Let me end the week wrapping up some thoughts on The Lord's Prayer and how Jesus uses it in the Sermon on the Mount. In previous posts I have explained that not only is The Lord's Prayer NOT a prayer (it's "scaffolding" for building a prayer life), but that wasn't meant to be said or sung in unison in worship services.
Still, I "pray" it and in church we "pray" and even "sing" it together. Okay, so why the contradiction?
It is important to remember that this whole teaching on prayer comes as one of three illustrations of Jesus instruction in Matthew 6:1: Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Once again, the focus of this section is not private prayers for privacy’s sake. It’s not because shared prayers or spiritual practices are unseemly, but for one reason only: So that we Kingdom people will only desire affirmation and praise from our Father and King.
It is this Fatherly-focus, this Kingdom-contemplation that ultimately brings Kingdom transformation. The more and more we give our offerings for the Lord’s praise, pray to seek the Lord’s face, practice spiritual disciplines for the Lord’s approval, the more we will become like our Lord.
But here is the weird, “Secret Prayer” Irony: We can’t truly seek God alone, all alone.
We can’t seek his Kingdom and his will in our very lives, by ourselves. Left to ourselves, most of us who are attempting to seek only God and God’s transformation will usually end up seeking out those things that will keep ourselves on the throne, our preferences, our desires. We may not seek the praise of others, but left alone we’ll try to manipulate God for our own desires.
I believe this is why Jesus taught us to pray corporately, even in private, “Our Father…Give us this day…forgive us our debts…” This is why he taught his disciples together to pray in plural voice. And this is why St. Tertullian, a brilliant second century apologist wrote that we only truly learn that Jesus is the Son and God is our Father from the Church who is our Mother.
This is why we pray and sing the Lord’s Prayer together in liturgical form, because we who desire to know God as King and Father and have his will and ways be part of every area of our lives need each other to accomplish it.
And this is why you and I need to learn to become a Kingdom Community, even to pray for a Kingdom Community together. Not in trying to impress anyone, not in trying to manipulate God with our words, but only as fellow disciples seeking God’s face, praying for God’s Kingdom to come into our lives..each of our lives...all of our lives.
This awareness of our deep need for the church to be the church is why everytime I lead out in The Lord's Prayer in worship I start it with something like this:
O Father, we thank you that we are not trying to live out the Kingdom alone. We thank you for the churches gathered around the globe this morning who are trying however awkwardly to be Kingdom communities. And we thank you for every disciple in every time and place who have prayed the way you taught your first disciples to pray..."Our Father who art in heaven..."
The next time you are praying the Lord's prayer in a group, thank God for the voices that are reverberating around you. Thank God in your heart that you are not alone in some prison or ivory tower desperate for fellowship. Thank God that you are experiencing the grace of being together (as Bonhoeffer famously said) and ask that the God who is King and Father will reign and love in every area of your life, the church and God's earth as it is in heaven.
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