(Matthew 6:9-15)
9 ‘Pray
then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
14For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you; 15but if you do not forgive others, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses.
A Call to Prayer
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
Today begins the Season of Lent.
During Lent this year, we are dedicating ourselves as a congregation to the exploration, discovery and practice of prayer. Each Sunday and Wednesday of the six weeks of Lent all members of Christ Lutheran Church and our Guests and Visitors are invited to participate in “A Call to Prayer” … discussions on Sunday mornings at 9.00 am around the book Grounded in Prayer by Brent W. Dahlseng; or on Sunday afternoons at 5.00 pm around the book Paths to Prayer: Finding Your Own Way to the Presence of God by Patricia D. Brown; and on Wednesday evenings first at 6.00 pm during our Lenten Suppers as we read through several books of and about prayer and then at 7.00 pm as we gather for Evening Prayer using Night Prayer from A New Zealand Prayer Book accompanied by hymns from the Taizé community.
Why are we doing this?
You may answer quickly and say, “Well, after all it’s Lent, and Lent as the old saying goes is all about: ‘Prayer for the good of your soul, Fasting for the good of your body, Charity for the good of your neighbor.’” … and that’s certainly true, we dedicate ourselves to Prayer, Fasting, and Charity during Lent for precisely those reasons.
And you might also answer, “I need to pray and my prayer-life has gotten pretty lax lately, so now is a good time to start up again.” … and that’s true as well, that’s a very good reason to dedicate ourselves to Prayer this Lent.
But I want to add another reason that we are engaged in A Call to Prayer this Lent, and it is because we are a community, a community of faith.
And that means that prayer is something other than “God do this for me, do that for me, help me, protect me, save me, heal me.”
Praying as a community means that not only do we join ourselves together in our words of supplication before the Holy One, we join ourselves together in the very act of praying, we pray with one another and for one another, we dare to listen to each other as we dare to utter our own words together in the presence of God.
A long time ago when I was taking a week’s private retreat at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, I discovered this meaning of prayer, which is for me the meaning of prayer. One of the day visitors to the Monastery joined us for one of the hours of prayer and afterwards asked several of us pilgrims just how one could find out what was going on in that monastic community?
And one of our group said, “It’s simple, just listen to the prayers during the Intercessions. It’s one of the ways the community talks to each other as they are talking to God.”
There it is! It’s the meaning of prayer in a nutshell. I can pray alone, sure … but far better to pray with you and you with me and we with others and they with us and all of us with even more. It’s one of the ways we talk to each other.
When we ask “And for whom else must we pray?” and we hear the names of brothers and sisters spoken in the presence of God, we are reminded that religion is not a practice of private piety, but a community speaking together and working together and moving out into the world together in it’s practice of loving God and loving neighbor.
It is what Jesus intended when he gave his followers a prayer to say. We call it, the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father from the words in the Greek language in which it was recorded Πάτερ ἡμῶν (PATER HEMON) and the Latin into which the Greek was translated, Pater Noster.
The prayer is found only in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, not in Mark, not in John. It comes, scholars believe, from the early collection of Sayings that Jesus taught his followers, often called the “Q Document” or the “Q Gospel” or simply “Q” … taking its name from the German Quelle (source) … the Sayings Gospel which Matthew and Luke (written 10 and 20 years after the Gospel of Mark was written) included in their stories of Jesus.
Along with the Beatitudes it forms the core of Jesus’ teaching, the center of what he gave to his followers.
I’d like to read what two very religious people from the past had to say about this Lord’s Prayer.
The first is Martin Luther from the 16th Century. This is a selection from his commentary on the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer that was included in his Large Catechism.
FROM THE LARGE CATECHISM
The Fifth Petition.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
… Therefore there is here again great need to call upon God and to pray: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not as though He did not forgive sin without and even before our prayer (for He has given us the Gospel, in which is pure forgiveness before we prayed or ever thought about it). But this is to the intent that we may recognize and accept such forgiveness. For since the flesh in which we daily live is of such a nature that it neither trusts nor believes God, and is ever active in evil lusts and devices, so that we sin daily in word and deed, by commission and omission by which the conscience is thrown into unrest, so that it is afraid of the wrath and displeasure of God, and thus loses the comfort and confidence derived from the Gospel; therefore it is ceaselessly necessary that we run hither and obtain consolation to comfort the conscience again.
… In short, if God does not forgive without ceasing, we are lost.
It is therefore the intent of this petition that God would not regard our sins and hold up to us what we daily deserve, but would deal graciously with us, and forgive, as He has promised, and thus grant us a joyful and confident conscience to stand before Him in prayer. …
But there is here attached a necessary, yet consolatory addition: As we forgive. He has promised that we shall be sure that everything is forgiven and pardoned, yet in the manner that we also forgive our neighbor. For just as we daily sin much against God and yet He forgives everything through grace, so we, too, must ever forgive our neighbor who does us injury, violence, and wrong, shows malice toward us, etc. If, therefore you do not forgive, then do not think that God forgives you; but if you forgive, you have this consolation and assurance, that you are forgiven in heaven, not on account of your forgiving, -- for God forgives freely and without condition, out of pure grace, because He has so promised, as the Gospel teaches, -- but in order that He may set this up for our confirmation and assurance …
And the second is from a yet earlier time, the 12th Century … It is a Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, and it is a lovely thing indeed:
PARAPHRASE OF THE LORD'S
PRAYER
by St. Francis of Assisi
OUR FATHER most holy,
our Creator and Redeemer,
our Saviour and our Comforter.
WHO ART IN HEAVEN
in the angels and the saints,
giving them light to know you,
since you, Lord, are light;
setting them afire to love you,
since you, Lord, are love;
dwelling in them
and giving them fullness of joy,
since you, Lord,
are the supreme, eternal good,
and all good comes from you.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME,
may we grow to know you better and better
and so appreciate the extent of your favors,
the scope of your promises,
the sublimity of your majesty,
and the profundity of your judgments.
THY KINGDOM COME,
so that you may reign in us by your grace,
and bring us to your kingdom,
where we shall see you clearly,
love you perfectly and,
happy in your company, enjoy you forever.
THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN,
so that we may love you with all our heart,
by always having you in mind;
with all our soul,
by always longing for you;
with all our mind,
by determining to seek your glory in everything;
and with all our strength,
of body and soul,
by lovingly serving you alone.
May we love our neighbors as ourselves,
and encourage them all to love you,
by bearing our share
in the joys and sorrows of others,
while giving offence to no one.
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD,
your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
so that we may remember and appreciate
how much He loved us,
and everything he said and did and suffered.
AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES,
in your immeasurable mercy,
by virtue of the passion of your Son,
and through the intercession of Mary,
and all your saints.
AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US,
and if we do not forgive perfectly,
Lord, make us forgive perfectly,
so that, for love of you,
we may really forgive our enemies,
and fervently pray to you for them,
returning no one evil for evil,
but trying to serve you in everyone.
AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION,
be it hidden or obvious,
sudden or persistent.
BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL,
past, present or future,
Amen.
Deo Gratia
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III