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5 Questions from the Lord's Prayer
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
But today, we come to the last, week in our series on the Lord's Prayer. Over the last few Sundays, as we have entered into this prayer, we have journeyed as individuals and as a community in trying to understand something, if we're going to be honest, we often overlook. Whether that's because as a child, this prayer was recited by a rote at the beginning of the school day, or because we just haven't taken any time to understand this specific piece of scripture in any kind of depth. Wherever you have found yourself during this series, I hope some new breath and some new life has been able to come to you by way of this prayer. Because this is, of course, why we pray.
Speaker 1:We pray not only for petitions and thanksgiving, but we pray to join with the divine creator in his endeavor to create new life. With each recitation of this prayer, we are breathing alongside the creator as he invites us into his imagination of what this world can be. Last week, Jeremy shared with us some thoughts about, what it means to forgive in light of the line, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. He asked us to consider what forgiveness looks like in the context of a more holistic understanding of community. Instead of understanding forgiveness as just part of the social contract, forgiveness as this prayer imagines it, is more than just the price you pay when you've offended someone.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness asks us to step outside of ourselves to consider what it really means to exist in community with one another. The our father asks us, what would forgiveness look like if we participated in forgiveness in such a way that it helped usher in the kingdom here on earth? Here today, we have one last petition to look at, and we will turn our attention to the question of what does the Lord's prayer have to say about temptation and evil in this world. But before we get into it, just remain seated and pray with me. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Speaker 1:Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread as we forgive those who trespass against us. As we forgive those who trespass against us. Sorry. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Speaker 1:For thine is the kingdom, the glory, forever and ever. Amen. So voice number one. So we have saved the best for last. Temptation and evil.
Speaker 1:That's a good happy go lucky topic that might imagine to end off a prerogative as well. Makes sense? But we have to remember that as it is recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, there is no closing doxology. No for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Speaker 1:To the people who are originally hearing this prayer, the last line was a reminder of evil and temptation. At best, a sobering thought. In my mind, this would be like hearing a wedding toast that ended with a reminder that affairs and divorce are possible. Once again, not a bright note to hand a wedding toast on. When I was young and first exposed to faith and church, it was in the context of Roman Catholicism.
Speaker 1:I went to a Roman Catholic church. I went to a Roman Catholic school. I celebrated the ceremony of first communion, and went to mass regularly, and nearly became an altar boy, which when I told a friend, she laughed at me because she just imagined me now, tattoos, beard, big shoulders shrunk down in the robes, swing the sensor ball. And I would have been the most frightening altar boy ever. But when I was young, I heard and said this prayer often.
Speaker 1:And honestly, a young child, we would just have contests to see who could just simply spit this prayer out the fastest. And we got pretty good at it. And in all the wrote saying of this prayer, of all the understanding that I missed in my young heart and in my young mind, this line, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, became nothing more than a signifier that the end of the prayer was near. Right after this line, or pretty soon after this line, the priest would ask me to sit down and I could go back to whatever I was caught up with in my day, the preoccupations of a young boy. Whether that meant reading from the books on the Solomons and giggling to myself, or playing in the pond behind the church, or riding my bike all day.
Speaker 1:This line about evil and temptation didn't fit and it didn't seem to faze me. In the Lord's prayer, we talk about things like God's name, forgiveness, daily bread, heaven and earth. And then all of a sudden, we are talking about evil and temptation. Now, to an adolescent male mind, when these things come up, the images that are conjured or may not actually be on point with what Jesus Christ was pointing us at. In my mind, there was a convoluted kaleidoscope of images collected from paintings and sculptures in the church directory of demons and devils.
Speaker 1:Because that's where those things should be in a Catholic church's basement. Right? But also, comic books and cartoons and all this other stuff that had evil stuff in it. So in my young mind, when I did actually stop to take the time to try to pray this prayer sincerely, I was literally being I was literally praying to be kept safe from demons and the gates of hell. Like, I see in my head pictures of these red iron rock gates.
Speaker 1:But as I got older and as this prayer became a non mandated piece of my daily rhythm, I figured out that hell and these demons, weren't exactly the imminent threat that I once thought that they were. I thought that I had become sophisticated. I shrugged off the immature trappings of adolescence. I looked condescendingly at the fears of my younger self, and I laughed at myself. All the while in my present self, I didn't really know what to make of this piece of the prayer.
Speaker 1:And this is why I love preparing sermons. Because as hard as they may be to write, to craft, to present, most of the time, I am forced to confront something that I don't fully understand in myself or within its context. And when I share a sermon with a group of people, all that is happening is an articulation of what I've learned from God and what I have learned from others who've gone before me about a specific piece of scripture, a theme, a topic. And today is just that. As I was confronted with temptation and evil in the Lord's prayer, I had some learning to do.
Speaker 1:So if it's alright with you, here it is. Sounds good? This is not the last time Jesus uses this sort of language. Anyone who is familiar with the story of Jesus will recognize this language. From the Garden Of Gethsemane, on the darkest night of his life, right before he was arrested.
Speaker 1:Jesus walks into an olive grove with a couple of his disciples. He asked him to sit and pray while they wait for him. Then he goes off by himself and prays his most difficult prayer. My father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me yet, not as I will, but as you will. Jesus comes back to his disciples and they are sleeping.
Speaker 1:They aren't praying or waiting for him. Jesus wakes him saying, watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation. Sound familiar? In both this text and the text from, the Lord's prayer, the Greek word here that's translated temptation is. It can mean either temptation or testing.
Speaker 1:Its meaning will largely depend, and be determined based on the context. In a positive context, it will mean testing. In a negative sense, it will mean temptation. Many commentators have suggested that because of the context of the Lord's Prayer, the word being translated as temptation is probably not the best way to translate. That it should actually be translated testing.
Speaker 1:And so the line would read this, lead us not into testing. To be tempted means to be encouraged or enticed to sin, and God does not encourage us to sin. To be tested means to face difficult situations in order to see what is inside of us or to build capacity. This testing is sometimes painful and yet we know it can be good. I spend time in the gym, testing my body's capacity to lift, pull, push, throw, slam, or just generally move heavy things with my body.
Speaker 1:I have a friend who says the goal of the gym is to lift more heavy things, more times, more fast. That's pretty straightforward. I like that. I can get behind that. And I discover my capacity to lift heavy things by testing my body.
Speaker 1:This process is not unlike academic testing, where a student spends his or her time in classes taking notes, studying, preparing thesis, which is a difficult word to pluralize, and solving formulas. The tradesman learns skills and acquires technical certifications based on being tested in order to secure employment. However, anyone who has been involved in any sort of testing knows that it's easy, that it's not easy, but that it can lead to strength, awareness, and resiliency. So, if this is true for both the body and our mind, I would also like to suggest that this testing can be good for our spirits. Listen to what first Corinthians says.
Speaker 1:No temptation, once again the word testing, has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted, tested beyond what you can bear. So if God knows us and tests us within our limits, why is it then in the Lord's prayer, Jesus is teaching us to save us from testing? For an answer to this question, we have to look at the intensity of testing.
Speaker 1:If I lift something too heavy, I can hurt my body. If I do too much mental testing, I can fall into mental fatigue where I just can't learn anything more. Any students in this room know that that's true. And if the spirit is tested too much instead of sharpening and finding faith, it could lose faith altogether. And this is what Jesus is asking us to pray for protection against.
Speaker 1:Who else would know better the danger of being tested beyond capacity? Remember the olive grove? Jesus prays these words, my father, if it's possible, may this cup be taken from me. In anguish, he's being tested. He knows what is coming, and he wants to shrink away from it.
Speaker 1:His words are barely a sentence long. But how long did it take him to pray them? His disciples had time to fall asleep. His simple prayer of obedience took just a few seconds to say, but the posture of service that he had to adopt to say them took much longer. Christ knew that the place he was meant to go, Calvary, was only for him.
Speaker 1:That the testing he was about to endure was going to be encapsulated by loneliness and solitude. He was heading to zealot testing, the time when all evil and darkness would collapse in on him and rage until they were exhausted and emptied. And from that darkness, he alone would emerge triumphant. See, the line we pray isn't really lead us into temptation. It isn't even really lead us not into testing.
Speaker 1:What the line should read is something like this. Lead us not into the testing that will break us. Lead us not into the hopeless, soul crushing, faith abandoning testing that Christ alone had to face and could conquer. And it is in this triumphant testing of Jesus Christ, we come face to face with the second part of this petition. Deliver us from evil.
Speaker 1:This line makes it impossible for us to ignore the fact that throughout the biblical account of God's interaction with his creation here on earth, there is something else at work other than God. The snake in the garden, the slavery of people by Pharaoh and King Solomon, the murder of Abel by Cain, the stranger tempting Jesus in the desert, the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, the dead dragon from the book of Revelation. Scripture is clear, evil exists. In one way, evil exists inside of each one of us. We make choices and act in ways that are not in line with the kingdom.
Speaker 1:This may look like little white lives, taking something that is not yours, but nobody will notice. Or it may look like gossip. Worse yet, it may look like nothing at all. It may be in the way we have postured our inner selves. Have you ever allowed pride to build insurpassable walls around you?
Speaker 1:Have you ever allowed hatred to create enemies out of your neighbors? Do you notice the roots of indifference taking hold of your mind and of your heart? Do you fail to see the addict, the immigrant, or the vulnerable person as a bearer of the image of the invisible creator? Has your interior life been shaped by things that deny and fight against the kingdom of God here on earth? These are postures and actions are one sort of evil.
Speaker 1:And then there is an entirely different kind of evil. An evil which feels bigger, which encompasses more than just all the actions and feelings of humankind. A systemic evil. An evil that has always looked to lash out in rebellion against the things of God. This evil is the line that is described in first Peter that prowls around looking to devour whatever it can.
Speaker 1:In the story, A Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan, the main character in the book is on a journey. And on this journey, he meets a dragon like creature named Napoleon, which when translated means destroyer. This creature is described as having a mouth of a lion, the feet of a bear, a second mouth on his belly and bat's wings. And as ugly and as terrifying as this is, if I was to meet this thing, the only thing that would really kind of freak me out was the second mouth in the stomach. That would be a little weird.
Speaker 1:But, for John Bunyan, this monster, Pauline, is his attempt describe, to put into a picture that we can see in our mind, this systemic evil in our world. He's an ugly chimera, made of different animals that we may recognize individually, but once put together, we think it's too fantastical to exist here. The most interesting piece of this of this description of this monster by Paul or by John Bunyan is this. He is a ruler of a city called Destruction, and he pulls flaming darts from his body in order to kill his enemies. For Bunyan, Apollyon represents the forces of anticreation.
Speaker 1:He is a destroyer. He is a killer. And I suggest that this idea of anticreation is a good framework in which to try to understand evil in the biblical context in both personal and systemic forms. The Lord's prayer is really encouraging us to pray against an evil that is both inside of us and outside of us, both personal and systemic. That anything in action, thought, or feeling, or anything that results in systems, laws, or pieces of the social contract, which, like Apollyon, accomplishes destruction and death is evil.
Speaker 1:Listen to what the writer of second Timothy has to say. People are going to be self absorbed, money hungry, self promoting, stuck up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude course, dog eat dog, unbending, slanderers, impossibly wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust and allergic to God. And now listen to a contrasting section from Galatians five. Fruit appears in an orchard. Things like affection for others, exuberance about life, sincerity, we develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in our heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.
Speaker 1:We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Among the those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our way in and mindlessly responding to what everyone calls necessities is killed off for good, crucified. Galatians five. In the first piece of the text, I it's fair to assume that what we have is a list of things the writer views as evil. And in Galatians text, we have a list of things that are good.
Speaker 1:Well, you may better know this as the fruit of the spirit. It's taken from the message translation. But in today's world, these words, good and evil, don't carry the currency that they may have. Good and evil have been sapped of their robust significance. A history of video games, fairy tales, pop culture tropes have made the battle between good and evil, just quaint.
Speaker 1:It's become part of the domestic territory of Disney and Pixar, and unfortunately the preoccupation of children. There is an assumption, I feel exists for the western adult person that maturing is to develop nuanced approaches to the world that transcends labels like good and evil. And I agree with this assumption to some degree. Evil does not look like Gaston and good does not look like Belle. There is no beauty and there is no beast.
Speaker 1:Watch any cartoon and in the first few seconds of any character, we understand whether they're good or evil just by how they're animated. But this isn't how the world works. It isn't so simple. Evil is rarely so overt that just with a glance, we know evil things from good things. We can't just run around slapping labels on people's foreheads and then live in a world that's constructed like that.
Speaker 1:So I want to propose different language that may be more helpful in directing us to the intent of the Lord's prayer. This language is life and death, health and unhealth. See, these words help us see the better biblical ways of understanding what it means to pray deliver us from evil. In one of the classic exchanges between Jewish, religious leaders and Jesus Christ, Jesus asked the leaders this question. To to do good or to do evil?
Speaker 1:To save life or to kill? See, Jesus himself connects the activities which are good to the activities which bring life, and activities which are evil to the activities which bring death. And what is life other than health, and what is death other than unhealth? So then, an expanded reading of deliver us from evil would sound something like this. Deliver us from death.
Speaker 1:Deliver us to life. Save us from unhealth. Help us to be healthy. See, if you were to ask me, this section of the Lord's Prayer is less about thinking, the list of sins we have committed and more about learning what it means to embrace healthy patterns of living and leaving behind unhealthy patterns. In light of this different understanding, some questions come to mind.
Speaker 1:What activities and conversations can we engage in that reflect the vibrant, vital, and life giving imagination of our creator? And how do we build these patterns into our minute by minute, breath by breath life, so that they become rhythms of cascading, unfolding life that are in line with the heartbeat of God. Sometimes I get the sense that we understand scriptures idea of good and evil only as simple behavior modification. The bible's main concern then we speak about good and evil is not simply adherence list of what we ought not to and what we ought to do. Don't mishear me though.
Speaker 1:I think that this is a piece of scripture. We ought not murder. Well, we ought to take care of the vulnerable. But if for us as people who wish to align ourselves with the story of Jesus Christ, our conversation on good and evil is wholly tied up in lists of do's and don'ts, we've missed the plot. What we are being invited into through this prayer is a transformation of ourselves, of our communities, of our world.
Speaker 1:Remember when we pray earlier in this prayer, thy kingdom come and thy will be done. Everything we pray in this prayer is wrapped up in the premise that we seek transformation in line with the imagination of God. This transformation cannot be completed with behavior modification. It will take nothing less than the transformation of our habits, our thoughts, our perspectives, our actions, our allegiances, our sympathies, and our entire selves. And the transformation is this, brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:Transformation from unhealthy patterns of second Timothy to healthy patterns of Galatians five. Hopefully, these two pieces of scripture reach you today. Hopefully, can hear the holy spirit trying to speak to you, inviting you from unhealthy patterns to healthy patterns. Maybe it looks like the self absorption of everyday life, which blinds you to the vulnerable person next door. Maybe it looks like the cynicism that often accompanies a life that has some disappointment and pain.
Speaker 1:Maybe it looks like the clutching after money and possession, which feel like security. And maybe it looks like the small gossip you share when there is an eager audience. Or maybe it looks like the jokes that reflect your privilege that you only tell when you're around certain people.
Speaker 2:I don't know what this looks like for all of us here.
Speaker 1:When I look at my own life, I feel the spirit talking to me, inviting me out of the patterns of unhealth towards health, away from death towards life, towards a transformation being made like Christ. The writer and theologian, N. T. Wright, sums up his understanding of this piece of the Lord's prayer this way. It is the prayer that the forces of destruction of dehumanization, of anticreation, of antiredemption may be bound and gauged, and that God's good word world may escape from being sucked down into the morass.
Speaker 1:It is our responsibility as we as this as we pray this prayer to hold God's precious and precarious world before our gaze. To some, it's often articulate cries for help, for rescue, for deliverance. Deliver us from the horror of war. Deliver us from human folly and the appalling accidents it can produce. Let us not become a society of rich fortresses and cardboard cities.
Speaker 1:Let us not be engulfed by social violence or self righteous reaction. Save us from our arrogance and pride and the awful things that they make people do. Save us from ourselves and deliver us from the evil one. This is what it looks like to pray deliver us from evil. It means that the very embracing of life itself.
Speaker 1:So when we pray this prayer in just a few moments from now, would you pray with an openness to God? An openness to a God who is inviting you to turn away from unhealthy patterns we sometimes fall into, and to embrace the patterns of health that he desires for us all as we cooperate with him in bringing about the kingdom of God here on earth. So with this in mind, will you stand with me and for one last time in this series, pray this prayer. 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 our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Speaker 1:And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Speaker 2:This is a podcast of Kensington Commons Church. We believe that God is invested in the renewal of all things. Therefore, we wanna live the good news by being part of the rhythms of our city as good neighbors, good friends, and good citizens in our common life. Join us on Sunday or visit us online at commonschurch.org.