Preacher: Julia Baker

Scripture: Luke 11:1-13

The Lord’s Prayer…

At this moment, churches around the globe, in every language are praying this prayer.

This beautiful prayer that I would guess has been spoken more than any collection of words in human history.

A prayer that, for many of us, we didn’t even memorize consciously but absorbed as we learned to talk.

Sometimes in my work as a hospital chaplain, I invite a patient to pray The Lord’s Prayer with me very slowly, we go through it line by line and listen to what stands out to us at that moment. 

I am going to invite us also into a slow reading of these cherished words today. Going through each line and offering some reflection and then will end with reading come creative renditions of the Lord’s Prayer for us to pray with contemplatively together. 

First a few overarching comments:

It is essential, always, when we read the Bible that we continually remember the context – of Roman occupation and oppression — in which Jesus gave this prayer to his disciples. 

This prayer was a specific and powerful, revolutionary prayer in its original context.

A podcast I listened to suggested that instead of calling it the Lord’s Prayer

We could call it “A Prayer for a Revolutionary Movement”

The reality of this I think doesn’t lessen the prayer,

but rather can deepen and strengthen 

it as we pray it in our own time and place.

Our Father, who are in Heaven

There is record at the disciples would have heard Jesus say, Abba

the Aramaci word for father — which is beautiful as this tells us Jesus is inviting the disciples to pray in their language of daily communication not the written Hebrew language of study and their other prayers.

Abba – was a term that meant both a personal relationship and of deference to a superior.” 

The society in the time was patriarchal and hierarchical – with Caesar at the top of head as “Father.” 

Naming, “Father in Heaven” is an appeal to a higher power than Ceaser…

Think of the beautiful father figure in Luke 15 the Parable of the Prodigal Son  – the father running down the road towards his son. This image breaks all cultural norms of a father, Jesus giving us a model of what God is like. 

Our Father, Abba God who will establish a counter-cultural society of justice and mercy.

hallowed be your name.

Or more literally – “let your name be hallowed.” Which points to scholarship that explores where this opening is less praise and more a petition. 

To ask God to make God’s own name holy.  

This sounds strange to us, but it is actually language repeated again and again in the prophets.

The idea that the way to make God’s name revered again is to rescue people from oppression.

As we hear in Psalm 79:9 – “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive us our sins, for your name’s sake.” 

May your kingdom come.

May the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible — 

a world of the KIN-dom of heaven on earth  meaning a new society of justice and mercy, where poverty and hunger come to an end. 

Again the revolutionary call of this prayer….

Give us each day our daily bread.

This line reflects the peasant context, where daily substance, daily bread was primary concern. As the majority lived at or below substance level. 

This also refers back to manna in the Exodus story.

Which is such a strong sociopolitical message – everyone had the same amount, and you couldn’t store it or it rotted.

This contrasts, of course, the elites of the empire, to a foundational story of a time of equality.

And forgive us our sins, 

Sins, debt, trespasses. 

The Aramamic word khoba — which means both debts and sins. 

The Ancient word was full of debt crisis, again Jesus is talking to his followers deeply meeting them where they are. 

Not only was it full of debt, but debt connected again to Roman occupation. Where the whole Roman whole was centered on debt — a political system in which everyone was indebted to Ceaser. Everything and everyone owed him.

The plea for a society free from debt, a prayer for a new way of being human together. Jesus is saying free us from the entanglements of debt slavery, free us from Ceaser’s yoke, we want to live in Gratitude only to God. 

as we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

The poet David Whyte writes, “Forgiveness is compassion for your future self.” 

I love thinking about forgiveness as compassion and how Jesus is inviting people into that – again these people deeply oppressed by Roman occupation.

Common Jewish prayers of the day included forgiveness from God, but not towards others.

Jesus is teaching and later models on the cross, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.” This liberation in forgiveness.

And do not bring us to the time of trial 

Here is another allusion to Exodus and the time of temptation in the desert. 

The ask for liberation from Rome without the pain of the wilderness journey. 

And we know life will involve trial, okay to ask for it not to be, for God’s accompaniment with us. 

—-

As I have sat with, and prayed with this prayer this week.

I have been struck, but how in this short and radical prayer,

Jesus really sums up what the Way of Christ, The Way of God 

is all about. The paradigm turning, hands open way of Love,

Justice, mercy and forgiveness. It is an orienting prayer, a prayer

of longing, vision, and hope. 

What Revolutionary Prayer would Jesus speak for us today?

There are so many beautiful, poetic explorations of that question.

People in different contexts praying the prayer through their voice and place — 

I am going to read three of them now for us as we close.

I will also share a longer list of them with you all for the website when the sermon is posted.

I am going to invite you to listen and close your eyes let the words wash over you. Pray them, notice what words stand out, how God might be calling you to live in the revolutionary Way of Jesus….

New Zealand Prayer Book: 

Eternal Spirit, Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,

Source of all that is and that shall be,

Father and Mother of us all.

Loving God, in whom is heaven.

The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!

The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the earth!

Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!

Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In times of temptation and test, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,

now and forever. 

Amen.

Open Door Intentional Community:

Our Beloved Friend
Outside the Domination System
May your Holy Name be honored
by the way we live our lives.
Your Beloved Community come.
Guide us to:
Walk your walk
Talk your talk
Sit your Silence
Inside the court room, on the streets, in the jail houses
As they are on the margins of resistance.
Give us this day everything we need.
Forgive us our wrongs
as we forgive those who have wronged us.
Do not bring us to hard testing,
but keep us safe from the Evil One.
For Thine is:
the Beloved Community,
the power and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

Heavenly Father, heavenly Mother,

Holy and blessed is your true name.

We pray for your reign of peace to come,

We pray that your good will be done,

Let heaven and earth become one.

Give us this day the bread we need,

Give it to those who have none.

Let forgiveness flow like a river between us,

From each one to each one.

Lead us to holy innocence

Beyond the evil of our days —

Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.

For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy:

Forever your name is All in One.

• Parker Palmer