Text for the Week: The Model Prayer

Scripture: Matthew 6:7-15

7 “When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. 8 Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask. 9 Pray like this:
Our Father who is in heaven,
uphold the holiness of your name.
10 Bring in your kingdom
so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
11 Give us the bread we need for today.
12 Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
13 And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.
14 “If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins.

Questions

1. What were the Gentile prayers like that Jesus calls them a “flood of empty words” and cautions his followers to avoid them?
2. Why does Jesus include “don’t lead us into temptation”, when we have James 1:13 says God does not tempt anyone?
3. Why does Jesus provide more detail (verses 14-15) on the importance of forgiving others and not any other line in the prayer?

Background

Related Scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:4-8; Isaiah 44:8-20; Matthew 26:35-46; Colossians 4:2-6; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; James 1:13-15

The contrast with the Gentile prayers seems to be that pagan cultures treated prayer as a need to gain the god’s attention the repetition was to get an otherwise distracted god to hear, Jesus wants us to understand that God is listening to us and we do not have to do anything to gain God’s attention.

It is not entirely certain what the phrase “the bread we need for today” in verse 11 is referring to, but in broad strokes we are meant to acknowledge our dependence on God for our day-to-day sustenance and to make this request, not because God needs to hear it, but because we do.

We focus on forgiveness of sins but the word Matthew uses is “debts” and is primarily financial and it is meant to help us understand that we are to forgive whatever another person owes to us. The clarification in verses 14-15 seems to indicate that our forgiveness of others is a demonstration of our understanding and acceptance of God’s forgiveness in our own lives.

While we often translate verse 13 as temptation the word is not a negative but is better translated trial, indicating that we are to ask God to avoid trials but understanding we will walk through them and praying that God is with us during the trials to keep us from evil.

Reflection

Like so much of Jesus’ teachings The Lord’s Prayer is simultaneously original and unoriginal, taking common themes in Jewish prayers and working them together in a way that is unique. The first of these elements is the choice to address God as “Our Father”, Jewish tradition taught that Israel was God’s “firstborn” and so God was their Father. Yet, it was not typical to address God as Father and so Jesus’ prayer provides us with a distinct element. Addressing God as Father might have been rare in Jewish culture but it stands in stark contrast to the Gentile prayers Jesus highlights. Those prayers were built on the assumption that the petitioner needed to do something to get the deity’s and stand out, Jesus’ prayer, from the outset is a reminder that we are in a position of beloved child who the Father wants to hear from. This is the reason for the brevity of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was not telling his followers that prayers must be short—he often prayed all night—but that we do not approach God like a distant unconcerned king who needs to be convinced of our prayer’s merits but like a loving parent who wants to give good things to their child.

The Lord’s Prayer follows a reference to the Jewish times of prayer, and though Jesus addresses the Gentile prayers explicitly we should probably understand this prayer was meant for the daily prayer times of morning, midday, and evening. The brevity of the prayer makes it ideal for these scheduled prayer times, which were meant to be brief reminders of God’s presence in daily life. This is how the early Church used this prayer, reciting it at both public worship and in daily times of prayer. In these daily times of prayer Jesus seems more concerned with how we connect to God than how long we spend in prayer. Jesus’ words provide us a short and simple refrain to align our minds and hearts with God as we take a minute out of our day to connect with our Creator. And though it can be common to view the prayer as two halves with the first half about God and the second half about our needs. It seems better to think of the whole prayer as designed for us to speak to our God in a way that helps us understand the world the way God does and demonstrates our desire to be God’s children.

The prayer Jesus offers us is about intimacy with God, even the petitions—God’s kingdom realized, daily sustenance, forgiveness, avoidance of trials and rescue from evil—are less about petitioning God for what we need than they are about aligning ourselves with God. The focal point of the prayer is understanding our relationship with God (parent to child) and then orienting our point-of-view to God’s. God desires that the kingdom of heaven come to earth and so should we. God desires to give us the provision we need for the day and wants us to recognize each day that our provision comes from God. Our desire and prayers for forgiveness are rooted in our ability to emulate God and God’s desire to forgive. And of course, God desires that we not be put through trials and temptations and wants to deliver us from evil as much as we desire to be delivered. Of course, like any parent God wants us to communicate our needs and desires, and so in one sense when we ask for food or forgiveness these are genuine needs, we are asking God to fulfill. But prayer is always a two-way street and even when we are making requests of God we are meant to grow in recognition of God’s presence in the world. Prayer is about how God changes us through conversation, and as we pray the prayer Jesus taught us, we focus not simply on what we want or need but coming with these requests we are forced to mediate on God’s plans for the world. As we pray “your Bring in your kingdom so that your will is done” we are forced to wrestle with what that means for God our Father and how we fit into this work. As we pray for food or rescue from evil, we have the opportunity to consider how God has worked in our past. This short prayer pushes us from the world where we live to the world that God is creating. More than simply a superficial pagan prayer asking the deity to do something for us, Jesus’ prayer is meant to help us connect with and understand what our loving Father has planned for us.