Martin Luther talking about the Lord’s Prayer said this : “It is true that God’s name is holy in itself, but we ask in this prayer that it may also become holy in and among us.” How does this come about? Luther answers this question: “Whenever the word of God is taught clearly and purely and we, as God’s children, also live holy lives according to it. To this end help us, dear Father in heaven!”
It was a Friday afternoon in the crematorium at Dukinfield in Greater Manchester. I’m sorry if you’ve heard this story before. I had three funerals there on the same day and to keep it fresh for the third one I decided I’d use the Baptist service book instead of the Methodist one. I had a large unchurched congregation. It came to the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer wasn’t written out in full in the book. I started “our Father, who art in heaven” then a voice in my head said “you’ve never heard of this prayer, you’ve not got a clue how it goes!” The whole congregation stopped because I stopped. I bumbled through a few sentences and got to the Amen. It was very scary. And ever since that day I’ve always had the prayer written out when I lead it.
The Methodist minister Gareth Hill in his weekly blog on the lectionary passages suggests this: perhaps we have done the prayer – and God. – a disservice by repeating it so often hardly anyone pays attention to it. You might discuss that. Certainly I think we’ve forgotten the revolutionary power of the words in it, but I’ll come to that in a bit.
Easy to forget? Easy to rush? (I’ve heard many a worship leader garble it) Too familiar we’ve lost its meaning? Do people know it today? I had a church in Hastings which had a choir which did an introit and an anthem every Sunday and we sang the Lord’s Prayer at every service. In fact, I had two churches in the Circuit which sang the Lords Prayer and each had their own tune. If you read the history of Methodism in that part of Sussex there was a huge rivalry between the choir at Calvert Memorial in Hastings and the choir at Rye and I found minute books from around the First World War where in writing they would minute how much better their choir Sunday had been than the others! Anyway I remember suggesting to dear Ralph, the organist in Hastings that people coming new to worship might not know the tune so maybe we ought to say it now and again… he looked aghast at me and said “ they should learn it!”
Michael Green says in his commentary on Matthew: Prayer is not informing God of something he does not already know. Nor is prayer seeking to get God to change his mind. It is the adoring submission of the creature to the Creator, of the disciple to the Master. He knows. He cares. He is your Abba, your dear Father.
That’s why we can pray
Father, hallowed be your name.
‘Hallowed be’ is a statement of longing, for our own lives and the whole world. We long for God’s character - and therefore God’s name - to be the bedrock not just of our lives but of all people, everywhere.
We are called to live lives and pray prayers that recognise God for who God is. Our worship and prayers do not make God holy; they are our recognition of all that God is and an attempt to align our beings and lives with that truth.
It’s where this wonderful prayer begins because, until we have understood properly who we are praying to, we dare not bring our requests to this God. Isn’t it great that God is both big and other but also accessible? Maybe we are here as a church to remind people of that.
I have a baptism in September and I went to meet the family on Monday nightat their home in North Stainley. I parked the car. Suddenly a load of little girls came running up the street. “ Rev Ian Rev Ian!” they shouted “you come to our school!” Then after I’d seen the family, I got back in the car and started to drive off, they chased me down the street, giggling. I guess going into school I remind those girls about God and being seen about I show them God – the church – is accessible and friendly and meets people where they are. The Lords Prayer enables us to approach this vast God. And later we invite God to do stuff…
It is a deeply accessible prayer that lifts us to God in praise, in awareness of our needs, and in acceptance of the way in which our loving God meets our needs.
The prayer goes on, with admirable directness, with, "Give us…Forgive us…Lead us…Deliver us…"
So why pray the Lords Prayer and never forget it? “ In it,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “every prayer is contained.” All of our prayers, he goes on to say, “are summed up in the Lord’s Prayer and are taken up into its immeasurable breadth.” The prayer that Jesus taught us is the most beloved of all our prayers, with good reason. And Martin Luther who I began with said of this prayer: “Since our Lord is the author of this prayer, it is without a doubt the most sublime, the loftiest, and the most excellent. If he, the good and faithful Teacher, had known a better one, he would surely have taught us that too.”
One of the most moving experiences for me is when I pray this prayer with people suffering from dementia when I take care home services. They may not remember who I am, or even the names of their own family members, but they invariably join me in praying the Lord’s Prayer. It is always a holy experience for me. There’s a dear soul I see every month in Boroughbridge who is always a few verses behind when we pray it but she’s word perfect. She also is a verse behind in every hymn but I let her have the last verse on her own when the others have all finished and then she laughes at me!
This prayer connects us to one another in profound ways, across the generations, across denominations, and around the world. A powerful thing to do if you ever visit London is to go to a service under the dome in St Paul’s Cathedral. The congregation is an international one and you are invited to say the prayer in your own tongue and so there is a wonderful cacophony of words around you, emphasing that this Father is truly our Father, no matter where we come from or what we look like. And think about this: when we pray this prayer, there is almost certainly someone else in the world who is praying it at that very same moment. When we pray this prayer, we are never alone.
Why pray this prayer? I like how Eugene Peterson answers this question.
I was visiting a woman in her mid-forties. She had been widowed for several years, children grown, and feeling at loose ends.
Nobody needed her; she had no need for employment. For a few months she had been worshiping, but erratically, in the congregation that I served as pastor. I was sitting in her living room, listening to this familiar rehearsal of mid-life meandering, a soul adrift. The conversation, like her life, didn’t seem to be going anywhere. There didn’t seem to be any place for me to get a foothold. She had a piece of needlework in her lap, stretched across an embroidery hoop. Then, with just a faint note of vibrancy in her voice, she said, “Do you know what I need? I need something to give tautness, shape to my life. I need an embroidery hoop for my soul. I’m a limp piece of cloth—you can’t do fine needlework on a limp piece of cloth.” She had given me my foothold. I said, “I’ve got just the hoop for you. The Lord’s Prayer is exactly that sort of device for your soul: a frame across which to stretch your soul taut with attention in the presence of God.”
Isn’t that great? The Lord’s Prayer is the frame that can keep our souls “taught with attention in the presence of God.” It can give us the foothold, the words, that we need. It can offer us the frame for all of our prayers. God is accessible, approachable and just there and we need the time and the space to seek him out.
Joseph Scriven sees prayer as a solace. In it we are reminded that God hears our cries and for us we are caught up in the purposes of God again when we stop our wittering and our worrying and as AI says when I put in the search engine coming to God in prayer Coming to God in prayer is a deeply personal and varied experience, but at its core, it involves approaching God with an open heart and mind, seeking connection, guidance, and support.Whether through formal or informal prayer, individuals express their thoughts, emotions, and desires to God, trusting in His presence and willingness to listen.
Let us be praying churches. Let us be bold enough to pray. Let us expect God to answer. Remember John Wesley said “the neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness.”
“Whenever the word of God is taught clearly and purely and we, as God’s children, also live holy lives according to it. To this end help us, dear Father in heaven!”
Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.”
