Prayer is a basic (and vital) aspect of the Christian life. The disciples asked Jesus for guidance in how to pray, and his response is known to us as the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11; Matt 6). It is a widely used prayer and it is included in all the services in the Book of Common Prayer. The prayer is not long (it can be recited at a reverent pace in less than a minute) but it is packed with meaning. Because there is so much included in the prayer, a worthwhile practice is to work through the prayer slowly with time spent considering the implications of the phrases.
The prayer begins, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name….” We acknowledge our relationship to God as our creator, parent, and sustainer. And we affirm the holiness of God by reverencing the Name. Then we ask that “… your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.” We desire the fullness of God’s kingdom throughout creation and request that God’s will be done. This means that we must subjugate our will to God’s; God’s complete reign requires that we put aside our vision for the future and accept God’s. We pray that God will guide us by revealing God’s will and will support us in putting aside our selfish desires so that we can follow God’s will.
We are all completely dependent upon God, and the prayer offers a simple plea: “Give us today our daily bread.” We ask God to provide the things we need to maintain our lives. The text seems to focus on food but we need to understand ‘bread’ (aka “the staff of life”) in a very broad sense. We ask God for the things needed to sustain our lives and to help us grow. This includes physical things such as food and shelter, but also people, significant relationships, communities, and even government. And we ask these things not for ourselves alone, or only for those dear to us, but for all people – ‘us’ is everyone.
The next line in the prayer is a hard one as we ask God to “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” It is difficult to forgive someone who has deliberately hurt me but that is what I am called to do. God’s forgiveness of my sins is tied to my forgiveness of the sins of others: “forgive me in the same way and at the same time as I forgive others.” I think everyone who takes the prayer seriously will struggle with this line at one time or another. Forgiveness is hard. It is a deliberate act of grace and it does not come easily. Our human nature wants to hurt those who hurt us, but God’s nature is to forgive.
We ask for God’s spiritual protection, that God will “save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.” We admit our helplessness to stay faithful by ourselves. Without God’s assistance our daily lives would be full of error and sin so we ask God to deliver us from our weakness in times of struggle. We recognize that we are dependent upon God to protect us from situations which would try us beyond our capacities, and to protect us in times of struggle.
The prayer ends with a simple declaration that everything good is of God and belongs to God. “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever.” All we have asked for in the prayer is part of God’s kingdom, and God receives glory and praise for the gifts God has given us. This includes our “daily bread”, our ability to forgive others, the forgiveness of our sins, the strength to survive daily challenges, and protection against spiritual error. We recognize and acknowledge that all which is good belongs to God and exists because of God.
The Lord’s Prayer, like all our prayers, ends with “Amen,” which is a word of affirmation. It is sometimes translated as “let it be so!” We can think of ‘amen’ as shorthand for “yes, yes, definitely yes!” Sometimes people think of ‘amen’ as functioning like ‘good bye’ or ‘the end’ but actually it is a beginning. We end the prayer by re-affirming what we have prayed, and then we move from prayer to action. We have asked for things for the upbuilding of God’s kingdom and our ‘amen’ affirmation signifies our desire to participate in the building. We “talked the talk” and now we must “walk the walk.”
Much, much more could be written (and has been written) about the Lord’s Prayer. I hope that these few comments will assist you in reflecting on this great text. Thinking of the words will greatly increase the meaningfulness of the prayer and will assist our spiritual growth.