Teach Us to Pray

Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On July 25, 2004

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, III, Ph.D.

Text:

Luke 11: 1-13

[Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'  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 our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.  And he said to them, 'Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him."  And he answers from within, "Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything."  I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.  'So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to y our children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!'

Sermon Text

"Teach us to pray," Jesus' disciples asked him.  If you have ever had to say a prayer in the company of others, you may have felt, like those disciples, the need for at least a guide.  But, most of us learn to pray by memorizing particular prayers.  For instance, my mother taught me to pray these words:  "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." 

Much later--I can't remember from whom-I learned a longer prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

And forgive us our trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.

We call that the Lord's prayer because scripture says that when the disciples of Jesus asked him to teach them to pray, that's the prayer he gave them.  Well, more or less.  I say more or less because if you paid careful attention to the early part of the Gospel reading this morning, you may have recognized that the rendition of the Lord's Prayer found there isn't exactly the same as the one I just recited. 

Let's compare them.  Luke's version doesn't have the "who art in heaven" phrase.  Nor does it have the "our" of "our Father."  It starts out simply, "Father . . ." The Luke version doesn't have the phrase "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."  It just says:  "Thy kingdom come."  And then comes a very striking difference.  If you've ever prayed the Lord's Prayer with non-Presbyterian Christians, you may have noticed that when you get to the trespasses part of the prayer, they go one way, and you go another.  Presbyterians say:  "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."  But most other English-speaking Christians say:  "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  This is not an inconsequential difference.  Let me explain why.   

In this part of the prayer, Matthew speaks of sinning in terms of being indebted to the person wronged.  So, when we Presbyterians pray," Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors," we are very much in accord with the Greek word that Matthew uses.  I've been told that since the first American Presbyterians were Scottish, and since the Scots are known for pinching pennies, that's why we Presbyterians prefer to say "forgive us our debts."  Actually, neither Scots nor Presbyterians had anything to do with this wording.  You will notice that Luke's version of this section of the prayer says:  "Forgive us our sins (or, trespasses) as we have forgiven our debtors.  Luke uses two different words in this section of the prayer, one that speaks of sinning as a trespass, and one that speaks of sinning as a debt, whereas Matthew speaks of sinning just in terms of debts.  This difference between the two writers shows that Luke had begun a process of spiritualizing the idea of indebtedness, removing it from the realm of economics.  In Jesus' time, many people owed money, and lots of it.  So Jesus probably did teach his disciples that they should forgive their economic debtors; else they could not expect God to forgive them their many spiritual shortcomings.  But, as western economies gradually changed from agricultural and feudal to industrial and capitalistic, this prophetic message of forgiving debtors dropped away.  Thus, the phrase became:  "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Neither Luke's nor Matthew's Greek warrants this translation; but, that's the way most English-Speaking Christians today recite the phrase.  As in the case of our American Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, where the phrase "one nation under God" was a late addition, the constant repetition of a new phrase can quickly hallow it in people's minds so that they are loathe to accept any other wording, or to recognize that what they recite has a history, and reflects an evolution of ideas.

The Lord's Prayer does have a history, and it does reflect the evolution of believers' ideas and their practice of worship.  The Lord's Prayer is not a verbatim transcript of Jesus' prayer instructions.  If you have ever prayed the Lord's Prayer in a Catholic mass, you probably noticed another evidence of this fact.  Protestant Christians finish the Lord's Prayer by saying:  "for thine is the power and the glory for ever."  But Catholics do not.  They follow Luke's version of the prayer at that point, ending the prayer with "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."  The ending which Protestants use is called a "doxology."  A doxology is a short prayer or hymn of praise.  We sing another doxology as we bring forward our offerings:  "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise God all creatures here below, praise God above, ye heavenly host, Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost."  Scholars are convinced that the doxology that we use at the end of the Lord's Prayer was not included in the earliest version of the Lord's Prayer.  It was added on by the early church as the prayer became a routine part of worship.  Frequent use of this doxology just after the Lord's Prayer linked it with the prayer itself.  We know from an early manuscript that the early church did regard the doxology as part of the Lord's Prayer.  But clearly it was a reverent add-on.

Should it bother us that the Lord's Prayer that we're used to reciting may not be, word for word, exactly the prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples?  Luke's version of the prayer begins this way:  "When you pray, you should say:  'Father, your name be hallowed . . ." That introduction suggests that we should pray exactly the words which Jesus prayed.  But Matthew's introduction to the prayer is different.  He writes: "You should pray like this:  Our Father who art in heaven . . ." This introduction suggests that exact words aren't important.  Rather, what's important is that we should follow the basic outline that Jesus established in his prayer.  In other words, our prayer should resemble our Lord's, but need not be a carbon copy.  If Matthew is right about this, then we should not be shaken to discover that the words of the Lord's Prayer which we've prayed all these years may not be the exact ones that Jesus taught his disciples; and furthermore, that it's impossible now to determine just what those words were.  We should not be shaken.  We are free to pray as Jesus did, observing his outline, but detailing it as the Spirit moves us to do.

And what was that basic outline which Jesus laid down?  Well, first that we approach God with praise.  May your name revered, God!  That's how Jesus' prayer begins:  "Hallowed be thy name!"  And then, Jesus submits himself to God's will.  He says:  May your kingdom come, and your will be done.  So far the prayer expresses praise, and the commitment to obey God's will.  Next comes an expression of reliance upon God:  "Give us this day our daily bread."  Another interpretation puts it this way:  "Give us each day our bread for tomorrow."  In either case, what Jesus meant is that the people of God rely each and every day upon God's nourishment, like the wandering Israelites fed by manna in the desert.  We can't get by one day without God's provisioning.  Next, the prayer outline says that we should ask God's forgiveness, recognizing that God expects us already to have forgiven those who have wronged us, and those who owe us something which keeps them burdened.  We cannot expect to be forgiven if we hold grudges or show no mercy to our debtors.  Then finally Jesus prays:  "Lead us not into temptation."  What does that mean?  Isn't the Bible full of instances where God tests people to see whether they will obey or not?  Didn't God test Abraham when he sent him up the mountain to sacrifice his only son?  Was it not the Spirit of God that led Jesus into the desert to undergo various temptations?  So what does this plea mean:  "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"?  Well, Jesus' whole prayer was offered up in anticipation of God's kingdom.  He lived as if God's rule on earth was already happening, and he expected God's triumph over evil to be accomplished very soon.  He prayed to God to spare his disciples from these final trials which could bring their demise.  He wanted them to be protected from the coming, wrathful reckoning.

Reverent praise, obedience, reliance upon God's daily nourishment, penitence, a willingness to forgive others, and finally, a desire to be with God when all is accomplished--this is the outline of our Lord's prayer.  How shall we pray?  Teach us, his disciples begged.  And that is how he answered.