This ancient prayer, is remembered as being offered by Jesus, after his disciples saw that he engaged in regular prayer times. They asked: “Lord, teach us to pray like John (the Baptist) taught his disciples. ” (What they meant was “just like you pray”. Obviously, all of them prayed, using prayers familiar to the traditions of their day. But they, like children, wanted to pray exactly like Jesus.) So Jesus, as remembered in Luke 11, according to the 2001 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, accommodated:
When you pray say. . .
Father, hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves forgive everyone
indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of Trial.
Jesus follows with a small homily about grudging givers and forgivers, with a punch line: “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?” This line makes my heart cringe, for I know times when I have not given or forgiven. But then I’m not God, and this is a prayer, a breathless hope.
In a later translation of this prayer, according to The Inclusive Bible, published by Priests for Equality in 2007, this prayer is written this way:
When you pray say,
Abba God,
Hallowed by your Name!
May your reign come.
Give us today
Tomorrow’s bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we too forgive everyone who sins against us;
And don’t let us be subjected to the Test.
This too continues with the same metaphor and advice to keep on asking, knocking and, by implication, needing, for this Abba God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
And so we keep asking. Most prayer is begging or boasting and everything in between, but prayer itself is almost impossible to avoid or evade. Usually it just happens. I remember visiting a woman who was very sick in a mental hospital. I had nothing to comfort her—nothing. She looked at me with frantic eyes and said, “I can’t pray.” I said, “Don’t worry, we will pray for you.” I meant, in her stead.
I’ve always remembered that small exchange as God saving us both from the time of Trial, the Test, and in earlier translations, “Lead us not into Temptation.” These words, Trial, Test, are capitalized. Why? I assume they matter every day as much as daily bread.
There’s nothing like a home with two priests to make a “church.” When Dick and I together celebrate the Eucharist each Sunday, we say the Lord’s Prayer this way:
Our God in heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of Trial.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours
forever and ever. AMEN.
We do not say Father or Abba, even Lord, because neither of us thinks that God has a gender, neither masculine or feminine. Just God. Maybe the words, Our Father are the hardest for people to give up, so accustomed are we to the “Our Father.” So am I. No translation can change the feeling or meaning behind these words, however.
Oh, and the words “as” or “for” preceding "forgive us our sins as/for we forgive others," are conditional words. God forgives us even when we cannot forgive others, for God’s grace is expansive. I do believe that when you pray that God will forgive whatever is unforgivable to you. You may find that the prayer focus, itself, suddenly eases what you experience as unforgivable.
I will always believe and try to live by the ancient words of this prayer, as Jesus did. So this prayer will never die. It has survived, and will survive, any number of translations and versions. It is eternal and intimate. I call the whole prayer, God. Amen.
