Our Father

Text

5 “When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Commentary

Intent and purpose are tied together. The “hypocrites” — lit. actors — are using prayer as a social tool. Some portrayals of Pharisees show them praying openly in cities as a socio-political sign of the work and agenda of the Messianic Restoration. How would this work? Well, by modeling an impressive “righteous” life, they seek to accumulate social power — what one might call status — so they can weld this towards the transformation of Jewish society — all so the Messiah can come and restore the Kingdom of David. According to this, God opposes the use of prayer in this way: They won’t receive the reward of the revolution they desire — their social status is all they will get.

Why would God be opposed to this? First, it’s contrary to intimacy. The love connection and conversation between two is sufficient between them without display or reference to a third party. Further, it’s relationally offensive and under-handed for someone to address you when their real intent is to influence a third party. Jesus is so careful about this, he adds a important explanation to his public prayer at the raising of Lazarus in John 11:42. His prayer could have the effect focusing people on a “special status”, so he explicitly shows the purpose is to focus people on his sentness — a relationally reality anyone who becomes his disciple may share in.¹ The relationship goes both ways, apparently, since Jesus gives a similar disclaimer when God speaks from heaven in response to his prayer as he approached Jerusalem (John 12:28-30).

Second, status-accumulating prayer misplaces the Kingdom. Both the Kingdom, and the human rebellion opposed to it, occur first in human hearts (Luke 17:20-21). Therefore, it is right that we go into secret to do the inner work of nurturing the Kingdom within us, and so allow God to purely work with our participation to manifest his rule in the world around us. They other approach — manipulating the outer world to look like the Kingdom so that it may somehow seep inward into us — always results in the tyranny of human kingdoms masquerading with “divine legitimacy” while they rot inwardly with coercion and abuse. Few in such a kingdom have God as King of their heart, but their behavior is constrained by a system as if they did. This is the damage done when we use prayer to give legitimacy to human institutions when it does not flow from a conversation with God. There is place for preaching, proclaiming, teaching, and even arguing — but none of these belong in prayer.

Jesus prayed in many contexts — small groups, on mission, in public — so the command for secrecy is not absolute. Rather, secrecy protects us from the pressure to break intimacy and to fall into the adulterous seduction of status and manipulation.

7 In praying, don’t use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.

vain repetitions — or sometimes “empty phrases” or “many words”. This error is not as much about length of prayers, but about a Magic or a manipulation that thinks certain phrases and repetitions move divine beings either through meta-physical phenomenon (in which case divine beings are objects, i.e. Is 44:9-20), flattery, or cajoling.

One example close at hand for the Jews: the Greek/Roman cosmology where the gods are unapproachable and emotionally turbulent and petty.² Their purpose is to test humans and the reason for prayer is appeasement or petition in the context of divine cruelty which shows humble endurance and, therefore, purity. This is useful in a feudal system seeking loyal subjects to support tyranny, but seems abusive.

Prayer is not magic, and God is not an object, but a Father whom we can speak to plainly without flattery or nagging. He wants to listen. In fact his immediacy means he even anticipates what we say.

8 Therefore don’t be like them, for your Father knows what things you need before you ask him.

I take them to mean both the hypocrites and the Gentiles. Therefore, it raises the question: If prayer doesn’t increase our status or inform or cajole God, what does it do?

9 Pray like this:

“ ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

Pray like this can be taken in two ways: (1) Pray this actual prayer — which is closer to Jesus’ introduction to the alternate text of the prayer in Luke 11 (v. 2), OR (2) pray according to this model, structure or template. I will do both because the first keeps the model in memory and thus helps me with purity in all other prayers and the second applies the structure to all prayers and a prayer-shaped life.

Our means the model is a “prayer for us” even in one’s private devotional life which is the clear context from verse 6. This sets the context for all Christian prayer as the Family of God, therefore it must be concerned with family matters even as it is concerned with individual matters. This should serve as a criticism of Western Individualism making the context of any prayer primarily about “me”.

10 Let your Kingdom come.

Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

today-daily indicates that our prayers about needs should be limited to our immediate time. Anything else relates to anxiety (Matthew 6:34) or hubris (James 4:13-17) that threatens our intimate dependency on God.

12 Forgive us our debts,

as we also forgive our debtors.

13 Bring us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’

Not in some manuscripts.