The Lord and His Prayer

1. The Lord's Prayer: A Lens into Jesus' Revolutionary Mission

This prayer, then, serves as a lens through which to see Jesus himself, and to discover something of what he was about.

Jesus' core message. The Lord's Prayer is not merely a set of words to recite, but a profound distillation of Jesus' own vocation and understanding of God's purposes. It offers a condensed yet comprehensive insight into how Jesus interpreted and responded to the world's injustice, hunger, malice, and evil. By praying it, we align ourselves with his very breath and life.

Beyond mere lectures. N.T. Wright emphasizes that the insights from his academic study of Jesus' historical life are best understood and applied within the worshipping and witnessing life of the church. The prayer grounds complex theological ideas in practical, communal engagement, making Jesus' message of the coming Kingdom of God accessible and actionable for all believers.

A suit for maturity. While given at baptism, the Lord's Prayer is a "suit of clothes designed for us to wear in our full maturity," implying a lifelong journey of growth and understanding. It invites a "holy boldness" to utter words whose full depth we may not yet grasp, but which we are called to grow into, learning what it means to truly embody its petitions.

2. "Our Father": A Bold Claim of Messianic Freedom

The very first word of the Lord’s Prayer, therefore (in Greek or Aramaic, ‘Father’ would come first), contains within it not just intimacy, but revolution.

Intimacy and liberation. Calling God "Father" is more than a term of personal intimacy; it's a revolutionary declaration rooted in Israel's history. It echoes Moses' declaration to Pharaoh, "Israel is my son, my firstborn; let my people go," linking the term directly to the hope of liberty and a new Exodus from bondage.

Messianic promise. This address also resonates with God's promise to King David, "I will be his Father, and he shall be my Son," identifying the coming Messiah as the focal point of God's covenant. Jesus, by teaching this prayer, invites his followers to see themselves as the "liberty-people," the "Messianic people," ready for God's kingdom to come now.

A risky wager. For Jesus, calling God "Father" was a profound act of faith and vocation, leading him to leave his secure life and embrace a mission that culminated in Gethsemane and Calvary. For us, it means signing on as "apprentice children," taking the "sheer total risk" of participating in God's revolution, which comes through suffering and bearing the world's pain for its healing.

3. "Thy Kingdom Come": God's Earthly Reign, Not Otherworldly Escape

Thy kingdom come, we pray, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Earthly transformation. The petition "Thy Kingdom Come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" explicitly rejects the notion of God's Kingdom as a purely otherworldly reality. It calls for the integration of "heaven" (God's space) and "earth" (our world), anticipating a time when God's purposes are fully realized in the physical, space-time world.

Prophetic fulfillment. Jesus' contemporaries longed for God to be King, tired of human rulers. This prayer invokes ancient prophecies from Ezekiel, Zechariah, Malachi, and especially Isaiah, which speak of YHWH's return to Zion, bringing a new Exodus, defeating evil, and shepherding his people with both majesty and gentleness.

Jesus' unique implementation. Jesus embodied this kingdom-message, not through military victory, but by:

• Releasing captive Israel through welcoming outcasts (Prodigal Son).
• Defeating evil through his unique role as the Suffering Servant.
• Embodying YHWH's return as a shepherd.
  His followers, initially surprised by the cross and resurrection, came to believe the Kingdom had indeed come, albeit in an unexpected, world-transforming way.

4. "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread": The Inclusive Kingdom Banquet

Jesus was re-inventing the Kingdom of God around his own work; and at the heart of it was the great sign of welcome to all-comers, welcome to the party, to the Messianic Banquet, to the renewed people of God.

Beyond personal wants. This petition for "daily bread" transcends a mere shopping list of personal needs. It connects to Jesus' deliberate actions of feasting with "gluttons and winebibbers"—a sign of the Messianic banquet, where God welcomes all, especially the outcasts and sinners. His parties were signs of the Kingdom's arrival, challenging social norms and celebrating God's unexpected presence.

Kingdom blessings now. Matthew's version, "give us today our bread for tomorrow," suggests a prayer for the blessings of the coming Kingdom to be experienced in the present. Luke's "give us each day our daily bread" affirms that God's Kingdom embraces and dignifies our physical, daily needs, pointing beyond them to a deeper provision.

Praying with the hungry. This clause calls us to:

• Bring all our desires, known to God, into prayer for sorting and reaffirmation.
• Pray for specific, honest needs, trusting God as a loving Father.
• Lift our eyes beyond ourselves to the millions suffering hunger and desperation, praying with and for them.
  The Eucharist serves as the ultimate expression, where we receive God's bread of life and commit to sharing it, embodying Jesus' welcome to all.

5. "Forgive Us Our Trespasses": A Radical Call to Jubilee Forgiveness

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

The Running Father. Jesus' parable of the Running Father dramatically redefines forgiveness, portraying God as eagerly embracing the disgraced, rather than sternly awaiting penance. This challenges modern tendencies to either trivialize sin or replace forgiveness with mere "tolerance," insisting on the genuine, shocking article of God's pardon.

Liberation from sin and debt. Forgiveness, in Jesus' context, was intrinsically linked to Israel's liberation from oppression and exile, which were seen as consequences of sin. John the Baptist's "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" heralded a new Exodus. Jesus' radical claim was that this "Forgiveness of Sins" was happening now, through his own actions of healing and feasting with sinners.

Prayer and life intertwined. The clause "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" inextricably links prayer with action. It's not about earning forgiveness, but demonstrating loyalty to Jesus' Kingdom, where reciprocal forgiveness, including the cancellation of debts (as implied by Matthew's "debts"), is a foundational practice. The church is called to embody this Jubilee-message for the world.

6. "Deliver Us from Evil": Triumph Over Darkness Through Christ's Victory

Do not let us be led into the Testing — but deliver us from Evil!

Mary's pain, Israel's travail. The prayer for deliverance from evil is rooted in the imagery of Mary's "hopes and fears" and Israel's prophetic vision of a great tribulation—birthpangs from which a new world would be born. Jesus himself faced intense testing, from the wilderness temptations to the agony of Gethsemane, where he wrestled with the "whirlpool of evil."

Jesus' unique vocation. While Jesus taught his followers to pray for deliverance from "the Testing" (tribulation) and "Evil" (the Evil One), his own prayer in Gethsemane was answered "No." He uniquely embraced the vocation to be led to the Testing, to not be delivered from Evil, so that its force might be exhausted on him, freeing the rest of the world.

Confronting evil with victory. This prayer calls us to:

• Recognize the reality and power of evil, both "out there" and within us, acknowledging Satan as a potent force.
• Reject the extremes of minimizing, wallowing in, or self-righteously fighting evil.
• Inhale the victory of the cross, where Jesus definitively defeated evil, enabling us to stand against its destructive forces.
  We are called to be "Annunciation-people, Gethsemane-people, Calvary-people," sharing the world's pain prayerfully, knowing God triumphs over fear.

7. "Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory": Redefining True Sovereignty

Here we have to pause again, because the passage from Micah 5, which Luke intends to awaken in our minds, is so well known and so little attended to.

Competing kingdoms. Luke's Christmas narrative starkly contrasts Emperor Augustus's empire—a kingdom of absolute power, bringing peace at a price, and seeking its own glory—with the birth of Jesus, the new King. Micah's prophecy of a ruler from Bethlehem who "shall be great to the ends of the earth" and "shall be the man of peace" directly challenges Augustus's claims.

Redefining glory. The doxology "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever" asserts God's ultimate sovereignty, redefining these terms through Jesus. John's Gospel describes Jesus' "glory" as "full of grace and truth," a stark contrast to Caesar's brute force and ambiguity. Jesus' humble birth and sacrificial life overturn all that human empire stands for.

The truth of power. Pilate's confrontation with Jesus—"don't you know that I have the power to have you killed?" and "what is truth?"—highlights the world's understanding of power and glory. Jesus responds by quietly asserting that all power comes from God and by being the truth through his life and death. This final clause is a prayer that God's alternative vision of reality, embodied in Jesus, may become the ultimate reality.

8. Prayer as Active Participation in God's World-Healing Mission

Our task is to grow up into the Our Father, to dare to impersonate our older brother, seeking daily bread and daily forgiveness as we do so: to wear his clothes, to walk in his shoes, to feast at his table, to weep with him in the garden, to share his suffering, and to know his victory.

Embodying Jesus' life. The Lord's Prayer is not a passive recitation but an active invitation to participate in Jesus' ongoing mission. It calls us to "breathe in his life and love and make it our own," transforming us into agents of God's kingdom, power, and glory in the world. This means living out the prayer's petitions in our daily lives.

A dangerous and subversive prayer. Each clause of the prayer, from calling God "Father" to seeking deliverance from evil, carries revolutionary implications. It demands that we:

• Embrace the risk of God's unpredictable action.
• See the world with both the creator's love and grief.
• Stand physically alongside the desperate and hungry.
• Live out radical forgiveness and reconciliation.
• Confront evil, knowing Christ's victory.

The rhythm of Christian spirituality. True Christian spirituality, as revealed through this prayer, is not a selfish pursuit of private advancement. It is "the rhythm of standing in the presence of the pain of the world, and kneeling in the presence of the creator of the world; of bringing those two things together in the name of Jesus and by the victory of the cross; of living in the tension of the double Advent, and of calling God ‘Father’."