UCC Church of Charlotte

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The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:1-15
Luke 11:1-13

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
Today, I have deviated from our usual practice of reading from the
lectionary.  I wanted us to hear the Lord’s Prayer in its two Gospel
settings – from Matthew and from Luke.
    
Two things to notice: first is, they don’t quite agree with each other
on where and when Jesus taught the prayer, and second, they don’t
agree with each other on the wording.
    
For Matthew, Jesus is teaching the people how to be a part of the
kingdom of heaven, how to behave in kingdom ways.  Do not pray with
big phrases like the Gentiles, but to pray like this.

For Luke, the disciples see Jesus praying, and they want to learn to
pray like he does.

We pray a prayer pulled from both examples, and adds the traditional
benediction not found in the Gospels.  Different churches use
different versions.  In the Reformed tradition, one is more likely to
find it saying debts.  In the Anglican tradition, one is more likely
to use trespasses.  Some use the word sin.  Lutherans are likely to
end it with “forever and ever.”  But we are getting ahead of
ourselves.

Our Father.

We cannot begin the prayer Jesus taught without thinking of others.
Not “My” Father.  Not “Your” Father.  Not “Their” Father.  Our Father.

“Father” can be a difficult word.  We have examples of earthly
fathers, present or absent, kind or cruel, healthy or unhealthy, but
altogether human.  And those for whom the earthly father was abusive
or absent, such a word may be difficult.  Strangely enough, Jesus was
pro-healthy relationships, but did not always see that as pro-family.
Families were just as stuck in the difficulties of the world in
bondage to sin as anything else.  And so when Jesus called God Father,
we must imagine something other than and more than earthly parents.
Jesus is calling us into new and renewed relationships, not just old
patterns.

The word Father sounds so formal.  Jesus didn’t use a formal word for
God.  He used Abba.  What an infant or a child might say.  Daddy.
Papa.  There is an intimacy in prayer afforded few other places.

Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

God is not something to be owned, someone to be manipulated, a power
meant only to serve our agendas.  God does not serve our agendas, we
are called to serve God’s agendas.  Even as the language of Jesus’
prayer invites us to intimacy, so too it reminds us that God is God,
and we are not.

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

Thy will be done?  Don’t we come to prayer and pray, make my will
thine, Lord?  Don’t we present our list of demands to God, and these
are fulfilled we then might consider doing as God asks?

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done:  That we would treat one another
as Jesus says; that we would trust in God and not in the might of the
dollar, the rifle, or the powerful; that we would live with the earth,
being stewards of that which is entrusted to us and not simply users
and despoilers; that we would know the fullness of our creation in the
image of God, and our neighbor’s as well, all children of the one
source of us all – on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Echoes of the manna in the wilderness, the reminder that the farmers
grow the grain, the millers make the flour, the bakers make the bread,
but all of this comes from God.  Each breath, the breath of life by
which we are made a living being, a Nephesh.  Each breath a gift.

But some translations speak not of daily bread, but the bread for the
morrow.  Tomorrow’s bread.  Again, the manna in the wilderness,
collected six days.  And on the sixth day, a second portion collected
for the day of rest, the Sabbath.  But also the bread of “that day.”
The feast to which Jesus calls us, the banquet where all God’s people
gather in peace, the one we practice for this morning as we take the
bread and juice of communion, the one where sharing by all will mean
scarcity for none.  On earth as it is in heaven.

Forgive us our debts, our trespasses, our sins.

Is this not also our daily bread – the grace of God made real in our
forgiveness?  In Aramaic, the version of Hebrew Jesus would have
spoken, the word for debts, meaning money, and the word for sin were
the same word.  So when we hold debts over people, keeping them
indentured to us, whether with money or obligation or emotions, we
have broken our relationship, and it is a sin.

Luke puts it plainly: and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves
forgive everyone who is indebted to us.

Matthew ups the ante:  For if you forgive men their trespasses, your
heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men
their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

How we deal with one another is how God will deal with us.  Our faith
and our actions are integral to each other.  Susan K. Smith says this
is the second big lie most Christians say each Sunday morning.  For we
want forgiveness and we so don’t want to forgive.  (The first big lie
is that whole “Thy will be done” thing.)

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, (or from the evil one).

Yes, this is about the little temptations.  A donut I don’t need.
Avoiding a conversation that needs to happen.  But it is also about
the big temptations.  Jesus had in his twelve apostles those who came
from groups we might label terrorists, Simon the Zealot and Judas
Isacariot.  He also had Matthew, the tax collector, whom Simon and
Judas would call a collaborator with Rome.  For them to pray “lead us
not into temptation” is to pray to stay in the Way of Jesus and not
fall back into the patterns and habits of violence or selling people
out.

Those in recovery for addiction know about this line.  The temptation
is that one drink, that one hit, that one use, that one thing that
starts the old pattern all over again.  It is about living in the new
life, with strength for today, not falling back into the old life.

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

Who does this church belong to?  By our polity, we, the congregation,
own the grounds and the building and the furniture and the articles.
The American system of law, following British Common Law, says that
everything must be owned by someone.  So as good Congregationalists,
we say that the church is owned by the local congregation, not the
denomination.  But that is just legal niceties.

It belongs to God.  As does the community around us.  As do the
relationships we are in and those around us.  As do the missions to
which we are called.  As does the world.  Whatever little kingdoms we
try to build cannot match the one breaking through at Christmas, and
even more so at Easter, and even now, in this moment.

How do we do what we do as a church?  By the hard work of volunteers,
by the generosity of our supporters, by the vision of our leaders, to
be sure.  But the power belongs to God, and we get to participate in
it.  When we get inspired for a new program, when we make possible the
work of this church, when we make an offering to our church, we are
giving of ourselves, and that is important.  But more important, our
inspiration is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our giving is an echo,
a reflection of the one who gives us daily bread, the one whose breath
fills our lungs, giving us life.

So who should get the credit and the thanks?
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.