Some “Me” Time

DMLJ: …these last three petitions have reference to ourselves and our own needs and desires.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.2 - The Sermon on the Mount, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev

These three petitions, personal in nature, are all-inclusive.  All of our great needs are summed up here: our daily necessities, forgiveness, and being kept from temptation.  Also, the order is interesting: the physical need is placed before the spiritual. 

Matthew 6: 11 Give us this day our daily bread.

A petition that means something more than food; a prayer for giving us whatever is necessary for this day.  Lloyd-Jones suggests it is a prayer for all material needs, but I am not so sure it is to be limited to this.  Knowing that I will be facing a difficult situation, I might pray for patience or wisdom such that I can face the situation in a proper manner.

In any case: why the focus on bread?  Perhaps it is to demonstrate that God is there even for the most minute details in one’s life; it makes clear our utter dependence on God. The prayer goes immediately from the majestic and expansive “thy will be done” on earth and heaven to this seemingly relatively insignificant petition for bread. 

But doesn’t God already know this?  He knows what we need before we ask.

DMLJ: We do not tell God these things because He is not aware of them.  No, we must think of prayer more as a relationship between father and child; and the value of prayer is that it keeps us in touch and contact with God.

I want to be careful about making the following comparison, because it can be understood as limiting who God the Father is, so please approach with this caution: A human father is aware of his child’s needs; this does not mean that the child need not converse with the father or that the father does not enjoy hearing from the child.  The point is relationship.

DMLJ: This, surely, is the marvelous thing, that God likes us to come to Him.

Just as a human father does….

Per Metropolitan Hilarion, by the third century the understanding of this petition grew to include the bread of the Eucharist.  Origen explained that the Greek word means “supersubstantial” bread; Cyprian of Carthage also offers that the bread is referring to Christ.  Tertullian unites the two – both our normal physical necessities as well as the necessity of the bread that is Christ.

Perhaps more important than this point is the meaning of the concept of bread itself.  After the fall, Adam is told “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”  Bread is referenced when Melchizedek blesses Abraham; Abraham serves bread to the three travelers.  Of course, God sent bread from heaven into the desert.  Jesus performs a miracle with bread, multiplying the five loaves.  He says He is the bread of life – the living bread that has come down from heaven.  He broke bread at the Last Supper.

All of this points to the possibility of the two understandings, and Metropolitan Hilarion reconciles this by considering that when the Lord’s Prayer is said in the liturgy, the bread referred to is the Eucharistic bread; when it is said before a meal, the bread is…bread.

Matthew 6: 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

An unfortunate understanding of this petition is one which concludes that God’s forgiveness of us is conditional on our forgiveness of others.  However, the text does not say “forgive us because we forgive.”  This would be a rather legalistic understanding of this petition.  Lloyd-Jones understands this prayer in a manner he has understood other, earlier comments in this Sermon:

DMLJ: It means that the proof that you and I are forgiven is that we forgive others.

One in Christ must forgive others; he cannot help but do so.  This isn’t by force; it isn’t by law.  It is by nature – a new nature, the nature that took us to and through the Beatitudes and the entire Sermon until this point.  Such a person cannot help but forgive others.  And this is the evidence that one is truly forgiven.

Metropolitan Hilarion offers the parable of the servant who was forgiven a large debt by his master yet did not forgive a smaller debt owed by the servant’s debtor.  This as a way to clarify this relationship of our forgiveness and God’s:

MHA: The parable serves as a reminder that God treats people leniently, forgiving them their debts, mistakes, missteps, and sins; consequently, people should also treat each other with the same leniency.

It is interesting that we are expected to forgive (even seventy times seven), but there is no further call to correct.

MHA: Jesus speaks of forgiving one’s debtor but nothing about correcting him. … to correct someone is a thankless and, as a rule, fruitless task. … Correction must begin from one’s own self; this is what the entire Sermon on the Mount is about.

Individually, we are to examine ourselves, our own value system and behavior.  Collectively, there is a process of correction in and through the church (as is taught elsewhere).  As my purpose here is the individual Christian life, I will not wade further into the issue of church governance.  So, perhaps, best to return to the point at hand:

DMLJ: I say to the glory of God and in utter humility, that whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anybody anything.  I cannot withhold it.  I do not even want to withhold it. …True forgiveness breaks a man, and he must forgive.

Understanding the forgiveness of the cross.  To fathom even a fraction of what occurred and what this means.  This would break a man, no doubt.

After this, try to withhold forgiveness.

Matthew 6: 13(a) And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

We have examples in the Bible where people are tempted by God; other examples of being tempted by the devil.  Consider it a form of testing, an opportunity for growth.  In the gospel of Matthew, the term used here for temptation is found only two other times: when the devil tempts Jesus in chapter four, and in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus tells His disciples to pray that they enter not into temptation.

Elsewhere in the New Testament the same term is used as a test of faith.  Yet James says that temptation is not from God.  I will leave this as an area of confusion for me… 

Instead, I will offer the thoughts of Metropolitan Hilarion.  This petition may be understood in two ways:

MHA: as a request for God not to subject a person to trials beyond his strength, or as a request to be protected from diabolical temptations. 

Both interpretations can be found in the writings of the church fathers.

DMLJ: We are asking that we should never be led into a situation where we are liable to be tempted by Satan.  It does not mean that we are dictating to God what He shall or shall not do.

We are requesting that God preserves us in this way; we are praying to be delivered from evil.  We pray this so that our fellowship with God may never be broken

Matthew 6:13(b): For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

In the majority of ancient manuscripts, this text is not included.  Yet already in the early church, a doxology was added to the Lord’s Prayer in the liturgical setting.  For example, a similar phrase is found in the Didache.  Cyril of Jerusalem adds the “Amen,” but does not include the doxology.  There are other examples of early church fathers – some with, some without.

Per Lloyd-Jones, in any case it is an appropriate postscript – a final thanksgiving or doxology.  We end the prayer as we began it, by praising Him.

Conclusion

Cited / paraphrased from Cyprian of Carthage:

MHA: The Lord’s Prayer, in its turn, is a condensed version of the Sermon on the Mount, a “summary of heavenly doctrine,” in which “is nothing whatever with regarding to our pleading and our prayer omitted, nothing not contained.”