Our Father Which Art in Heaven

Years ago I was invited to preach at an English-speaking church in La Paz, Bolivia. It is always challenging changing gears to English when most of my public speaking is done in Spanish. On this occasion I was asked to lead the church service which included a congregational recitation of what we commonly call The Lord's Prayer.

This forced me to confront one small problem - I couldn't remember The Lord's Prayer in English! In fact, as I sat on the podium during congregational singing, I couldn't even remember where it was located in Scripture! My guess is that I was experiencing the equivalent of pastoral "brain freeze."

Finally, with flop sweat forming on my brow, I remembered the beginning words, "Our Father which art in heaven..." Seriously, utilizing all of my mnemonic tricks, that was all that I could bring to mind.

It was with more than a small amount of trepidation that I approached the pulpit with these words running through my mind. My only hope was that the members of the congregation had more in common with Pavlov's dogs than most assumed. I remember looking out at the people and saying in the deepest voice I could muster, "Our Father..." My knees were weak with gratitude when they all began to bark, er, repeat with me, ".. which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come..."

This week I have been spending some time looking at Jesus' teaching on prayer - especially as it is recorded in Matthew 6:7-15.

Jesus makes a sharp contrast between pagan (and hypocritical) prayer and meaningful communication with our heavenly Father. In our various English translations, the word translated "vain repetitions," "empty phrases" or "to keep on babbling" (v.7) is the Greek word, battalogeo. As far as I know it does not occur anyplace else. No one seems to know what really means. However, it may be one of those onomatopoeic words - the sound of the word IS the meaning.

Basically what Jesus forbids is people praying without engaging their minds and their hearts. Many people go through the pretense of prayer because they think the more they say, the more likely it is to be heard. I have to wonder what kind of God we would have if He was primarily impressed by the numeric statistics of prayer.

The reason Christians should not pray like the pagans is that we believe in the living and true God. He is literally "our Father in heaven" (v.9). He is personal. He is powerful. He is the One who sees, hears and listens and He will respond (Exodus 3:7).
I could be wrong (Susan likes it when I at least say that), but it seems like Jesus' teaching includes six requests. The first three deal with God's glory - His name, His kingdom, His will. The last three with our needs - daily bread, forgiveness and delivering us from evil. These six requests still cover the reality of an authentic, Christian experience, even in the 21st Century.

One of my friends on Facebook defines her religious beliefs by simply writing, "as above, so below." As God's will is done in heaven, it is should be our desire that it is done - or, lived out or made reality - here on earth. Heaven broke into this world when Jesus was born. To pray "thy kingdom come" (v. 9,10) is to pray that the practical reality of this kingdom would be made evident through the church's witness as we submit to Him. Of course, it also looks forward to Jesus' return in glory.

I must admit that it can be pretty easy to simply repeat these words - just like the pagans. However, if I begin to sincerely pray them, my priorities are going to change. I am going to think less of my reputation and less of my personal agenda and begin to concentrate more on God's. Our ability to pray these words with any level of personal conviction could be a better measure of the reality of our Christian faith than anything else.

Among the early church writers there was a tendency to "allegorize" Christ's teaching on prayer. Apparently they thought it was not appropriate for us to pray for something so common as bread (v.11). I appreciate Martin Luther's "earthiness" here. Luther wrote that bread was representative of "everything necessary for the preservation of life, like food, a healthy body, good weather, house, home, wife, children, good government and peace." While that does not include a new iPhone it does include most of life's other necessities.

Marghanita Laski was a journalist, novelist and editor born in Manchester, England. In her later life she was a frequent contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary. She was also an atheist. During a television interview she stated, "What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness. I have no one to forgive me."

After preaching once in Houston (in the Texas variant of English), an elderly gentleman approached me and gave me one of the best compliments I have ever received. He looked me straight in the eye (the way Texas gentlemen do) and said, "You seem to be a man who knows he has been saved from something." I hope that is true. I hope my whole ministry is based on the reality of the forgiveness that has been extended to me. It seems to me that those people who have experienced real grace are the ones who can extend it to others.

"Father may Your kingdom be a reality in my life and the life of the Christian church. Father, may You forgive me of my regular failures that are really called sin. Father, help me to extend that same forgiveness to others as I continue to show the reality of Your grace."