A. C. Deane: Here, then, is the Lord's Prayer, as we have studied it:
Our Father in heaven!
As in heaven, so on earth
Thy Name be reverenced,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done.
Give us to-day to-morrow's bread.
And forgive us our debts, for we forgive our debtors.
And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
No one could propose that we should substitute a new wording for that which we learnt in the nursery, which binds English-speaking folk the world over, which has been treasured by our fore-fathers through many generations. Yet we may be helped by remembering a more exact rendering, and by reading its sense into the older form as we use it. For we want the mind, as well as the heart, to strengthen the life of the soul. There were ages when the Lord's Prayer was popularly regarded as a kind of magical spell. To say - or to gabble - as many Paternosters as possible at full speed was an imagined means of averting punishment or of winning God's favor. If to-day we are exempt from superstition of that type, the danger of giving the Prayer but a formal and frigid repetition remains, with a vague idea that the mere "saying" of the Prayer is an act of virtue. Yet it is not enough to admire, or study, or say the Prayer, which was given us to be prayed. And so we have need to think not only of what Jesus taught us to pray, but of what He taught us about praying.
Originally, the Paternoster was meant, beyond doubt, for use in private; only after a century or more does it seem to have found a place in the public worship of the Church. Our Lord's example, as well as His teaching, showed the importance He gave to private colloquy with the Father. He took part in public worship at synagogue and Temple, yet this could not suffice His needs without private prayer. Solitude was no easy thing for Him to secure through the years of His ministry. Most of those He addressed could do His bidding, and go into an inner chamber and shut the door when they would be alone with God. But for months together our Lord had no fixed home. One of the trials in His life which we are apt to overlook was this difficulty of getting away from people, of finding place for solitary thought and meditation and communion with God. We see Him bent upon achieving it, making determined efforts to get free from the crowd; instead of taking rest at the end of some tremendous day's work, making His tired way to the mountain or wilderness in order to gain, at any cost, that solitude for private prayer which His soul needed.
II
How in our own private devotions are we to make best use of the Prayer given us by the Master? First, we need not suppose ourselves constrained, as by law, to use it whenever we pray. Many, perhaps most, of those who pray regularly will like always to give it the foremost place in their devotions. But others may be helped to say it with greater intensity of meaning if they use it less often - perhaps at night only, or even more occasionally. "How" we say matters so much more than "how often" we say it. And at least whenever we detect ourselves saying it mechanically, or with a wandering mind, on the instant we should stop, and begin it afresh. Some people may find when the edge of the Prayer seems blunted, so to speak, that it can be revived by studying afresh each sentence in turn. Thus the address and the six petitions might be divided among the seven days of a week. On the first, in place of saying the whole Prayer, we should limit ourselves to "Our Father which art in Heaven," and think of God's heavenly perfection, of His relation with us as Father, of our duties as children. Next day we should try, by quiet thought, to draw out the meaning of "Hallowed be Thy Name," and so on through the other days. By the end of the week, possibly enough, the Lord's Prayer may mean more to us than ever it did before.
Whether or no we adopt this plan, I am certain that, as the Lord's Prayer was given in the first place for private use, we are meant to link with it our individual needs. Most writers of devotional books, from Lancelot Andrewes downwards, have included in their works one or more "paraphrases" of the Lord's Prayer, and none is better, perhaps, than that in Andrewes' "Preces Privatae." But any such general paraphrase made by another cannot suit exactly our own individual needs. We shall find it far better to make, each one of us, his own paraphrase. That is to say, we shall expand every petition of the Lord's Prayer by applying its words to our special circumstances. For instance, having said "Thy Kingdom come," I may well pause to think of ways by which I can help the coming of God's Kingdom, both in my own life and among other people within my influence. Or, after "Forgive us our debts" it will be very profitable for me to make myself face the chances I have missed of late, the right things left undone, and then, naming these specific debts, to ask God's forgiveness of them. That is less easy, and far more humiliating, than merely to own in general terms that I have failed and deplore the fact. But it is also vastly better for me, and gives my prayer far more reality.
Perhaps we shall find ourselves helped towards being definite if we put our thoughts into spoken words, though they are to be heard by God alone. It seems to have been our Lord's habit so to speak aloud His private prayers. Thus He did in Gethsemane; thus He did immediately before giving the Lord's Prayer. "It came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, that when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him: Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1). Probably we shall the more easily concentrate our thoughts if we follow His example. Of course there can be no fixed rule about this or other details of method - whether, for instance, we kneel or stand to pray. What matters is that we should take trouble, and find out what method suits us best, and try to learn how to pray better and better.
III
So far, we have thought of the use of the Paternoster in private prayer for our own individual needs. But we must not limit it to this purpose; often we shall use it wholly as an act of intercession for others. When we were considering the petition "Give us to-day to-morrow's bread" we remarked upon the bitter need to-day of this prayer. And we should say the words at times with special thought of those out of work, and those enduring genteel poverty, and the multitudes, near and far, to whom the doubt concerning the morrow's bread is so crushing a burden. Again, at times we may use the Prayer with special intention. Suppose, for example, that we resolve to say it with particular reference to the work of God's Church on earth, we may be astonished to find how aptly each of its sentences seems to chime with some evident need of the Church today. And this is but one instance. The better we understand the Prayer, the more often we shall find that it expresses the intercession for various causes which we desire to make.
We shall remember, too, however frequent our use of the Paternoster, that it was not given to dispense us from the task of framing prayers of our own. On the contrary, its purpose was explicitly to encourage us in making these prayers, and to supply us with a pattern to copy. "After this manner pray ye." However limited our powers, we can try to imitate the qualities most characteristic of it. We can place God's glory before our own needs. We can make our prayers unselfish. Remembering its extreme brevity, we need not be concerned if we find it hard to pray for any length of time with that deep intensity of purpose which brings us near to God. We shall not repeat the error of those who thought they should be heard "for their much speaking" (Matt. 6:7). The prayers we make for ourselves will be utterly different from the Lord's Prayer in form and idiom; we should not try, indeed, to phrase them in an archaic style. But so far as their spirit is akin to that of the supreme model, so far shall we be praying "after the manner" that our Lord desires.
IV
There remains a further use, of a kind wholly different, to which we may put the Lord's Prayer. We may welcome its influence to strengthen our faith. The better we know it, the greater will become its marvel; the more certain we shall feel that no merely human teacher bequeathed it to the world. Let us recall once more its origin. A group of Jewish peasants clustered about Him Whom they supposed a Rabbi, and their spokesman asked Him to do as the Baptist had done for his followers by teaching them to pray. Then - a Prayer in response to prayer - the Paternoster, probably in a first shape, was spoken. Given to these special suppliants for their immediate use, it held not a word to identify it with any one time or race. One who was no more than a devout Jew of this age assuredly would have included in it a prayer for the Jewish nation. None could doubt the patriotism of Jesus who listened to His words or saw Him weep over Jerusalem. But, whatever the human limitations of knowledge to which He submitted, we cannot doubt His consciousness of speaking not merely to those around Him but also to far-off generations. This consciousness, this deliberate aim to make His words such as would keep their full meaning in time to come, was a feature of His work that all of us must have noticed. People approach Him with some local question of the day - about an inheritance, perhaps, or a detail of Sabbath-keeping, or the payment of tribute. It had been easy for Him to satisfy each of those who came with a decision upon the special problem of the moment. Such an answer, however, would have lost the most of its usefulness when the particular circumstances and habits which gave rise to the question had passed away. Instead of this easier method, Jesus was ever at pains to reply by laying down a general principle of abiding validity, such as would guide His disciples in every age.
Nowhere, perhaps, is this Divine timelessness shown more strikingly than in the Lord's Prayer. Here He might have met the request made to him - as any merely human teacher had done - by setting forth a prayer entirely suitable to the special needs and special aspirations of first-century Palestinian Jews. Instead, He gave that which would serve the perennial needs of all mankind. Attempts have been made to find parallels between its petitions and phrases found in Jewish devotions of supposedly pre-Christian date. Some of these, in point of fact, seem only later to have been put into their existing form. But many of the resemblances are so slight as to be fanciful. And if every clause of the Paternoster could be matched by some stray sentence picked from the vast mass of Jewish religious writings, the originality of the Prayer itself would scarce seem lessened. For this lies in its structure, its spirit, its wonderful blending of brevity in form with comprehensiveness in meaning. Because we are so familiar with it, we do not always recognize its marvel. It suits the twentieth century no less well than it suited the first. There is not a word in it to tie it down to any one land or time. It is beloved alike by Christians who differ on a score of important points. It seems as much in place in some distant mission station - where, probably, it is the first written word to be translated - as in St. Paul's in London, or in St. Peter's at Rome. It can be lisped with understanding by a young child. It astonishes the wisest by its profundity. Its larger - the Matthean - form consists, in Greek, of fifty-seven words. What is there that we can desire to ask, what need is there of human life, which these astoundingly few sentences fail to express? Yes, the more we ponder and use these words, the surer we grow concerning Him Who spake them.
Therefore, knowing this Master to be Divine, how comforting is their revelation of the mind of God! This Prayer shows that He understands and feels with us in our needs and difficulties. They have no hint of anger to be appeased by reason of our distrust, our failures, our weakness in face of temptation. But there is encouragement to tell God of these things, and to ask His help. And the fact that He bids us ask is itself a pledge that the Prayer will be answered. There are times when we grow impatient with ourselves, and depressed by the frailty of our characters. Then that word of God which the Prayer enshrines bids us turn to Him for pardon and strength, and so go forward with braver hearts along our road.
The better we know and use the Lord's Prayer - the testimony of myriads confirms this belief - the greater will seem its value. And so the more readily shall we add to its petitions some words of thanksgiving. Not merely for those Divine mercies at large which richly bless our lives, but, in particular, for the gift of this Prayer shall we praise God - for its beauty, its teaching, its helpfulness, its encouragement. With such thoughts in our hearts, we shall follow the example of the Church in early days. Having said our Lord's Prayer as He taught it, with humble awe and overflowing thankfulness we shall add:
For Thine is the Kingdom,
The Power, and the Glory,
For ever and ever! Amen."
by Anthony C. Deane, Canon of Worcester Cathedral, pre-1939.
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