At a 1932 conference in Switzerland, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer delivered a lecture titled “The Church is Dead.” He noted,
“…has it not become terrifyingly clear again and again, in everything that we have said here to one another, that we are no longer obedient to the Bible? We are more fond of our own thoughts than of the thoughts of the Bible. We no longer read the Bible seriously, we no longer read it against ourselves, but for ourselves. If the whole of our conference here is to have any great significance, it may be perhaps that of showing us that we must read the Bible in quite a different way until we find ourselves again.”
The church was, in Bonhoeffer’s mind, ignoring God’s word or, perhaps worse, pressing the Bible into the service of the church’s own agendas. God’s word was no longer transforming God’s people. It was being used to authorize the church’s bad behavior. While Bonhoeffer focuses his critique on God’s word and the church’s (mis)use of Scripture, Bonhoeffer is highlighting a deeper problem: the church had begun to set its own agenda.
Reading scripture “for ourselves” as opposed to “against ourselves” is crucial, yet (and I think Bonhoeffer would agree) all of the practices of the faith are to be done “against ourselves” rather than “for ourselves.” We need these practices to be “against” us because our desires are deeply misdirected. To some large degree, our innate intuition is to pursue something other than God. As Sarah Coakley notes regarding the necessity of a transformational theological process, “What is being progressively purged, in this undertaking, is the fallen and flawed capacity for idolatry, the tragic misdirecting of desire. One is learning, over a lifetime—and not without painful difficulty—to think, act, desire, and see aright.”
Like reading scripture, prayer can work “for us” or “against us.” In The Dangers of Christian Practice, Lauren Winner suggests that our misdirected desires have “long been a worry for Christians’ theorizing about petitionary prayer: the sure knowledge that if we get in the habit of asking, we are certain to ask for the wrong things.” Prayer is a crucial part of the Christian life, but prayer is not immune to the perversions of our own interests and agendas.
A quick look at the New Testament reflects both the power and fragility of prayer. Consider, for instance, that the Holy Spirit stands behind our prayers because “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Even when we are confused and ignorant, the Holy Spirit “intercedes” for us. Yet, as we see in 1 Peter, our prayers may be hindered (3:7).
The power and fragility of prayer is on display in Matthew 6:5-14. Before the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus instructs them on how not to pray. First, he encourages them not to treat prayer as a commodity intended to enhance one’s social standing (6:5). The “hypocrites” may have been offering genuine prayers, but in doing so, they also seized the opportunity to use prayer for their own purposes. As such, Jesus encourages his disciples not to imitate them but to pray “in secret” to receive the Father’s reward (6:6). Jesus is not encouraging the disciples to hide when they pray. Jesus himself prayed in public (Lk 23:34; Jn 6:11; 17:1-26). Instead, Jesus is encouraging his disciples not to use prayer for their own advantage.
After critiquing the “hypocrites,” Jesus turns to the Gentiles “who heap up empty phrases” (6:7) when they pray. Jesus tells his disciples not to imitate the Gentiles because “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (6:8). Here, Jesus encourages the disciples not to take their cues from the Gentiles because the Gentiles have no understanding of who God is. As such, they try to “connect” with their “god” by piling up phrases in the hopes that something will “stick.” Jesus’s disciples need not pray like the Gentiles because they know who their God is, and God knows what the disciples need.
Both of these ways of praying are counterfeit. In their own ways, the hypocrites and the Gentiles were distorting prayer. The hypocrites were using prayer to improve their social status. The Gentiles were praying without direction and knowledge and, in doing so, suggesting that God is capricious and arbitrary. Jesus’s disciples are to pray into God’s reality. The way they pray is to reflect the reality of the Triune God. The Lord’s prayer instructs them to do just that.
While many churchgoers (myself included) may have grown up reciting the Lord’s prayer on Sundays, we should not assume that Jesus was outlining the only prayer we would ever need to pray or that he is giving us a quasi-magical incantation that would obligate God to bless us. The Lord’s prayer is a theological outline that offers everyday believers a pattern and trajectory for their own prayers. It is a prayer that teaches us to approach God “against ourselves.”
“…hallowed be your name”
The first phrase in the Lord’s prayer is (appropriately) focused on the Lord. This portion of the prayer is an expression of rightly directed desire. As disciples of Christ, we want God and his name to be given due honor. We want God to be recognized as holy. God is already holy. His name will always be above all names. Still, God’s people desire God’s name to be recognized and honored as holy.
As people who bear God’s name, this portion of the Lord’s prayer is not simply a call for others to recognize the holiness of God’s name. Instead, it is a reminder that we have a role to play in establishing God’s reputation. If we want God’s name to be honored, we must not bear it in vain (Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11). We are not charged with protecting God’s reputation (God does not need our protection) but with being and making disciples whose lives reflect a deep understanding of what it means to bear the name of God.
“…your kingdom come…”
The next portion of the prayer has to do with restoring a world that is not the way it is supposed to be. In v. 10, Jesus instructs his disciples to pray that God’s reign (or kingdom) will be established in all realms of existence (earth and heaven). It is a prayer that the politics and false orders of the world will give way to God’s will. We pray for a time when there will be no more resistance to God’s will.
While it may seem easy for us to look out at the world and see the ways others resist the will of God, we must also recognize that we pray this prayer “against ourselves.” When we pray that God’s will be done, we implicitly acknowledge that our will…our desires and interests…will need to be conformed to God’s will. It is not so much that we pray only that others would conform to God’s will but that God’s will and His reign would be the unqualified norm on earth and in heaven.
“Give us today our daily bread”
This portion of the Lord’s prayer directs us toward dependence. There is some debate amongst scholars as to the meaning of “daily bread.” The Greek word translated “daily” is relatively rare in Greek literature and the New Testament (Matt 6:11; Lk 11:3). It seems best to understand the phrase “daily bread” as referring to a day’s provision. While some argue that Jesus is looking forward to the bread of the coming age, it seems best to think of this portion of the prayer as setting a pattern: in the provision of daily bread, God is reminding his followers of his consistent kindness and dependability that will ultimately lead those who are loyal to him into the coming age.
Requesting a day’s provision serves, in part, as a daily reminder of our dependence on God. We don’t place our hope in our savings and retirement accounts. Instead, we ask God to provide us with what we need on a day-to-day basis. It expresses our ongoing desire to trust in God even for our daily provisions rather than seeking out some false sense of security elsewhere.
“Forgive us our debts…”
It is worth noting a difference between the Lord’s prayer in Matthew and that recorded in Luke. “Debts” is used in Matthew 6:12 rather than “sins” in Luke 11:4. It may be that Luke is highlighting moral and ethical “debts,” whereas Matthew is focusing on more tangible, material debts. It seems more likely, however, that Matthew is using a material situation to highlight the deficits accrued between believers and God via sin. In this case, Luke is making explicit what Matthew points toward with more figurative language.
Forgiving and being forgiven go hand in hand. Understanding the great debt God has forgiven leaves no room for those seeking to imitate him to withhold forgiveness. It is important to note that praying for forgiveness is “against ourselves.” Rather than being self-justifying and thankful that we are “not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector” (Lk 18:11), we acknowledge our need for forgiveness. As Stanley Hauerwas notes, “To learn to have our sins forgiven, indeed to learn that we are sinners needing forgiveness, is to become part of the kingdom of God. If we do not learn to forgive then we will not be forgiven, we will not be part of the new reality, the new people, brought into existence by Jesus.”
“And lead us not into temptation…”
Asking that God would not lead us into temptation should not lead us to think that God is somehow seeking to make us fall. Instead, as Craig Keener suggests, “In this context, the person is praying precisely that the testing [or temptation] will not lead to falling.” Similar to the request for daily bread, we are placing ourselves in God’s hands for protection as we face the various challenges of life and discipleship.
While we would almost certainly affirm that we need God’s help in testing, we should not miss the implications of this petition: we are acknowledging our own insufficiency to stand firm in testing. Clearly, we are not asking God to “do all the work,” but we are asking him to be with us, to strengthen us, and to give us the wisdom and faith to navigate trials faithfully.
The Lord’s prayer calls us to set ourselves aside. It does not deny that we have certain capacities and gifts. We all have God-given talents. Instead, the prayer reminds us of our desire to see God honored and our need to depend on him for our ongoing provision and protection. It reminds us that to point to and glorify God, we cannot follow our own misdirected desires. Instead, we must adopt the desires of Christ as we conform ever closer to his image.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Jacob Wackerhausen