"The Lord's Prayer" - Sermon given July 28, 2019 - Luke 11:1-13

Last Sunday the Lectionary led us to the verses concerning the "Lord's Prayer" in Luke's Gospel.  One of my favorite things to preach over is the "Lord's Prayer", there is so much more to it than most realize.

I've included both the video and the manuscript for the sermon.  It's been another busy week so I will just leave this here and wish you all a very blessed week!

Be a blessing to someone today!

In Christ,
Roy

Sermon given July 28, 2019, at Woodlawn Christian Church:

Today, we're going to take a look at a bit of scripture that we all know very well. In fact, we've already recited it here today. Or at least we've recited a portion and a revision of this particular piece of scripture. Today we'll be looking at the verses in Luke's Gospel that cover the “The Lord's Prayer”. The prayer that Jesus himself taught to the disciples.

For those of you who attended Mary Nelson's funeral, some of this will sound familiar as I have utilized some of the message that I prepared for her funeral to craft this message today.

So with that let's listen to the scripture for today:
Luke 11:1-13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
The Lord’s Prayer
11 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come
3     Give us each day our daily bread.
4     And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
    And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Perseverance in Prayer
5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We find “The Lord's Prayer” in two of the three synoptic Gospels. We find it first in the Gospel of Matthew and also in a more abbreviated form in Luke's Gospel; which is the scripture that the Lectionary has guided us to today and which we just read. What most people do not realize, however, is that the prayer is found in a third location. It is found in the 8th Chapter of a non-canonical document known as the 'Didache' which is also known as 'The Teaching of the Twelve'. When we say a book or writing is or isn't canonical, what we mean is that it is or isn't in the Bible. Of course, what is considered canonical depends on whether you are looking at a Catholic, a Protestant, or one of the various forms of Orthodox Christianities Bibles, there are differences in the numbers of books in the various 'official' canons. 

'The Teaching of the Twelve' or the 'Didache' is a Christian document that likely dates to the middle of the First Century, though there is, as there is with nearly all of the Canonical and Non-canonical documents, disagreement among scholars as to its exact age and origin. Some date at least portions of the document to being as early as any of the books found in the Canon. Early Church tradition held that the 'Didache' was written by the Twelve Apostles themselves, though this is considered highly unlikely today. There are some who believe that the Didache arose from the same community as the author of the Gospel of Matthew, which very well may explain the similarity of the Lord's Prayer found within the two.  There is a very good reason, in my opinion, to believe that the Lord's Prayer originated in that mysterious document that we've discussed before known as “Q” or Quelle meaning source in German.  

There is a very real possibility that portions at least of the Didache date back to the time that Christ still walked physically upon the Earth.  I will deviate slightly and quote for you a portion of the Didache that you likely have never heard.
Chapter 2. The Second Commandment: Grave Sin Forbidden. And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. You shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is a snare of death. Your speech shall not be false, nor empty, but fulfilled by deed. You shall not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed, nor haughty. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor. You shall not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall pray, and some you shall love more than your own life. 

We would do well to remember that even though the Didache did not make it into the official Canon, it was a document that the early Church used and viewed as important if not in fact Sacred.  Remember they believed that these verses were crafted by the Twelve Apostles themselves.  It's long been my own personal opinion that the loss of these verses that I just read for you have been a poverty for each of us.  The Didache spells out fairly concisely and clearly the evil that we need to avoid at all cost in this world.

But, let's steer back to the topic at hand for today... the “Lord's Prayer”, and take a closer look at this prayer that we all have memorized. First, we'll take a look at 'The Lord's Prayer' as found in Matthew's Gospel:

Matthew 6:7-15 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.  Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Now, let's look at Luke's version again;

Luke 11:1-4 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
The Lord’s Prayer
1 He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
2 He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

A much more abbreviated form of the Prayer for certain.

Now let's look at this Prayer as found in the Didache.

Didache 8:2
Neither pray ye as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray ye:
Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done,
as in heaven, so also on earth;
give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debt,
as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one;
for Thine is the power and the glory forever and ever.
8:3
Three times in the day pray ye so.

This certainly, sounds much more like the Prayer we're used to reciting. It's actually very nearly the same, did you catch that last verse though? “Three times in the day, pray ye so”. For many years the base of my prayer life was to recite the Lord's Prayer throughout the day. To be honest, I am not at all certain that this isn't what we are supposed to do. Certainly, it serves as a great reminder and it is significant that the Didache, which is basically a how-to manual, tells us to repeat this prayer three times daily.


And finally, let's look at the Lord's Prayer as nearly all of us recite it today. We're going to break this down bit by bit as we go along.

Our Father who art in Heaven,
First off we address God here. We are calling out to God in his name. 'Our Father in Heaven', no earthly parent here but our Father God. Now the Lord's Prayer isn't the most 'gender-inclusive' Prayer that we have. So please forgive me if you are sensitive to the issue of inclusive language. The fact remains that Jesus himself referred to God as God the Father. In fact, generally, Jesus referred to God as 'Abba'. Which basically translates as Daddy. For Jesus, there is both a sense of reverence and familiarity in addressing his God. God the Father who art in Heaven, and Abba, Daddy. I think it serves us well to retain these competing natures of our God.

Hallowed be thy name;
God's name is sacred. He is Holy, he is set apart from all other God's, he is the one and only true God. His name is so sacred that the ancient Jews and many orthodox Jews to this day will not say or even spell out his name. I have several friends who write God's name as G-d. This isn't uncommon, to be honest. God's name is Holy and we say it with a sense of reverence, even when we address him as Abba.

Thy kingdom come;
Note that it doesn't say we're going to God's Kingdom, rather God's Kingdom is coming here.  It's best to remember that this is not an earthly Kingdom that is coming into this world, but God's Kingdom, it's a Kingdom in God's fashion of a Kingdom and not a Kingdom as fashioned by nor even truly understood by us mere humans.

Thy will be done
Not my will or any other humans will, but God's will. Here we are pledging to be God's hands and feet. We are to aid him in establishing his will.

On earth, as it is in heaven.
And that will is not only in Heaven but here on this earth. We've already addressed that his Kingdom is coming and that it's his will that we are to be concerned with.  The God that reigns in Heaven reigns here on earth and we celebrate that God.

Give us this day our daily bread;
It seems that we've made a change here rather suddenly. We've gone from caring about God's work and will to petitioning for our own needs. The keyword here is the word that is translated as 'daily'. It is the Greek word 'epiousios', and we'll come back to this word in just a minute. Let's finish the prayer first.

And forgive us our debts, (or trespasses/sins)
As we forgive our debtors; (or those that trespass/sin against us)
Here we have this desire for grace and forgiveness, God's desire for reconciliation. A desire for reconciliation not only between us and God but between all of us here.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors/trespasses/sins.
Matthew urges that this grace between us is so crucial that God's grace towards us even hinges upon it.

Matthew 16:14-15:
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
God, please keep us away from temptation. For we know that we are weak. Lead us away from temptation. Do not lead us toward the time of trial or temptation, and rescue us from evil or the evil one. All too often, that evil one is our own ego and pride.  I am certain that you have heard me say before if you want to see Satan, look in the mirror.

For thine is the kingdom
And the power
And the glory,
Forever.  Amen
This last part is known as the 'Doxology' and did you happen to notice that only one of the sources for the Lord's Prayer that we looked at contains the Doxology. I am not aware of any manuscripts of Luke that contain the Doxology and the earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew do not contain it either, though it is in many later manuscripts. One has to wonder if the Doxology for the Lord's Prayer didn't come to us from the Didache itself. It seems fairly obvious that it was not part of the original text of Matthew.  The Didache was very much a how-to manual for the Early Church.

Let's back-up just a bit and go back to that line:
Give us this day our daily bread;
As I pointed out it seems that we've made a change here, we've gone from caring about God's work and will to petitioning for our own personal needs. And as I said here the keyword is the word translated as 'daily' the Greek word 'epiousios'.

Epiousios is a very, very interesting word. The only real problem is that we don't actually know what the word means. You see this word exists in exactly three places, it is only found in these three readings of the “Lord's Prayer”. And since for many, many years the Didache was lost, for much of Christian History we have only had two sources for this unknown word, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Now since we find this prayer in only Matthew and Luke, and not in Mark's Gospel, it is highly likely, as I stated earlier, that it originated in that undiscovered but hypothesized Document known as 'Q' or 'The Source'.

At one time a fragment of papyrus was discovered that reportedly contained the word Epiousios upon it. This fragment appeared to be a 'shopping list', with words in Greek such as beans, or rice, or bread or such, and after each word, there was the word Epiousios. Based on this the scholar that translated the document hypothesized that Epiousios meant something along the lines of 'enough for tomorrow'. Which made sense in a culture that didn't have storage or refrigeration and where one typically goes to the market each day. There was only one problem... after the papyrus was examined by this scholar, and this scholar only... it was misplaced within the collection of the museum that held it. For a very long time, it remained lost again until it was found not long ago and additional Greek Scholars were able to finally look at it.

Well unfortunately for us the word that followed each item such as beans, rice or bread wasn't Epiousios at all. Rather it was a word that translates to 'oil'. So what we have here is of no use to us as an aid in the discernment of the meaning behind the Lord's Prayer but one that is interesting none the less. For you see I have a theory about this papyrus. I believe that a wife back in that time sent her husband to the market to get oil. As all of us husbands have done at one time or another, this poor soul came home with all kinds of things but no oil. Well, the next time he's sent to the market, his loving wife wrote the list as... beans – OIL, rice – OIL, bread – OIL... and so on. It's interesting that in all these many centuries some dynamics of marital life have remained the same. But that's just my theory of course.

But, back to just what does Epiousios mean and how did it come to be translated as daily. Well in the fourth century St. Jerome was commissioned by the Pope to translate the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. This was the first translation of the Bible in its entirety into Latin. When Jerome came to Epiousios he was uncertain just what to do so in Luke he translated it one way as 'Daily' and in Matthew, he translated it differently. In our modern Bibles only the translation from Luke the word 'Daily' remains and the meaning assigned by Jerome in Matthew has been largely forgotten.

If we break down the word Epiousios we find that 'epi' means 'above', 'beyond' or 'super', 'ousios' means substance, essence or necessity. We come up with the word that Jerome used when translating the Gospel of Matthew, 'Supersubstantial'. Above substantial, super essential, beyond necessity... these all give us a considerable different meaning than 'daily'.

Now we no longer have 'daily' bread but 'supersubstantial' bread, 'super essential' bread, bread that is 'beyond that what is necessary for mere survival'. When we consider that Christ used bread as a metaphor, we have, well the Eucharist, we have Communion, we have the bread of life, we have Christ himself...

We no longer have feed us for we are hungry, but feed us for we hunger. We hunger for that relationship with God that comes through the celebration of the Lord's Supper, through the ceremonial celebration of communion. This point is precisely why the Stone/Campbell Church movement placed such great emphasis on the celebration of communion that it was and still is celebrated not once a month as most Christian denominations do but weekly.  It is why the celebration of the table is central to the worship service itself.

It is very important that we remember that when Christ taught this prayer to his Disciples, he almost certainly did not teach it to them in Greek. Rather he almost certainly taught it to them in Aramaic. We are left wondering what word or words did he use here that forced the writer of 'Q' to have to create a new word in Greek in order to try and grasp the depth of the meaning. It would seem unlikely that it was a word as mundane as daily. A word which I understand can be rendered by at least 20 different ancient Greek words none of which is epiousios.

Let's look at the Lord's Prayer again with this idea of the bread being 'Christ' foremost in our minds.

Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day a deep and enduring relationship with Christ;
And forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who have sinned against us;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom
And the power
And the glory,
Forever.
Amen

Suddenly, that prayer takes on a whole new meaning. A new deep theological meaning that honestly my modest preaching and teaching skills fail to adequately convey. But be that as it may, perhaps now you'll think about the Lord's Prayer just a bit differently whenever you pray it. Which by the way is supposed to be three times a day.

And here's just a little challenge from the pulpit, let's all try and pray this prayer at least three times a day for the next week. Thinking about this alternate and different meaning as we do so, let's see if it has any impact on our lives and our relationship with Christ.

Let's end this sermon on prayer with a prayer.

God above, Father, Abba
Holy, Sacred and Revered Lord.

We pledge our hands, our feet, our hearts and our spirits
to you Oh Lord, to fashion this world as you
would desire.

Let us ever be your emissaries of Love,
Charity, Grace and Forgiveness in this world.

Let us follow the model that you have given us, of Jesus who is the Christ, as we pursue your perfect example of grace and love to this broken world.

Allow us Oh Lord to come into communion and relationship with you. Give us the strength of body, mind and spirit that we require to serve you.

We pray for your protection from those that would oppose and harm us, and from our own sinful and selfish egos. Grant us the ability to discern the evil that lurks in the heart of mankind.

Oh Lord guide us steadfastly down your path of Forgiveness, Grace, Charity and Love onto this world.


For yours alone Oh Lord, is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, until the very end of all time.   Amen