March 3
Readings: Is 55:10-11; Mt 6:7-15
Today we hear that words matter.
Just like God’s word goes out and does not come back until it accomplishes what it needs to, so do our words. Words have energy and they go out into the world and have an impact. This is why right speech (as the Buddhists call it) is so crucial, and great historical figures like Gandhi remind us that “Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”
But the words of our prayers also matter.
Jesus hears people saying all kinds of words in prayer. And my guess is that this seemed impressive somehow to the disciples. So Jesus tells them, “Don’t babble like that,” and he gives his followers some simple things to pray about: remember who God is, work to bring about God’s reign, forgive debts, be thankful and watch out for temptation (we spoke a bit on that yesterday…).
Quite a few scholars remind us that Jesus, as a Jew, based a lot of this prayer on the Quaddish and the Shema and then added some other elements. So he did not “make up” this prayer. It was more a combination of some elements that are foundational to the Jewish faith.
My guess is that if we grew up Christian, we have said the “Our Father” thousands of times, and it may have become one of those prayers that we can recite without thinking too much about it.
So maybe we should think about it.
What makes it such a powerful prayer?
First, he prays to Abba, which is a very familiar form of the word, “father” and has such tender and intimate overtones. This was kind of revolutionary because so many ideas of God were as some formal, distant being – not a mom or dad.
Secondly, it’s a “we” prayer, not a “my” prayer. Jesus thought collectively. What we pray for is not just our privatized needs or wants. We pray for the collective good.
Finally, it’s a prayer about economics. We pray the we might have enough bread (and that all might have it as well). We pray for the forgiveness of debts (so that we all might be free). And we pray that God’s kingdom will come (which means that our little kingdoms must “go”). None of these things can happen without economic redistribution, power redistribution and changed hearts.
In our Christian traditions, we’ve tended to “spiritualize” a lot of things that we did not know how to deal with (or did not want to deal with). The Lord’s Prayer, I think, has been one of those passages. It is a prayer that has the power to rearrange our priorities if we let it. It is also a prayer that might give us great comfort because God knows what we need before we even ask and God desires to be close to us and wants what is good for us.
For today, pray the Lord’s Prayer slowly and meditatively. Let its words work on you.