The Lord's Prayer

[This is a reflection on the Lord's Prayer which I gave at the funeral of one of our long-time members who recently passed. Friends of Florice who would like the full eulogy may request a hard copy by calling the church office].

The Lord's Prayer may be found in Luke 11:1-4; a second Gospel reading for the service, which is referenced at the end of this message, is John 11:23-28

Friends,

Florice asked that I give the homily this evening on the Lord’s Prayer, and I thought we might begin by praying it together.  You may pray using the words with which you are most comfortable.

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name.  

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.

For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever.  Amen.

++

It’s a simple prayer, which Jesus gave to the disciples to use as a daily communication between themselves and God.  It’s poetic.  It resonates at some deep level for many of us, reminding us of that which is larger than ourselves, and those things which are timeless and eternal.  Although different branches and generations of Christianity have slight variations of the prayer, the core remains true.

We address God intimately, as Father, the source of our lives, with authority in our lives but not a cruel authority: rather, a fatherhood characterized by a loving, trusting relationship, for all fathers to follow in raising their children.  We remember that Jesus often referred to God not even as ‘Father’ in the formal sense, but as Abba, or ‘Daddy,’ in his own language of Aramaic Hebrew, when he prayed.

With that intimate greeting in place, we ask that God’s will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.  This is a bold and courageous request--because what God does in heaven may not be what we really want to happen in our own lives.  After all, we are so easily tempted to anger and self-interest.  It may require of us to be more giving and gracious than we really wanted to be.  Where we might want to separate ourselves from others we dislike, we realize that heaven is built around reunion and reconciliation.  When we might want to surround ourselves with comfort, the needs of our neighbors, especially the needs of the poor--and God’s will that we care for them--might make us quite uncomfortable.

We ask that God will provide our daily bread--the basic materials for our continued existence here on earth.  We know that many people around the world lack access to such basic food, and we are compelled to give further, to ensure we do not hoard for ourselves but rather share that which others need to survive.

Just as essential as bread is to our daily lives, we remember that forgiveness of harm is essential to peaceful living on our earth.  Those of us who allow resentments to build up over time face so much additional pain and stress in our lives, or face the deterioration of our own health and well-being, or find that resentments builds into violence which endangers human life at all levels.  We do not live by bread alone, but also by that love which God first gave to us.

We know that in our daily lives we may indeed face temptation and evil.  We pray to be delivered of temptation, that we may not inflict evil against another person or even ourselves.  At the same time, even in those times where we have evil inflicted against us, we remember that nothing can separate us from the love of God.  

We close the prayer by remembering that the kingdom, the power, and the glory are God’s, now and forever.  These things can never be taken by any earthly ruler, no matter how terrible, and this has been a comfort to God’s people everywhere and in every time that has faced cruel dictators, or exile, or the destruction of homelands due to human warfare.  This is as much a call for justice and peace in all places as it is a proclamation of praise.  We also find comfort in knowing that this is forever, an eternal promise, that we too--no matter when or how we die, and no matter what we may face in life--we can trust in this promise, that the kingdom is forever God’s, and we, too, will be reunited in that kingdom, even though death separates us from here.  

In the Gospel reading today we hear Jesus promising Martha that Lazarus will rise again even though he has died; and we know as Martha did that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life.  We believe that in Christ, through God’s grace, we will never die, but that we will be welcomed and received into God’s family in that heavenly home, reunited with our mothers and fathers, our sisters and brothers, even our beloved teachers or dear students or our kind friends.  Friends, may you find comfort this day in a promise made so long ago, but which is just as true today, and will be so forever.

Amen.