In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, we find the most well-known passage in all of Scripture: the Lord’s Prayer. Long before most people had access to the Bible, and well before most people were educated enough to read it, Christians were taught the Lord’s Prayer. It has been used in Christian worship since the beginning of the church, and continues to be a guide for how we commune with God.
Interestingly, the Lord’s Prayer is found in the sermon immediately after the section where Jesus warns his followers not to pray openly in public for others to see. He calls them to pray alone, in private. However, the prayer he then teaches them to recite while alone is entirely corporate in structure and language. In other words, Jesus commands us to pray in private while understanding that our prayers themselves are never private.
For example, the Lord’s Prayer begins by addressing God as “Our Father.” John Chrysostom, the early church father, noted that Jesus “did not say ‘My Father’ but ‘Our Father,’” and that when we recite the Lord’s Prayer, we are “offering petitions for the common body, and not looking merely to each man’s own interests but everywhere to his neighbor’s.” Of course, he is correct. Nowhere in the prayer do the pronouns I, me, or my appear. Only our and us.
The prayer of Jesus assumes we are connected—that we are part of a community. I appreciate how Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it in his book, Life Together: “The prayer of the Christian is never a lonely prayer.” The individualism that marks so much of our culture does not contaminate Jesus’ teaching. He recognizes that even when we are alone in prayer, our prayers are never lonely because we are forever connected to one another. We are all part of the great family of God, which transcends every boundary: national, ethnic, cultural, even generational. When we bow our heads and pray these words, we are taking part in a family prayer. The Lord’s Prayer binds the people of God together across time and space.
This morning, as you commune with God alone in silence and in prayer, recite the Lord’s Prayer silently or aloud. As you do, allow the plural pronouns “our” and “us” to resonate and inspire your imagination. Pay attention to the faces that come into your mind. Remember your sisters and your brothers. Remember that we all share the same Father in heaven and that your communion with him cannot be separated from your communion with them.
Daily Scripture
Matthew 6:9–13
Romans 8:12–17
Weekly Prayer
From Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)
O Lord, let me no longer desire health or life except to spend them for you and with you. You alone know what is good for me; therefore do what seems best to you. Give to me or take from me; conform me to your will; and grant that, with humble and perfect submission, and in holy confidence, I may receive the orders of your eternal providence; and may equally adore all that comes to me from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
