The story so far… I am preparing a sermon on the theme of “A people of prayer” to be preached on February 9th 2020 at St Mark’s Staplefield Common. The readings are:
Matthew 6:5-8
and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-28
On Day 1 I recorded my initial impressions of the theme and the two set readings. On Day 2 I read around the Bible passages a bit more thoroughly to gauge the context. Day 3 saw me looking at commentaries, starting with Tom Wright. Yesterday I moved on to William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible. Today I’ll finish Barclay, and then I’m looking at some more commentaries.
I said yesterday that Barclay included a long section looking at each part of the Lord’s Prayer in turn. I found more here than I expected:
First line: our (not my) Father in heaven. He is holy, despite the familiarity of ‘father’, he is far above us; he is powerful. Remember the orthodox Trisagion “Holy God, Holy strong/mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us”
Hallowed be thy name. Hallowed (hagios) conveys a sense of separateness, of difference. God is not like us. Remember that in Hebrew a name is not just a handle, it’s a thing’s nature, a person’s personality and character. So now we speak God’s name, and we speak of his nature. We cannot treat it like any other; it is unique. When we remember God’s name (YHWH or Jehovah) we call to mind his character, his nature. The nearest English equivalence for this is ‘Reverence’. Barclay feels this requires a constant awareness of God, and I’m reminded of Brother Lawrence, and of the nature of God. From this reverence, there follows an obedience, a desire to please which itself is part of reverence.
This is captured by Wordsworth in his Lines composed near Tintern Abbey:
“And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:”
Let your kingdom come: let your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. The kingdom of God is a running theme through the Gospels and letters of the NT. Christ speaks of the Kingdom in the past, the present and the future. Barclay considers this line as being an example of the parallelism common in the Psalms; that is to say that the two halves say the same thing, but in different ways. The Kingdom of God is life on earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. Heaven on earth.
When we say “Thy will be done” we could adopt all sorts of attitudes to the statement. Resignation, resentment, or as an expression of an earnest desire, accepting God’s wisdom as to what is best.
Daily bread: all sorts of interpretations of this line have been made; the bread of life – Christ himself; the bread in communion; spiritual food. The simplest explanation is often the best: what we need now, today. Our essentials. And remember this is not ‘My essentials’ but ‘Our’. Interestingly the only other place the Greek word used in this prayer has been found is next to an item in an ancient shopping list, so maybe ‘essential’ is the right idea.
Forgiveness: there are at least 5 Greek words translated ‘sin’ in the NT. The first refers to missing a target – failing to be what we might have been. The second refers to stepping across the line – honesty, truth, kindness. The third is a slipping across, an impulsiveness, a momentary failure. The fourth refers to lawlessness, perhaps doing what we like, despite knowing it to be wrong. The fifth and last word is the one used in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer – and it means a debt, a failure to pay what is due. There can be no-one human who can claim to have perfectly fulfilled their duty to God and to others around them. We can think of this as a failure of reverence, a failure of consideration, the promotion of self.
Why is our forgiving relevant to being forgiven? From a sense of justice perhaps? Robert Louis Stevenson rose from his knees in the middle of family prayer as he came to this line, exclaiming he was not fit to pray this prayer. He had an unforgiving spirit over some issue, and knew if he had not put things right with his fellow men, he could not hope to do so with God.
To forgive, Barclay suggests we need to understand – there is always a reason people do what they do. We must learn to forget, to put away the hurt. This is harder. We must learn to love – that unconquerable benevolence, that undefeatable goodwill which will never seek anything but the highest good of others, no matter what they do to us or how they treat us. This requires Christ in our hearts.
Temptation: The Greek word is better translated ‘test’. The meaning is not so much an attempt to seduce a person into evil, as it is to test his strength and loyalty, his ability for service. Temptation is not designed to make us fail, but to make us stronger and better. * Barclay downplays with notion of spiritual battle, but that seems consistent with his general theology (at least to me).
Other commentaries
RT France Tyndale NT Commentaries
I’m only going to pick up strong affirmations of what I have already noted elsewhere, or new/different approaches or interpretations as I read this.
Again we find the warnings about ostentation. France identifies the Gentile invocations and incantations rather than the Jewish set prayers, as the target regarding babbling and meaningless mechanical repetition. He also identifies this as a disciple’s prayer – only they can call God “Father”.
France feels that the use of ‘us’ and ‘our’ makes this a communal as well as individual prayer, but emphasises the avoidance of a self-centred approach to prayer. He also picks up the tension between “our father” and “in heaven”.
France takes a more eschatological view of “Thy Kingdom come” than Barclay, but still emphasises the importance of applying it to obedience today.
“As we forgive” – there is some interesting discussion of the Greek grammar here, suggesting that a translation such as “as we also forgive” or “herewith forgive”is possible, or even helpful. This allows us to avoid the implication that our forgiveness depends upon us forgiving others. France’s commentary on vv 23-35 suggests that forgiving is not so much a prior condition for being forgiven, but that forgiveness cannot be a one-way process. Like all God’s gifts, it comes with responsibility.
Michael J Wilkins – NIVAC
The focus in prayer should be on the intimacy of communion with God in one’s heart, which is at the centre of all prayer, whether it happens to be given publicly or privately. The Lord’s Prayer (or the Disciples’ prayer?) is a model for the disciples. It wasn’t intended for slavish repetition, which is actually condemned earlier in our passage.
This commentary speaks of the use of Abba (or ‘abinu – our father) but my Strong’s for this verse says the Gk is pater, much more formal. And the Gk Interlinear at Biblehub.com confirms this. But of course, I forget – Abba and ‘abinu are Hebrew, Pater is Gk. Would Christ have used Abba here? A quick search suggests that Abba would have been the only word available in Aramaic for Father, and so was less informal than is often assumed. Although this reduces the tension between “Our Father” and “in heaven”, it certainly doesn’t remove it. Wilkins also points out YHWH was not to be uttered, a mark of its utter holiness.
Kingdom: in the Qaddish we find “May he rule his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon”. We should not be surprised at notions of the Kingdom being in the present.
Wilkins also suggests that forgiveness of sins is proof that the disciple’s sins are forgiven. I find this harder to accept. I think Christ makes it clear that failure to forgive prevents us receiving forgiveness. Whether this is because of our inability to accept forgiveness or God’s unwillingness to offer remains a moot point. I don’t like to think of God withholding forgiveness. On the other hand I find the prospect of the unforgiving disciple, like Stevenson, stumbling on this line and finding a dart of remorse driven into his heart a much more likely scenario. We know we must forgive, and we often find it so very hard until we are presented with the reality of needing forgiveness.
Next step: to find a thread and condense something from all this. St Mark’s expects only 10 minutes for my sermon; only around 1000 words. Bless you.
