelming test.
In praying the Lord’s prayer, we are reminded of its importance to our every day life and to our eternal life.
The Lord’s prayer reflects Jesus’ teaching between the kingdom near at hand and the kingdom yet to come.
The Lord’s prayer also reflects clearly the priorities which he emphasized and applies them to the practice of prayer.
Our first concern must be for God’s concerns, as they were Christ’s, and then our needs fall into perspective.
The Lord’s Prayer acts upon the injunction: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well”.
In affirming where our true treasure is, the petitions determine the proper nature of our interest.
When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we are communing with the Creator.
We connect with God, so that His Power and Life can flow through us.
When we connect with God, we become stronger spiritually.
When we connect with God, we will know His will for our lives and will be able to make Godly decisions.
When we connect with God, we are able to resist temptation.
When we connect with God, we are able to forgive one another and love one another.
Praise be to God.
Amen.
