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 1Thessalonians 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. Today I’m starting to look at commentaries.
Tom Wright – Matthew for Everyone. Not really a commentary in the academic sense, but often a good place to start, with good ideas presented simply. Here are my notes:
The Lord’s Prayer is deeply meaningful, not some magic formula. We can pray it with our minds as well as saying it with our lips. It uses ordinary language.
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus calls God “Father”. What does it mean to be able to call God “Father”?
This is a prayer for the Kingdom of God to become fully present; not for us to be snatched away to heaven, but for the beauty and glory of heaven to be turned into an earthly reality. The prayer starts and ends with God. If we don’t do this there is a danger that our prayer becomes self-centred, when it should be outward-facing, addressing the needs of the whole world.
We also pray for forgiveness, a particularly Jewish and Christian theme. Jesus’s assumption must be that we need to pray for forgiveness on a regular basis, every time we pray: a sobering thought, but matched by the comforting news that forgiveness is readily forthcoming. This is followed by the immediate assumption that we ourselves will be forgiving. The heart that doesn’t grasp the relational significance of forgiveness won’t be open to accepting forgiveness when it is offered. How often to we continue to condemn ourselves when God has already offered us forgiveness?
Finally we pray about temptation and the evil one. We recognise we are on a spiritual battlefield: we are not well-armed, and need all the assistance we can get!
