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Teach Us to Pray – Part 2

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Teach Us to Pray – Part 2

Luke 11:1-13

Last week we finished Part 1 of our deep dive into Luke’s version of The Lord’s Prayer with the petition Your kindom come.  As I said last week, a literal translation would be “Let it come, the reign of you,” or “Let your reign begin.”  I also pointed out that this petition, “let your reign begin” is where this prayer stops being a nice religious sentiment or litany of devotion and becomes an endorsement of a better reality.  

Your kingdom come, or Let your reign begin is a declaration that we are in favor of radical changes in the way the world operates.  When we pray your kingdom come, we are asking God to work through us to make significant changes in economics, politics, religion and society in order to bring the justice and shalom of God to our everyday lives.  When we pray your kingdom come, let your reign begin, we are volunteering to live here and now God’s shalom and also to do whatever we can to bring God’s shalom to others and to all creation.

Shalom is what the Lord’s Prayer is all about.  Shalom is a Hebrew word that means peace.  But it’s not merely a peace based on the absence or suppression of hostility.  The word Shalom comes from the Hebrew root shalam which literally means “make it good.”  It is a word used to describe completeness and wholeness.  And, while it’s good for us to seek our own inner shalom, the real shalom of God’s reign happens in community.  The Shalom of the kin-dom is a peace that recognizes that we are all interconnected and interdependent.  Shalom desires the peace and well-being of others, which means that it requires justice and fairness.  

Cherokee theologian Randy S. Woodley describes it this way:  “Shalom is communal, holistic, and tangible. There is no private or partial shalom. The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom. As long as there are hungry people in a community that is well fed, there can be no shalom. . . . Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone.”[1] 

When we pray Your kingdom come, we are praying for shalom in our homes, in our towns, in our churches, in our nation and throughout the whole world.  We are praying for peace and justice and fairness for everyone.  And that brings us naturally to Give us each day our daily bread, because in God’s shalom everyone is fed and no one goes hungry. 

Give us each day our daily bread.  There is some ambiguity in the Greek wording here, and it can be translated in two ways.  The first way, of course, is the way we’re used to hearing it or saying it: give us today our daily bread.  Amy-Jill Levine points out, though, that this is not only redundant but rather odd.  She suggests that a better translation would be give us tomorrow’s bread today.  

Give us tomorrow’s bread today is a valid translation from a linguistic standpoint, but it may also give us both a more practical and a more wholistic way to think about what we’re asking.  In most households in Jesus’ day, the dough for the next day’s bread was prepared the evening before and allowed to rise during the night.  If you were going to have bread tomorrow, you needed to have the ingredients today.  Understood this way, this petition is a way of asking for something very practical.  We’re asking God to save us from at least a little anxiety by ensuring that we have today what we will need tomorrow.  

But this petition of the prayer reaches beyond our family table.  It is reminiscent of a traditional Jewish table prayer called the motzi: “Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.”  It reminds us that God doesn’t just magically put bread on the table, God uses the generosity of the earth and the labor of the whole community to put bread on the table. 

Last week I told the story of the little boy who was saying his bedtime prayers and prayed very loudly, “AND GOD, PLEASE GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!”  When his mother reminded him that he didn’t need to say it so loudly because God isn’t hard of hearing, he said  “I know, but Grandma is.”  As I said last week, this little guy was onto something—God often uses others to answer our prayers, in fact, that’s how it works most of the time.

When we pray give us tomorrow’s bread today, we are asking God to care for the land where the wheat grows.  We’re asking for clean and gentle rains so the crops can grow.  We are asking God to guard and protect the farmers who plant and care for and harvest the crops.  We are asking God to care for those who transport the wheat and mill it into flour.  We are asking God to care for the hands that make the dough and knead it and bake it.  We are asking for fuel for the fire in the ovens.  

Bread on the table depends entirely on the well-being of the community and on our relationships within the community.  God brings forth bread from the earth, but it is a team effort.  When we pray for both today’s bread and tomorrow’s we are once again praying for the shalom of God’s kin-dom.  The next time you hold a piece of bread in your hand, or any piece of food for that matter, think of all the hands that labored to bring it to your hand.

Shalom is what makes it possible for us to have our daily bread.  But sometimes things we do or say disrupt the cooperation and mutuality that make shalom possible.  Sometimes our sins or the sins of others rupture relationships, and forgiveness is needed to restore those relationships.  And that’s why Jesus taught us to pray And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  

Luke says “forgive us our sins.”  Matthew says, “forgive us our debts.”  In both Aramaic and Hebrew, “debt” was another way to talk about sin.  In the version we pray in our congregation, we usually say “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  That’s a perfectly fine way to pray this petition.  It reminds us that we do sin against God and against each other.  We do need forgiveness from God and from each other.  This petition reminds us that there is a reciprocity involved in forgiveness.  As Jesus said in Luke 6:37, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  Once again it’s about relationships all the way down, which means that this petition, too, is also about God’s shalom.

But let’s go back to the language about debts and forgiving debts.  Remember that Jesus was a Jew and he was teaching this prayer to his Jewish disciples.  This language about debts would have been a reminder to them of everything the Torah has to say about economic justice.  Jesus is telling them and us to live in an economically just way.

In Hebrew, the word for charity, tzedakah, is from the same root as the word for righteousness, tzedek.  Torah says in Deuteronomy 15:11, “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’”  Deuteronomy 24:14 tells us, “You shall not withhold the wages of the poor and needy laborers, whether Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns.” 

In this petition, Jesus reminds us to think of our spiritual indebtedness—we are all indebted to God’s grace—but we are reminded to consider the economic implications of the way we live.  Are the products and services we buy produced in a way that’s economically fair to the workers who produce them?   Does my lifestyle depend on or contribute to some economic injustice?  What can I do to change that?

Living a life of faith as a follower of Jesus means that sometimes we face difficult questions. Sometimes it feels almost as if we’re being tested.

And do not bring us to the time of trial.  When the Book of Common Prayer was revised in 1604, the phrase “and lead us not into temptation” in The Lord’s Prayer caused a huge controversy.  The Puritans were quick to point out that the Book of James says, “No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13)  This was only one of several complaints they had about the Book of Common Prayer, but it was one they were not willing to compromise.

They had a point.  What the Greek says in both Luke and Matthew is “do not bring us into a peirasmon.  Peirasmon is a time or place of testing, trial or examination.  Temptation may be a kind of test, but not every test is a temptation.  In this petition, you are asking to be spared from any kind of catastrophe or stress, any situation that would put your faith to the test. 

As I said in Part 1, The Lord’s Prayer, this prayer that Jesus gave his disciples is not only one of the great treasures of our faith, it’s also, in its way, a radical call to a discipleship.  In this prayer we are asking God to empower us, guide us, and walk with us as we embrace a new way of life with new values and a new vision of what the world can be.  It really is, in six simple lines, a kind of manifesto for life as a follower of Jesus.  In this prayer we are asking for peace, health, and  wholeness for ourselves and for our community.  We are asking God to help us live in the shalom of the kin-dom here and now.  We are asking God to help us live in the Way of Love.

“Shalom,” writes Jamie Arpin-Ricci, “is what love looks like in the flesh. The embodiment of love in the context of a broken creation, shalom is a hint at what was, what should be, and what will one day be again. Where sin disintegrates and isolates, shalom brings together and restores. Where fear and shame throw up walls and put on masks, shalom breaks down barriers and frees us from the pretense of our false selves.”[2] 

When we pray for God’s name not to be profaned, when we pray for God’s reign to begin in earnest, when we pray for a healthy community and world so that everyone may have tomorrow’s bread today, when we pray for forgiveness and the power to forgive, we are praying for God’s vision of a healthy world.  When we say “Amen,” we are not only saying “Make it so,” we are saying we will do what we can to live in that vision and make it a reality for others.  In Jesus’ name.

[1] Shalom and the Community of Creation; Randy S. Woodley

[2] Jamie Arpin-Ricci, Vulnerable Faith: Missional Living in the Radical Way of St. Patrick

Teach Us to Pray – Part 1

Steve Beckham 2 Comments

Luke 11:1-13

A little boy was saying his bedtime prayers and finished by saying very loudly, “AND GOD, PLEASE GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!”  “Why did you say that so loudly?” his mother asked. “God’s not hard of hearing.”  “I know,” he said.  “But Grandma is.”

Whether he knew it or not, this little guy was onto something.  God often uses other people to answer our prayers, in fact, I would say that that’s how it works most of the time.  I’ll say more about that next week.

The Gospel text for this week contains Luke’s version of the prayer we know as The Lord’s Prayer.  This prayer that Jesus gave his disciples is not only one of the great treasures of our faith, it’s also, in its way, a radical call to a discipleship.  In this prayer we are asking God to empower us, guide us, and walk with us as we embrace a new way of life with new values and a new vision of what the world can be.  It really is, in six simple lines, a kind of manifesto for life as a follower of Jesus.

Because this prayer is so important, not just historically, but also for the life and future of the church, I’m going to take us through it in two parts.  This week we’ll go up through “Your kingdom come.”  Next week we’ll start with “our daily bread.”

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”  Now why would the disciple be asking this?  The disciples almost surely already knew how to pray in general.  They had probably all learned the various traditional Jewish prayers, and they had watched Jesus pray many times.  So what, exactly is the disciple asking for?   Well, there’s a clue in the phrase “as John taught his disciples.”

John the Baptizer had apparently taught his disciples a special prayer for their community.  This prayer would have identified them as followers of John, and it would have contained key words or phrases that would have reminded them of John’s teachings.   Now this disciple of Jesus is asking for a similar prayer to be used by the community of his followers, and Jesus responds by giving them what we’ve come to know as The Lord’s Prayer.  

Because Jesus gives this prayer to his disciples as a kind of gift to the community of his followers, I’ve often thought that calling it The Disciples’ Prayer would make more sense, but we’ve known it as The Lord’s Prayer for so long that trying to rename it is probably a lost cause.  Still, it’s worth remembering that this is a prayer that Jesus gave to his followers to be used as something that would identify and unite them, and at the same time remind them of what he had taught them. 

There are a few different versions of the Lord’s prayer.  That’s partly because it was originally transmitted and taught orally.  As such, it would naturally be remembered slightly differently from community to community.  This is probably why the version in the Gospel of Luke differs slightly from the version in the Gospel of Matthew, and both of them differ from the version in the Didache, the late first-century manual on how to do church.  The most common version used today is based on the wording that first appeared in The Book of Common Prayer in 1549.  That version, in turn, was based on William Tyndale’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew from 1526.  That’s the only translation, by the way, where you’ll find “forgive us our trespasses” in Matthew 6:12 instead of “forgive us our debts.”[1]

I could talk all day about difficulties and variations in translation and transmission of the prayer.  It has even been a centerpiece of controversy a time or two in church history, but for now let’s use Luke’s version to take a deeper look at the meaning of this amazing prayer that Jesus has given to us.

“When you pray,” said Jesus—and the “you” is plural here—“when all y’all pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

Prayer is simply a conversation with God.  You start a conversation by getting the other person’s attention and you usually do that by saying their name or title.  For example, my grandsons call me Pono.  When I hear one of the say, “Pono,” I know they want to talk to me about something or ask me something or sometimes just come sit with me.  It’s the same when we begin the Lord’s Prayer saying, “Father…”  We’re letting God know we want to communicate something.  

The word Father also conveys a relationship.  “Father” acknowledges that we have a personal relationship with God.  It’s supposed to help us feel like we’re sharing our hearts with a warm, nurturing, loving parent.  

That’s the kind of relationship Jesus is encouraging us to have with God.  But the Father image, or for that matter the Mother image doesn’t work for everybody.  Some people have experienced abuse or conflict with their father or mother or both so parent imagery isn’t inviting for them.  When that’s the case, it’s perfectly okay to address God in some other way.

Devout Jews will often address God as Hashem in their prayers.  Hashem means “the name,” and addressing God as Hashem gives them a way to address God by name, sort of, without actually saying God’s name, which they believe is too holy to be spoken.  In effect, Hashem becomes a name they call God in much the same way that Pono is the name my grandsons call me.   

In her book Help. Thanks. Wow., Anne Lamott wrote, “Nothing could matter less than what we call [God].  I know some ironic believers who call God Howard, as in ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard by thy name.’  I called God Phil for a long time, after a Mexican bracelet maker promised to write ‘Phil 4:4-7’ on my bracelet, Philippians 4:4-7 being my favorite passage of Scripture, but got only as far as ‘Phil’ before having to dismantle his booth.  Phil is a great name for God.

“Let’s not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to.  Let’s just say prayer is communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard;  to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us.  We could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800.  Or for convenience we could just say ‘God.’”

Anne Lamott’s advice to call on God with whatever name opens your heart and draws you closer to God might seem contradictory to what comes next in the Lord’s Prayer: “Hallowed be your name,” or to translate it directly from the Greek, “Let it be sacred, the name of you.”  So are we treating God’s name as sacred if we call on God as Howard or Phil or Hashem?  Well that depends entirely on your attitude when you use that name. 

The Jewish people have always avoided saying the actual name of God, the name God spoke to Moses from the burning bush.  One reason they avoid speaking God’s name is that it’s one way to ensure that they don’t break the commandment against taking the Lord’s name in vain.  Taking God’s name in vain means a lot more than just saying God’s name at the wrong time or in the wrong way or saying “Oh my God” as an expletive.  Taking God’s name in vain means using the name or authority of God in a way that draws ridicule.  It can mean taking the authority of God upon yourself for purposes that have nothing to do with God’s reign or God’s desires.  It can mean using God’s name or authority to further your own ideas or agenda, to buttress your own authority, orr simply using God’s name or authority for show.

Let it be sacred, Hashem.  Let it be sacred, the name of you.

When we pray this, we are asking God to help and guide us and everyone else who “calls upon the name of the Lord.”  It’s a way of saying, “Keep us honest, Hashem.”

The next petition in the prayer is maybe the most challenging if we really think about what we’re saying.

“Your kingdom come.”  Or again, translating directly from Luke’s Greek text, “Let it come, the reign of you.”   

I think sometimes that if we took this petition seriously our knees would buckle.  When we pray this, we are volunteering to do whatever we can to make God’s reign a reality here and now.  We are saying that we are not just in favor of radical changes in the way we do things—radical economic, political, religious and societal changes—we are saying that we will volunteer to make those changes as God guides us.  

This is where the Lord’s Prayer is no longer merely a nice religious artifact or litany of devotion. This petition is where the Lord’s Prayer becomes subversive in the best possible way.  And if anyone wants to suggest that Jesus is really praying about the establishment of God’s heavenly kingdom at the end of time, then I would suggest that they haven’t really read the gospels or understood the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus wasn’t crucified because he talked about heaven; he was executed for proclaiming that the kin-dom of God was within reach.  

“Your kingdom come” or “let your reign begin” also has to go hand-in-hand with “let your name be sacred.”  We are praying for God’s vision to become a reality, not our own vision.  

So… I’m leaving you with a lot to think about this week.  How do you speak to God?  How do you call upon God?  What name or practice opens your heart to deep communication with the heart of Life and Love?  How do you safeguard and respect the authority of God?  How do you avoid abusing that authority and power?  And most importantly, are you really ready and willing for God’s reign to begin here and now?  

[1] I’m very grateful to Brian Stoffregen for this bit of history and other insights in his weekly Exegetical Notes.

When You Haven’t Got a Prayer (you really do)

Steve Beckham 5 Comments

John 17:6-19

“Prayer for many is like a foreign land,” said Robert McAfee Brown.  “When we go there, we go as tourists.  Like most tourists, we feel uncomfortable and out of place.  Like most tourists, we therefore move on before too long and go somewhere else.”

If you’ve ever felt even a little bit uncomfortable or awkward about praying, if you’ve ever felt like a “tourist in a foreign land” when you pray,  here in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, is an example of Jesus praying for his disciples that should make us all a lot more comfortable about our own prayer life.  Jesus is clearly praying from the heart here.  He knows the end is near.  There is a lot to say and not much time left to say it.  He prays for protection for these friends who have been his travel companions and students for three years and are heading into more difficulty than they can begin to imagine.  He prays for their unity.  That has to be comforting for them.  There is comfort here for us, too, especially as his request for protection and unity for his followers travels down through the ages to include us here and now.  But there is something else in this prayer that should make us more at ease in our own prayers.

Jesus rambles.  I mean no disrespect or sacrilege when I say that.  In this prayer, Jesus rambles.  We could, of course, ascribe that rambling to the writer of the Gospel.  But we can’t deny it.  In this wonderful, passionate, heartfelt prayer for the unity and protection of his disciples, Jesus rambles.  A bit.

I, for one, find that very comforting.  Because I ramble in my prayers.  Often.   I talk to God a lot, and it’s a rare blue day when I come into the conversation with all my thoughts completely organized.  I know people who do, but that’s just not my personality type.  

Over the years of my ministry I’ve been asked a number of times to teach a class or workshop on prayer.   I confess it always catches me by surprise.  Part of me wants to say, “How do you not know how to pray?”  But I realized years ago that a lot of people think there is a proper method for praying and they suspect they’re not doing it right.  Or they think that if they learn some secret formula for prayer they have a better chance of their prayers being answered the way they want them answered.  

Here’s the thing.  Prayer is not that complicated.   There really aren’t any secrets.

“Prayer is simply a two-way conversation with God.”  Billy Graham said that.  And since God doesn’t talk all that much, that means that you can simply share your thoughts with God.  That’s prayer.  You don’t have to kneel or fold your hands—although if it helps you pray to do that, then by all means do so.  

If you’re the kind of person who likes more structure than that, you can try the ACTS model for prayer.  A-C-T-S.  A for Adoration, C for Confession, T for Thanksgiving, S-for supplication.  Start by telling God all the wonderful things you’re seeing and experiencing and how much you love God for filling the world with such wonders.  When’s the last time you said, “I love you” to God?  You might be surprise at how much that simple act can change you.  So, Adoration.  Then do some introspection and Confess your mistakes and shortcomings.  You don’t have to beat yourself up.  Just acknowledge them.  Follow that by Thanking God for all the ways you’ve been blessed, all the ways you’ve been protected and cared for, for the food on your table, for, well, everything that makes your life livable.  “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, that will be enough,” said Meister Eckhart.  After you’ve said “thank you,” then you can ask for things.  That’s the time for Supplication. Unless it’s an emergency, of course.  If something is bleeding or broken—and that includes your heart—you can lead with supplication.

Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.  ACTS.  The nice thing about this model is that it keeps you from leaping right into your conversation with God with your requests.  It keeps us from treating God like Santa Claus or a celestial vending machine.

The point of prayer, after all, is not to get things from God or keep giving God your wish list. Remember, Jesus told us, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask.” (Matthew 6:8)  The real point of prayer is to develop and deepen your relationship with God.  “Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God,”  said St. Theresa of Avila.  Henri Nouwen said, “Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.” “What if,” asked Richard Rohr, “what if instead of prayer, we used the word communing?  When you’re communing with someone, it isn’t long before you’re loving them.”

As for doing it right…there are as many ways to pray as there are people praying.  “Those who sing pray twice,” said Martin Luther.  So singing is an option.  So is dancing.  You can pray while walking.  You can pray while exercising.  Saint Ignatius said, “Bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, is also prayer and pleasing to our Lord.”  So there you go!  Pray while you’re at the gym!  

Back before I lost most of my hearing I used to lose myself  in improvising on my guitar and I would offer that time to God as a kind of prayer.  Kelsey Grammer said, “Prayer is when you talk to God.  Meditation is when you’re listening.  Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time.”  I think most musicians have had that kind of experience.  There are times in music when you experience a  holy presence that goes beyond words.  You can experience that even when you’re just listening if you really immerse yourself in the music.

“The Glory of God is the human being fully alive;” said Saint Irenaeus, “the life of a human being is the vision of God.”  So if you’re singing or you’re dancing or riffing on your bagpipes, let that flow to the perichoresis of the ever-dancing Holy Trinity as a communion of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.  Let that activity speak for your heart and don’t worry about impressing God with churchy-sounding words and phrases.  “In prayer it is better to have a heart without words,” said Gandhi, “than words without heart.”  “The fewer the words, the better the prayer,” said  Martin Luther.

And don’t worry about whether you should address God as Father, or Jesus, or Spirit, or Lord.  It’s all one to the Three-in-One.  When you speak to one of them you speak to all three. 

Prayer is a powerful way to center yourself in difficult times.  Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the artist and sculptor who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 for organizing and leading the opposition to Argentina’s military dictatorship said, “For me it is essential to have the inner peace and serenity of prayer in order to listen to the silence of God, which speaks to us, in our personal life and the history of our times, of the power of love.”  Such an extraordinary thing—to find through prayer the strength and resolve to love in the face of brutal opposition.  “Prayer,” said Myles Monroe, “is our invitation to God to intervene in the affairs of the world.”   “Prayer is not an old woman’s idle amusement,” said Gandhi.  “Properly understood and properly applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”  “To clasp the hands in prayer,” said Karl Barth, “is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”

Prayer is a powerful tool for difficult times, and we tend to turn to it automatically in times of crisis. But we shouldn’t wait for a crisis to turn to God.  As I said at the beginning, the main purpose of prayer is to deepen and strengthen our relationship with God.  “The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals,” wrote C.S. Lewis.  “And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.”  

That, in the end, is what prayer is all about:  letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And letting our lives flow more deeply into the life of God in whom we live, and move, and have our being.