WHY I “CHANGED” THE LORD’S PRAYER
(Preached on Sunday, July 25, 2004)
He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” -Luke 11:2
A few months ago, I started printing the words to the one prayer we say every week in worship.
We commonly know the prayer as The Lord’s Prayer.
(I also stopped calling it that and refer to it as The Prayer of Jesus.)
I started printing the words as an aid to those who worship with us on any given week who did not grow up in the church, or have not been to church for years, and who do not have that prayer memorized like so many of us do.
One of the things we need to do as a church, if we are truly going to be Open and Affirming, extending true hospitality, is make sure we are not doing things as a club or secret society might do, where you need to be a member before you learn the secret handshake and all the clues to proper behavior and what to do when and how.
That is one reason we print so much of our worship, so that it is easy to follow along for those who don’t attend here week in and week out.
When I printed the words of that prayer, I evidently stirred up a bit of a firestorm, however.
For I “changed” the prayer.
And yes, I did change some of the words we who have the prayer memorized are used to saying.
But did I change the prayer?
That is certainly something we could discuss, and I welcome that discussion and want to use this time this morning to explore what I did and why, and what implications that might have for our daily walk with God.
Such a discussion is always healthy.
Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, has sparked a tremendous discussion about the history of Christianity.
Some people suggest he has touched off an unhealthy firestorm of controversy.
There was an article in The Miami Herald yesterday about the books that have been written in response to this popular novel. To date, more than 15 books countering The Da Vinci Code have been published.
While many of these authors take Dan Brown to task for what they consider serious inaccuracies and for playing fast and loose with facts and wild theories, suggesting that he has an ulterior motive such as destroying the Catholic Church or even Christianity, Dan Brown is much more generous in his view.
On his website he has written in response: “These authors and I obviously disagree, but the debate that is being generated is a positive powerful force. The more vigorously we debate these topics, the better our understanding of our own spirituality. Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole.”
So, back to the prayer of Jesus.
While we tend to think that things religious are carved in stone, this prayer is a fine example that so often they aren’t.
To begin with, we have two versions of the prayer in the Bible — one in Matthew’s gospel and one in Luke’s.
They are not identical, though they are very similar and basically the same.
But the version in Luke’s gospel is shorter, and most scholars feel, more primitive (which means it is probably an older version.)
Luke’s version also asks God to forgive us our “sins” as we forgive others’ debts.
Matthew’s version uses the term “debts” in both places.
(Neither version uses the word “trespasses.”)
Plus, if you read the footnotes in your Bible you will discover that there are also other possible variations on these two texts: such as changing “daily bread” to “our bread for tomorrow”; adding “Your Holy Spirit come upon us and cleanse us”; adding “but rescue us from the evil one (or from evil); changing “time of trial” to “us into temptation.”
So, we have two versions, that not even all translators totally agree upon, in the Bible, and neither one is exactly the prayer which we learned in Sunday School and memorized for Confirmation Class.
That version of the prayer, in English, has its own interesting history.
It was definitely not the exact version Jesus taught, or used; nor was it even the version which the early church leaders began using in worship in the early centuries.
The English version most of us memorized, “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven...” was imposed upon England by King Henry VIII, and employed in the 1549 and 1552 editions of the “Book of Common Prayer”, the worship and devotional book of the Church of England. An ordinance issued in 1541 read in part: “his Grace perceiving now the great diversity of the translations (of the Pater noster etc.) hath willed them all to be taken up, and instead of them hath caused an uniform translation of the said Pater noster, Ave, Creed, etc. to be set forth, willing all his loving subjects to learn and use the same and straitly commanding all parsons, vicars and curates to read and teach the same to their parishioners.”
As a result that version became universally familiar to the nation, and though the King James translators in 1611 provided a somewhat different rendering of Matthew 6:9-13, the older form was retained for their prayers by Protestants and Catholics alike.
Since we are no longer beholdin’ to the king or queen of England, it seems to me that we ought to be free to use our own translation and interpretation of this prayer.
How we interpret, how we integrate, and how we understand life and faith are always changing, as we are changing.
Of course, we must also note, that our faith, though intensely personal, is not private — it is also a communal gift and responsibility.
Churches and synagogues are places for groups of people to gather in, to learn and express their faith.
One purpose of our language is to help us express our faith in ways that are meaningful for us.
Just as we no longer use terms such as “thee” and “thou” in everyday, or even formal, English usage, nor do those terms probably work for many of us in expressing our faith.
We have used in our worship this morning several versions of the prayer of Jesus which were translations from other cultures, using terms and images that speak to those cultures.
Where such changes do harm is when they change the intent and original meaning of the words and images of the original prayer.
As part of our dialogue on this subject, let me offer my sense of what that original intent and meaning might have been.
This prayer is both incredibly brief, and yet remarkably broad. Jesus covered everything in about 30 seconds.
First: This prayer is God centered, not self-centered. It is addressed to a God we are invited to know in a personal way, and it begins and ends with worship and praise.
Second: this prayer expressed hope and concern for the world. It does not just focus on me and my petty concerns, but is universal in scope and inclusivity.
Third: This prayer does not leave out concern for the basic necessities of life. Notice though, the petitions are for basics, not luxuries; and the concern is for all people, not just me and mine.
Fourth: It is also concerned for spiritual needs and for relationships, asking God’s help to restore our brokenness.
Finally, it is a prayer that acknowledges our weakness in the face of trials and temptations and our need for God’s guidance, strength, and protection.
The whole thrust of this prayer is not to receive things from God but to receive God’s own self.
Everybody prays — atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, Christian, Muslim, Jew, or whatever you classify yourself.
Prayer isn’t reserved for churchgoers, devout people, ministers or monks.
Prayer isn’t limited to words, churches, or religious objects.
Prayer is a relationship that everyone has with the mysterious Power of Life.
Prayer is a basic human activity.
It is more than the words we say to God.
It is all the things that we do and say in our relationship with God; in fact, our relationship with God is prayer.
Prayer is opening our hearts for God to receive and address our longings.
To grow deeper in our relationship with God, we must be careful about clinging to that which is not God.
The early church theologian Augustine reminds us that: “If you can understand it, then it is not God. If you were able to understand then you understood something else instead of God. If you were able to understand even partially then you deceived yourself with your own thoughts.”
This is radical humility (and humor) before the ineffable mystery of God.
In truth, to find God we must lose God — at least our primitive ideas and images of God.
Detaching from these familiar images is always painful.
It is a deep level of our psyche that is being changed.
But eventually we can see that it is necessary to lose our familiar, comfortable images and language if we are going to grow closer to finding the true God.
So, what words we pray are not as important as that we pray.
What words we sing, what words we use to speak about God, none of them are as important as the fact that we continue our search for a deeper relationship with God; that we gather to honor and worship God; that we continue to strive to open our hearts and lives up to God’s influence and guidance more and more each day.
Of course, this is just one person’s reflection.
None of it is written in stone.
What do you think?