July 27, 2025 – Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 6.7-13
Luke 11.1-4
Didache 8.2
A Prayer For Everyone
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
In an old Calvin and Hobbes comic, Calvin asks his mother if he and his pet tiger Hobbes can go out and play in the rain. She replies, “No… You’ll get soaked! You could catch pneumonia, run up a terrible hospital bill, linger a few months, and die.” A crestfallen Calvin tells Hobbes, “I always forget. If you ask a Mom, you get a worst-case scenario.” Hobbes, staring wide-eyed at the rain out the window, chimes in, “I had no idea these little showers were so dangerous!”
There have been times in my ministry that I might have said the same thing about the Lord’s Prayer, had you asked. I had no idea this little prayer could be so dangerous! Example #1: In a former church, a successor of mine faced a minor firestorm from some folks on the Sunday he forgot to say the Lord’s Prayer; a few even called for his job! The one Sunday he forgot to say the Lord’s Prayer. Example #2: One Sunday morning in our own church, choir member Rick Holloway offered a gorgeous rendition of the Lord’s Prayer sung in French titled Notre Père. It was so moving that to pray it again would have been both superfluous and anti-climactic, so I omitted it, only to be dressed down at the door by one of our regular parishioners who informed me in no uncertain terms that they have never, ever attended church without reciting he Lord’s Prayer. Some of you still remember that. Example #3: A visitor to our church a couple years ago took umbrage to my use of inclusive language in the prayer, suggesting after the service I was playing fast and loose with the way Jesus told us to pray. Well, the narthex is no place for a theological debate, and while I offered to have a conversation with them, they exited indignantly, and I have not seen them since. I had no idea this little prayer could be so dangerous!
This morning’s sermon was prompted by one of you who voiced your appreciation for the way we pray the Lord’s Prayer at the United Church, and as I said before this is a reworking of a sermon I first brought you in 2018. And what prompted that earlier sermon was a question one of you asked me; you said “Alan, we sing an inclusive Doxology, we sing an inclusive Gloria Patri – why don’t we pray an inclusive Lord’s Prayer?” And you were absolutely correct, and we have been praying it this way ever since.
We heard Deb Calamari read the Lord’s Prayer as we pray it, more or less, from Matthew, but it is truer to say the traditional words so many of us are used to are more than four centuries old; they come from the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611; so what Deb read is a revised version of that. But the King James Version of the Lord’s Prayer follows a Latin form of it that goes back much earlier, as far back as the 4th century, which itself is a translation of the original biblical Greek texts. You can see where I’m going with this; what Deb read is a modern translation of an earlier translation of a Latin translation of a Greek manuscript. That’s four layers of separation between what Jesus said and what we do today, and there is yet one more layer still to go, but let’s hold it here for a moment and look at the Lord’s Prayer itself.
Of course, which one do we look at? Do we look at the version we heard from Matthew’s gospel, or the one we heard from Luke? The one we pray is primarily from Matthew, but by all indications Luke’s version is closer to what Jesus actually said, mostly because it is shorter. But for our purposes this morning let’s stick with Matthew because it’s the one we know better. In fact, it just may be that we know it too well. Sometimes, when we habitually repeat something from memory, we begin to recite it by rote without always thinking much about the actual words we are saying. I think this happens with the Lord’s Prayer, and so whoever mentioned it back in March, thank you; I appreciate the nudge.
Let’s skip the first two words for now, because I think if we hold them ’til the end, we will recognize them to be the flower that opens everything else up in a fragrant and colorful image.
“Hallowed be your name.” It is a confession on our part, that God is holy and worthy of worship. It recognizes that human beings are not self-sufficient, but contingent, and live within the grace and mercy of a loving and holy God. In the Bible, a name is more than just a label or a moniker, it represents the essential characteristics of an individual. Hallowed be your name recognizes that because God’s name is holy, God is holy.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus spoke a lot about the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God, a place where all God’s children live in concord and in unity. To me this is a petition for justice and equality – that life on earth should reflect what the heavenly realm might look like. And it is buttressed by the next line, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Literally it reads, “Give us our bread for tomorrow,” and it implies that we have enough to get through today. But to me it is not just about bread, nor just about my bread. To me it is a request that God provide all God’s children with what we need to live: food and drink and shelter and health and well-being. God, sustain our bodies even as you sustain our souls, on earth as it is in heaven.
Now if we really are paying attention to the words of the Lord’s Prayer when we say them, the next line ought to give us pause, and not because of the variety of interpretations: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It doesn’t matter whether we say trespasses and trespass, or whether we say debts and debtors or whether we say forgive us our sin as we forgive those who sin against us. For me, the real nut is that I am asking God to treat and regard me the way I treat and regard others, specifically the way I treat and regard others who have wronged me. Am I certain I want to say this? Is there anyone I still have resentment towards, anyone I may have forgiven but still hold hard feelings? Do I live in love for every one of my neighbors and fellow human beings? I’ll tell you right now that I still have some work to do on this one. This is why if I really think about the words I’m praying, I’m not ready to ask God to forgive my wrongs against God and my neighbor to the same degree that I have forgiven my neighbor’s wrongs against me.
Speaking of the Lord’s Prayer getting us preachers in trouble occasionally, at least we have good company: the late Pope Francis himself took some flak for the next clause, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Think about it: would God ever lead us into temptation? What kind of a God would do that? When Pope Francis suggested this line of the prayer needs to be amended, the College of Cardinals were outraged. I guess that’s what happens when you propose a change to the Lord’s Prayer. But it’s a legitimate question, isn’t it? Is it really God who leads us into temptation, or is it another? Pope Francis’s suggestion is a simple fix; he proposed we pray, “Do not let us fall into temptation,” and he identified the real culprit by adding, “When Satan leads us into temptation, You [God], please, give me a hand.”
Then the final phrase of the prayer, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, Amen.” Now if we are looking to pray the actual words of Jesus, we need to ask where in the world this part of the prayer came from, because not only did Jesus never utter these words, but they don’t appear anywhere in the Bible, not in the gospels, not in the New Testament, not in the Old Testament, not anywhere. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church acknowledges this when they separate the phrase out from the Lord’s Prayer and locate it later on in the Mass. The words actually come from a document popular among the second century church, called “The Teaching of the Twelve [Apostles],” or the Didache, and nobody knows who really wrote them. But somehow they found their way into the Lord’s Prayer and we have been praying them ever since.
So let’s go back to the opening words of the Prayer, because as I said earlier, I believe they set the tone for everything that follows. The very first word confirms that you and I and everyone around us, are in relationship. Our. We belong to one another. We are responsible for and respectful toward each other. We are in communion with one another, and this endeavor, this church, this congregation stands as one in our relationship with God. Because we belong to God, we belong to each other.
Which brings us to the second word of the prayer, and this is where we sometimes hit that mental speed bump, “Our Father.” This is where those layers of language come in that we considered earlier. The words of the Lord’s Prayer in our Bibles, our New Revised Standard Version, are a retranslation of the Elizabethan English of the 1611 King James Version, where the Lord’s Prayer is a translation of an earlier Latin Bible called the Vulgate, which is a translation of ancient Greek manuscripts: four degrees of separation. But there is one more layer, one more teensy weensy little reality: Jesus did not speak English, contemporary or Elizabethan, nor did he speak Latin, nor did he speak Greek. Jesus was a Jew; Jesus spoke a regional Hebrew dialect called Aramaic. And the word Jesus used to open the Lord’s Prayer was the only word available to him in Aramaic, a word that occurs multiple times in our Bibles: it is Abba. And Abba implies something much more intimate, more personal, more affectionate than Father. Most – not all, but most – biblical scholars agree that we can use Abba and Dad or Daddy interchangeably. And think about it. When we speak directly to our own parents, do we address them as Father and Mother? “Mother, will you drive me to the mall today? Father, may I have some more cereal?” Actually, I know some people who do, but most of us, when we speak tenderly and affectionately to our parents, call them Mom and Dad, or Mommy & Daddy. It is a loving, affectionate, personal and intimate relationship Jesus wants us to have with God. And to go deeper: it is a loving, affectionate, personal and intimate relationship God wants to have with us. This is why Jesus invites us to pray in this way: not necessarily to use these exact words, but rather to bring this attitude of love between a parent and a child. And this is why, when we pray, we can use whatever language is most comfortable for us when we speak with God. When Jesus introduced the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, he did so with these words: Pray this way, or Pray in this fashion, or in this manner; it does not mean pray these exact words. If that’s what he meant you and I would be praying in Aramaic every week. So we can call God Father, we can call God Mother, we can call God Daddy, we can call God Creator, we can call God God, we can call God by any of the biblical names we read in today’s Call to Worship. The word we use is not nearly as important as the relationship we have. This is why you’re going to hear me use different words when I pray the Lord’s Prayer, because I want to be sure this congregation knows that your relationship with God is yours – it is a personal one and I pray it is an intimate and loving one. The Lord’s Prayer gives us permission to speak to God with our own language. And if you do want to pray the authentic words of Jesus in English and begin by saying, “Hey Daddy,” then by all means go right ahead: what works for you works for God.
One last note – maybe a footnote, but I think an important one. One of the defining characteristics of the Lord’s Prayer is its inclusivity: it embraces all of us. It is a prayer that can be prayed by Jew and Christian alike – there is nothing sectarian about it, everyone’s included. In a season when a certain slice of our culture believes it should be about the work of excluding others, other peoples and other races from our common national fabric, let the followers of Jesus say Everyone’s Included – and let us say it with the very first words of our Lord’s Prayer.