Tonight @ the HUB we’ll begin 5 weeks of practicing different ways of praying. We begin w/ the way Jesus said to pray. In the little prayer book by Walter Rauschenbusch I’ve been working through he offers a brief but significant commentary on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. He says it is, “the purest expression of the mind of Jesus. It crystallizes his thoughts. It conveys the atmosphere of his childlike trust in the Father.” He goes on to say that in this prayer Jesus “..demanded simplicity and sincerity in all expressions of religion & offered this (prayer) as an example of the straightforwardness with which people might deal w/ their Father.”
And I guess the thing I picked up on most in this part of Rauschenbusch’s book was his insistence that this prayer really only finds its true meaning when it is those who pray it pray it as a prayer of offering themselves to “… the vaster purposes of the kingdom of God, and approaches all personal problems from that same point of view.”
To be honest I’m not sure how to do that. I guess the good news about that is that this is not a prayer I pray on my own, but a prayer to “Our Father”. The only thing I can say about it for now is that Jesus is not offering us a prayer that lets us get what we want from God. But instead the heart of our Lord’s prayer is that more & more God’s kingdom, will & future would become a visible & present reality & that we may be the ones through whom God is pleased to bring this to bear in the world.
Tonight @ the HUB we’ll be seeking to get into the spirit of this prayer. One of the main ways we’ll do this is by seeking to write the prayer out in our own words. Seeking to flesh out a little more clearly & concretely what Jesus is teaching us to pray & therefore do.
Here’s my offering of this, Our Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father, who dwells in heaven, may your Kingdom & Government come, may your will & desires be carried out, here, in the places where we live even as it is now being done in the place where you reign & rule on high. In our offering ourselves to this work of yours, give us this day what we need — food, friendship, shelter, strength, forgiveness. Yes, forgiveness. Forgive us we pray, even as we forgive those who hurt & wrong us. Keep us from the places & ways of temptation & deliver us from the grasp of evil. We ask this of you, because yours IS the Kingdom, yours IS the Power & yours IS the Glory, now & forever. Amen.
