Comments for Sandy      Other sermons.          

When in doubt, pray the Lord’s Prayer. When I am with a group of Christians that represent several or no denominations, when I want to make a connection between our separateness yet relatedness, when I want to rest in the familiar – I ask that we pray the prayer that Jesus taught. Together we move into a common space. Words and memories of hearing these words comfort us. We are reminded of other times and places. Praying the Lord’s Prayer, often reminds me of my grandma. In my visits to the nursing home sometimes we would pray. The experience of moving into the Lord’s Prayer was like pulling a well-worn recipe card out of the faded metal box. Butter stained, flour textured, corners bent, the handwritten lines hardly needed to be read. Grandma returned to a different kind of energy. There are old friends sealed in our being. Sometimes those friends are prayers.

I am sure many of you have memories, reassuring and perhaps painful, associated with the Our Father. Tripping over language and concepts, we kick into autopilot and cease, if we ever started, praying. The Lord’s Prayer is just one of those empty rituals.

Anything we do over and over without thinking or understanding has a way of becoming empty. The Covenant Class, the CCC confirmation program, will spend what I hope to be meaningful time exploring the Lord’s Prayer for precisely this reason. In order for there to be friends that get sealed inside our being, we must first meet and over time become known to one another.

A long time ago, on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was asked by his followers for instructions on how to pray. Jesus responded with a prayer. It is recorded in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. Luke was most likely written around 80 CE and Matthew around 85 CE, more than 50 years after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Matthew’s version is the longer one, most often used in our liturgies and daily prayer.

Because there are two versions, which one is the one Jesus prayed? Odds are, neither. The gospels writers were not reporters interested in exact quotes (as if that was even possible). Decades after the fact, they made editorial modifications of oral and written documents which reflected their sense of their own liturgical traditions. Jesus communicated in Aramaic. The New Testament is written in Greek. This morning’s Call to Worship is a translation of what Jesus might have said in Aramaic. From other reading, I suspect the original Lord’s Prayer was shorter. The Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars seeking the historical Jesus, believes that the only words likely to have been spoken by Jesus were "Our Father."

Martin Luther, Catholic monk and reformer, pondered the Lord’s Prayer. His reflections and theological assertions regarding the prayer are contained in what we know as Luther’s Little Instruction Book. Like his catechism, there is a re-occuring question proceeding a statement. "What does this mean?" It’s a favorite Luther quote of mine along with "This is most certainly true." (Nuggets from my intense not without humor year at Luther Seminary in St. Paul). "What does this mean?" is an excellent question. It’s one that challenges life’s numbed autopilot.

Luther breaks the Lord’s Prayer down into seven requests. One: May Your name be holy. (Hallowed be thy name) What does this mean? "Of course, God’s name is holy in and of itself, but by this request, we pray that He will make it holy among us too."

When was the last time you used Hallowed in a sentence? What is the intent of this statement? In your prayer life, insert language that for you has meaning. God, holy is your name. Many are your names.

Two: Your Kingdom come. What does this mean? "Truly God’s kingdom comes by itself, without our prayer. But we pray in this request that it come to us as well.

Experiment saying or seeing the word kindom rather than kingdom. Removing the g in kingdom frees the word from its reference to kings, governing and conquering, and transforms it into a vision of human beings actualizing our potential for common bonds. Kindom, even more so than the word reign, which is sometimes inserted, draws us closer to God’s desire for relationship. We are kin, brothers and sisters in Christ. When God’s kindom comes, God’s will will be done.

Four: Give us our daily bread today. What does this mean? "Truly, God gives daily bread to evil people, even without our prayer. But we pray in this request that He will help us realize this and receive our daily bread with thanksgiving." Luther further asks, What does daily bread mean? "Everything that nourishes our body and meets its needs, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, yard, fields, cattle, money, possessions, a devout spouse, devout children, devout employees, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors and other things like these." Bread covers a lot of territory!

What do we really need today? What might others need? Consider the multitude of stories in our scripture that involve bread. What does God say through bread, manna and crumbs? What about the bread of hope and faith so necessary for the journey?

Five: And forgive our guilt, as we forgive those guilty of sinning against us. What does this mean? "We pray in this request that our Heavenly Father will neither pay attention to our sins nor refuse requests such as these because of our sins and because we are neither worthy nor deserve the things for which we pray. Yet, He wants to give them all to us by His grace, because many times each day we sin and truly deserve only punishment. Because God does this, [forgives] we will of course want to forgive from our hearts and willingly do good to those who sin against us."

This is new to me, forgive us our guilt. That is very different from sins, debts and trespasses. A Catholic Lutheran could certainly use forgiveness from guilt!

In both Matthew and Luke, there is a parallel between forgiving sins and the jubilee practice of forgiving debts. A spiritual act connects with an economic act. They are inter-related. In the economy of God’s kindom, forgiveness is the bottom line. Jesus calls us to restore our human community to wholeness both through restoring relationships and through restoring economic capacity for life.

Having grown up with "sins" as the most common word used in the Lord’s Prayer, "debts" feels too narrow. I came across something this week that is helpful. "Debts," according to Jesus Seminar scholarship, refers to an ancient social hierarchy, not to managing finances. It is about changing the social order. It is bringing forth the year of jubilee, which levels the playing field and makes the powerful mad. Debts are forgiven.

"Debts" is likely the more historically accurate word. Jesus was a reformer and transformer. However, I do not live with jubilee theology front and center. When I hear and read debt, I think of VISA/MasterCard, the United States deficit, and the World Bank. While sins and trespasses do not point to radical social changes, they do speak of brokenness. Then again, I have befriended the word "sin." Liberal Christians shy away from sin language. It’s not all hellfire and brimstone. Sin happens – to us and by us.

What word works best for you? From what is this prayer asking forgiveness?

Six: And lead us not into temptation. What does this mean? "God tempts no one, of course, but we pray in this request that God will protect us and save us, so that the Devil the world, and our bodily desires will neither deceive us nor seduce us into heresy, despair or other serious shame or vice, and so that we will win and be victorious in the end, even if they attack us." As a listener, one may be tempted to ask, what does THIS mean?!

Have you ever really thought about this line? Why would God or what kind of God would lead us into temptation? Most of us hardly need leading! Temptation abounds. I simply dismiss the request that God lead me not into temptation. It’s a wasted petition. The request, however, is an excellent opportunity to expand our framework for understanding "temptation." In today’s Prayer of Confession, Jill Geoffrion offers a different take on what might be a temptation. The temptation to not give or receive. The temptation of silence.

Seven: But set us free from the Evil One. What does this mean? "We pray in this request, as a summary, that our Father in Heaven will save us from every kind of evil that threatens body, soul, property and honor. We pray that when at last our final hour has come, He will grant us a blessed death, and in His grace, bring us to Himself from this valley of tears."

Does evil exist? What do you think or believe? Deliver us from evil …

I invite you to pick a word or phrase from this ancient prayer. In reality, the word picks you. Spend this week asking, "What does this mean?" Take a break from autopilot.

Let us pray – however it is we pray, ponder and be.

Amen.