Preaching text: Matthew 6:9-13
Last Sunday we began our journey through the Lord’s Prayer, looking at it through the lens of Luther’s Small Catechism. Luther drives home an important point with the prayer: These things we ask for are things that God will provide regardless of our asking. The kingdom will come. God's will will be done. Our daily bread will arrive. All simply because it is God’s nature to be generous and merciful with his people. He loves us and wants us to be happy.
Even Ben Franklin can see it. Evidence of God's love is everywhere.
There is a certain presumption in the tone of that summary. That’s deliberate. Yes, it seems odd to make demands of the Almighty, but in many ways that precisely how God wants it to be. He is our loving father and he wants us to pray boldly in complete confidence. The very language of the prayer highlights this, although the English translation of the original prayer makes it so formal. Part of the blame for that can be laid at the Greek writing of these Gospel stories. “Father” or πάτερ (Pater) in Greek, but the original Aramaic word was אבא (Abba) or “Daddy.”
Imagine calling God Almighty, maker of the universe, “Daddy.” Well that’s exactly what Jesus teaches us to do. That level of affection and intimacy is what God desires. When our children come to us, they come in confidence, bold because they know our love for them. Emily bats her eyes at me, gives me that little girl smile, and I just melt. She’s my girl, my kiddo. I love her. That’s how it works with God.
Quite a few years ago now, but still a favorite picture of the two of us.
The prayer therefore serves two purposes. It makes us cognizant of God’s grace. His gifts come without our asking. It also makes us confident to ask all that we need of God because of his love for us.
There is however a third purpose to the prayer, a third “c-word” as it were. It is revealed only once we get to the 5th petition, but it is meant for the whole prayer. That word is challenge. The prayer challenges us.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
I know we often say the prayer by rote, but this line really should give us pause. Forgive us as we forgive. I don’t think I like that standard. May God forgive me only as much as I forgive others? Ugh.
I certainly try to be the forgiving sort. But there are just some people... Can I forgive those in higher office whose policies and politics I believe cause harm to me and mine, not the least of which is a certain president who I think most of you know I don’t like or trust much? Don’t do a very good job of that. Can I forgive the greedy ravenous monsters of the business world who care more about money than people or this planet? I don’t do a good job of that either. Heck, I still bear grudges against many of the kids who bullied me as a child, despite the fact that they’ve all grown up and most of them have matured beyond those behaviors.
If the standard is how much forgiving I do with others, I do not measure up well. Most of us probably don’t. Thankfully, through, God’s grace is greater and more merciful than my own. But why then is this petition written this way? Because it is a challenge. God wants us to forgive as he does. He wants to bring our sense of grace towards others into line with his grace towards us.
And if that challenge applies to forgiveness, it applies elsewhere also. Daily bread? What can I do to ensure my neighbor gets his share of it? God’s kingdom? What can I do to spread that kingdom as far and as wide as possible? Deliver from evil? How can I help spare my neighbor the predations of this world? Time and again, we find that these petitions not only remind us of God’s love and mercy towards us, but they challenge us to extend the same to others in whatever way we can.
The Small Catechism is structured very deliberately. It begins with the Ten Commandments and the revelation therein of the reality of sin. We cannot measure up to God’s standard of righteousness. The Creed follows, giving us God’s answer to sin in his generous love, most potently seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Prayer, part 3 of the Catechism, is therefore our response to God’s action. We pray in confidence because of God’s love. And we LIVE for others out of gratitude for that love. The prayer becomes a guide on doing just that. It gives us cognizance, confidence, and challenge to live out God’s will for the world.
This is what it means to be Christian. We embrace our humanity, recognizing we will never be good enough to save ourselves. Thus God intervenes out of love for our sake. And we respond by living in confidence of that love and spreading that love to others in whatever way we can.
This is who we are. This is what we’re called to do. God lives for us. We live for others. God loves us. We love others. God provides for us. We provide for others. Every time we pray, we call ourselves anew into this reality, into this cycle of love, mercy, and generosity. That is the kingdom. That’s how it works. Amen.
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