Meditation: On Lord's Prayer

This week we have clergy meetings. We are going to be taught how to do "prophetic preaching." I will be posting again next Friday.

Having looked at the Lord's prayer, I invite us all to a deeper meditation on it. While Luke does not include the word, Matthew does: "Our."

This is one of my major rants so you have heard it before. God is "our" Father, not mine. It does not mean that God does not know us personally. It does not mean that individuals do not matter. What it means is all prayer has a communal element. Ponder this, how does your prayer change when you say "our" versus "my"? In the later 1990's my two little ones were negotiating their new life on planet earth. Madison is twenty one months older than Luke. One of his first words was "mine." I never recall her saying that word, ever. The reason was, of course, she did not have an older sibling taking her stuff.

The me and mine approach to life is isolated. It is self centered.
The us and our approach is communal. It is love centered.
The former is reality, the latter is the kingdom dream. We can NOT ignore the reality of sin and fallen humanity. Taking care of me and mine is the reality in which we live. However, we can work toward the Kingdom ideal even now, as we await its arrival.

Being hopelessly naive and calling it optimism is silliness. Pretending that we can and should trust each other all the time is a bad idea. (Just check out the work of scam artists and child molesters if you want to see the fruit of that "optimistic" approach to life). But 'our' reminds us we are all in this together. At least in prayer we can act like it. We can act with care but pray with abandon. We can keep a wary eye out in our daily dealings, but pray without worry or fear with/for everyone.

"Father" is Jesus' word. Contemporary folk seem hell bent on destroying the word. They make it a dirty, bad, oppressive word. (Seems Jesus was actually a pretty evil guy in their minds.) Fatherhood in God is a revelation. It is significant. Once more, the escape from 'my' helps. Lots of people have bad dads, or absent dads. The word is painful to them. We cannot ignore that, but we must move beyond it. Fatherhood is bigger (and better) than our own personal experience of it. To relate to God as Father changes the perspective. It is a personal relationship. It is not, however, an equal realationship (hence the complaints).

In prayer, one can spend a long time pondering the words "our + Father." How does it change our view of the world? ourselves? our task in life? In prayer, slowly, repeatedly, with mind and heart and imagination, roll those two words around. Think what they do not mean. Think what they do mean. Draw pictures in your head of what it looks like. Enter the reality and let the reality enter you.

Our Father!