Hello. You’re in charge. Supply me, forgive me, protect me.
These are the essential elements of prayer, as Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’
Watching his pattern of going apart to spend time in prayer inspired them to ask him to teach them how to pray. (There was also a little “keeping up with the John-ses” rivalry going on with disciples of John the Baptist, who apparently taught his followers how to pray…) Jesus’ answer has become the manual on prayer for Christians ever since, coming down to us as the Lord’s Prayer, which we often recite in the words of the Elizabethan translation rather than the more accurate version provided by modern bible translators.
People often feel they need to be taught to pray – witness the thousands of books and seminars on prayer. This is partly because we’re wired for action, and once we become addicted to a certain pace, and even addicted to stress (yes, our brain chemicals can get adapted to that too…), it is very uncomfortable to become still and put ourselves into a receptive mode. It is also hard to be in conversation with someone you cannot see. But this pattern Jesus provides is pretty simple, and some of it corresponds to those prayers we utter without thinking: Thanks! Help me! Give me! Forgive me! Save me!
What we don’t always include in our spontaneous prayers is the first two parts of Jesus’ prayer – the naming of God as our Father/Mother/Source of being. To say this is to remind ourselves of the personal, familial relationship between us and God – God is not a corporate boss, a Santa with gifts, an accountant checking a balance sheet or a judge weighing our merits. God is loving parent. That’s where we start.
And God is holy, which is what “hallowed” means. As intimate and loving as God may be, God is not the same as us. God is wholly other, completely good, Pure Love in which there is no fault or dilution. That affects the relationship and how we pray too.
Perhaps the most neglected clause is “Your kingdom come.” This means not only ‘Let the end of the world come soon,’ though it has meant that to some. It means, “Let God-Life break into this world, into my life, into my heart right now, today, and every day.” It is the most radical prayer we can utter – and we’re invited to pray it every day.
If we were conscious of the power we were invoking when we pray those words, this world would be changed. Let’s see what happens when we start really meaning it.
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