Editor’s note: What follows below are highlights from Bishop Richard Reed’s talk during a recent prayer conference. Also, this article has been edited and shortened for clarity.
WASKESIU (Skwn) — Why do we call it The Lord’s Prayer?
This seems like a very basic question, and the answer is simple: The disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and He gave them this in reply: “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“Pray then like this: ‘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 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’” (Matt. 6:7-13).
The Church has been praying this prayer continuously for more than 2,000 years. As Anglicans, we could pray this prayer three times together on a Sunday, 12 times from Monday to Saturday, or if we were a cleric, or just a super keen prayer-book Anglican, up to 30 times a week in private prayer and public worship.
In other words, this is not unfamiliar territory for us. Having said that, we have two potential pitfalls. One is precisely our familiarity, and that familiarity can lead us to do what Jesus warned us not to do, which is say this prayer without truly praying, without truly considering what it is we are asking, without thinking about the words and meaning of what we are praying.
Second, we can think we have the final word on its meaning. Thankfully, this is impossible.
The meaning is inexhaustible. I had a professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent, James Houston, who had meditated on the Lord’s Prayer in his morning prayer time for five years, and the insights he gained were never complete. (Book plug: The Transforming Friendship/ Power of Prayer).
But at the same time, there is something fixed and eternal in the Lord’s Prayer, something that takes us directly to the heart of the Christian faith, that brings us into the unchanging ultimate reality of what it means to be God’s people.
We are a people mystically bound to one another as the body of Christ in the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the same message Jesus preached, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News.” A people living the same pattern of life that He lived.
Engaging in the same ministry that the Father gave Him, which He now gives us.
And so, the Lord’s Prayer is not simply a prayer Jesus gave His disciples, a prayer to teach us how to pray, but it is His prayer, the prayer of the Son to the Father, the foundation of the Son’s relationship to the Father, now our prayer, as God’s children following Jesus, in this world, in a deep intimate relationship of trust with God, our Father.
One of the ways the prayer does this is by giving us a perspective, Jesus’ perspective on our lives and ministry. And His perspective demands we let go of all the things that distract us, all of our anxieties, everything that confuses us, and all of our fears, and turn our hearts to what is most important, the ultimate and highest reality in life; and direct our hearts to the one who speaks from the burning bush to Moses and says, “I AM. Tell them I AM sent you.”
In his book on the prayer, Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann says this: The first thing that Christ offers to those who ask Him to teach them to pray, the very first thing He leaves them as a priceless gift and consolation, as joy and inspiration, is the possibility of calling God “father,” to regard Him as their father.
How many ideas have evolved in man’s imagination about God! He has been referred to as the Absolute, the First Cause, Omnipotent, Creator, Lord, Benefactor, and so on. Each of these ideas relates to some element of truth, to a profound experience and depth of understanding.
“Yet, this one word “Father,” together with “our,” contains all these concepts, yet at the same time, reveals them as intimacy, as love, as a unique, unrepeatable and joyful union.
“Here faith opens to trust, and dependence yields freedom, intimacy and joy. This is no longer an idea about God, but knowledge of God, communion with Him, in love, unity and trust.”
And so, when you pray, pray, Our Father. With all of this in mind, we turn to the petition. And we need to keep all of this in mind because of the state of the world we live in. The world that God intended us to live in is a world where men and women know God as Father. But they don’t.
This relationship was broken long ago when our original parents, Adam and Eve, partook of the forbidden fruit, and then hid from God in shame.
The world that was intended is one where God’s name is hallowed, but instead, He is profaned, and even His people, Israel of old and the Church, have distorted His character, His reputation, and His identity among the nations.
The world that God intended was a world where men and women say, “Your Kingdom, not mine, your will, not mine.” The world God intended was a world where men and women understood that all things come of thee, a gracious and generous God, where we would be gracious and generous in turn. I could go on, but you get the point.
The world we live in is not as God intended. We live in a bent and sinful world where God is ignored, where people rebel and thumb their noses at him, and people work hard from the top levels of governments to the neighbor next door, to set up their kingdom not his, look out for No. 1 not love their neighbour, and who do not acknowledge God, nor trust him for their daily needs – and where vengeance, injustice, and all sorts of evil dominate the landscape. Lies, deception darkness, disease, fouling up even the best things that God has given us.
And if that weren’t bad enough, amid all of this we must contend with the devil.
Many of you know that the devil is real, and personal, and that there are other beings like him, personal evil in unseen realms around us, because you have experienced it. But in the last 150 years in particular, the devil and his minions have been banished from the consciousness of the western world – we don’t believe in that any more. But one would be hard pressed to make this a universal belief, and it is not the teaching of the scriptures.
The Bible does not obsess on Satan. In fact, it has little to say about his origins, and only a little more about his final destination in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. But it says enough that we can be clear on a few things. He is here and has been since the beginning. He is a powerful, unseen, and wise, and has many others on his team. He is described as the ruler of this world, who deceives the nations and has been I liar since the beginning. He hates God and attacks his people – accusing them day and night.
And so the apostle Peter writes:
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world… (1 Pet 5:6f ESV)
And so this is our situation. And there is perhaps no place in the Lord’s prayer that sums up what we face as those who follow Jesus than “… lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Matt. 6:13 ESV)
The petition comes to us in two parts. And first part can be troubling. What can Jesus possibly mean, lead us not into temptation? Is it possible for God to tempt us?
The apostle James settles part of our dilemma in chapter one of his letter, verse 13: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13 ESV)
Good. That’s settled. But we still have a problem. What is Jesus talking about then? If God does not tempt us, what does he do? The answer I believe lies in the Greek word peirasmos This is the word to tempt – but it has two meanings depending on the context – it can mean to tempt (to seduce someone into doing evil) and it can mean to test (like when a refiner heats Gold to test its purity, and remove contaminants – to purify it). And I think it is the perfect word that describes exactly what we experience in a world like ours, infected by sin, and contending with an adversary, the devil.
Just think about it. Remember the garden of Eden. God puts man and woman there, his image and likeness, and there is only one law – don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. It’s a test – and when the serpent enters the garden the test becomes temptation:
Who is your God, who’s word is true, who will you trust, will you go your own way, can you live with some mystery, and place your life totally in God’s hands. Or will you listen to the serpent who denies God’s word, his wisdom and goodness.
Or consider Israel in the wilderness. Delivered from the yoke of tyranny and slavery, freed by the mighty hand of the living God, called to put the idols of Egypt behind them and to come to know, love, serve, and worship the covenant God of Israel, the Creator or all, and their redeemer. God takes them to the wilderness – to test them. Will they trust and obey, will they rely totally on him? Or will they grumble, live in fear and anxiety, lose faith, and fail to trust him to provide for them and protect them, to be with them, and lead them safely to the land of promise?
Or consider Job. Satan accuses him before God – and God allows Satan to strike Job and his family – and his wife becomes the familiar voice of the serpent … Job, just curse God and die – why do you hold onto your faith?
And of course, there is the incarnate Son of God himself, driven by the Holy Spirit in the to the wilderness where his temptations are test. If you are the Son of God… use your power to provide for yourself. Test God’s protection and leap from the temple. Take a shortcut and worship me, and I will give you the kingdoms of the world.
Lead us not into temptation. peirasmos. Throughout our lives, God will bring us into situations that are designed to test our faith. Are you really God’s child? Is he really your Father? Is his word trustworthy? Will he really provide? Will you follow his will? Will you put his kingdom first? Will you hallow his name?
And he does this to prove our faith and to improve our faith, like Gold being purified. The tests prove that we are truly Christians, truly children of the Father, by placing us face to face with the
realities of this world, in all kinds of places and circumstances – many not of our making and many completely out of our control – to see how we will respond. And these tests are used by God to make us grow, to transform us and mature us, ultimately to improve and strengthen our faith and trust in the father.
The struggle is very real. Again, listen to what Alexander Schmemann says about this:
In the first instance evil comes to us precisely as temptation, as doubt, as disintegration of faith; the victory of darkness, cynicism, and helplessness in our soul. The awesome force of evil does
not lie in evil as such, but in its destruction of our faith in goodness – our conviction that good is stronger than evil. The Christian attitude towards evil consists precisely in the understanding that evil has no explanation, no justification, no basis; that it is the root of rebellion against God, falling away from God, a rupture from the full life; and that God does not give us an explanation for evil, but
strength to resist evil and the power to overcome it. And again, this victory lies not in the ability to understand and explain evil, but rather in the ability to face it with the full force of faith. Here lies the victory of Christ, the one whose whole life was one seamless temptation.
So here is our victory over temptation. Christ himself, who suffered and died for us, and was raised on the third day. Who when he ascended poured the Holy Spirit upon his Church, the very personal empowering presence of God himself, with us and in us, the power to overcome evil and temptation.
And so we pray, Father … deliver us from evil.
Heavy, I know. But, there is more, for the words, deliver us from evil, can also be understood to mean the evil one. And now evil is personal, a reference to the person or one who brings the evil upon us. We have already mentioned the devil. But who else might the evil one be? Well, we can see it in the passages I have already read. Men and women succumbing to temptation and bringing evil to bear directing its force on the Son of God himself. And now, the same being directed on us, the body of Christ, the Church.
And this is truly what we have in mind when we pray, Father, deliver us from evil, for the source of evil in this world is personal, a person. And so, when we pray, deliver us from evil, we are not
asking our heavenly Father to deliver us from some impersonal force, but from the evil one, a person, or persons, in whom sin has replaced goodness, who is living in this moment, in this world, in their lives by evil.
Again, I turn to Schmemann: It is perhaps here in these words about the evil one that we are given the explanation of evil, for here we discover that it is not some kind of impersonal force spread throughout the world, but rather as the tragedy of personal choice, personal responsibility, personal decision.
And therefore, only in the person, not in abstract theories and arrangements, is evil defeated, and goodness triumphs; which is why we pray first of all for ourselves. For each time we overcome temptation, it is because we chose faith, hope and love, and not the gloom of evil. I want to finish with a few ad hoc comments about the prayerbook:
O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us. Based on Psalm 40.13
THIS is the prayer that opens the Offices of morning and evening Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. We can easily miss the importance of these short sentences, these cries to God for help. But they are the foundation for all our praying. The prayerbook understands our dilemma. Morning prayer today brought all of this together. Compline…
And it is intensely spiritual. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil is everywhere throughout morning and evening prayer. Our liturgy for Holy Communion reminds us as well,
and then put the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ front and center … he was tempted in every way but did not sin. He was tested and proved righteous. And he is the source
of our eternal salvation, our victory over darkness in this life, who through Faith has united us into his one mystical body, and sends us into the wilderness of this world, with the message of God’s Kingdom.
