THE LORD’S PRAYER
OUR Lord is not satisfied with giving us abstract principles of prayer,
but teaches us how to pray by giving us an example:
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven,” &c.
In regard to this great prayer, I would content myself with calling
attention to the points of chief importance, and trying to explain
some few difficulties, which lie in the separate clauses, and then very
briefly indicating some of the principles which as a whole it enshrines.
“Our Father which art in heaven.”
The spirit of a prayer depends in great measure on whether the
worshipper’s thought of God is true or false, adequate or inadequate.
The Christian invokes God under the completest of all His titles, the
title of Father, for “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into
our hearts crying, Abba, Father.”[69] And we call Him the _Father which
is in heaven_, not because He is far off us――for in the Kingdom of
Christ heavenly and earthly things are mingled and we “are come unto
the heavenly Jerusalem,”[70]――but because He is raised far above all
the pollution and wilfulness and ignorance of man “as the heaven is
higher than the earth.” So we invoke our Father, infinitely above us
yet unspeakably near. And the first prayer we offer is:
“Hallowed be thy name.”
What is the name of God? That is very well worth our consideration.
The name of God in the Bible means that whereby He discloses or reveals
Himself. You may indeed almost say that the name of God means God
Himself as He is manifested. God has shown Himself to man; He has spelt
out His great name, letter by letter, syllable by syllable, before
the eyes of men or into their hearts, in nature, in conscience, by
the voice of His prophets and in Jesus Christ His Son. Thus to hallow
or sanctify His name is to set store by His revelation of Himself, as
Father, Son and Spirit, one God. To pray that His name may be hallowed,
is to pray that His revelation of Himself may be accepted of men, and
His religion professed openly and secretly: that He may be acknowledged
in conduct and worship, in Church and in State, on Sunday and on
week-day.
“Thy kingdom come.”
The kingdom of God meant to the Jews, of course, the kingdom of the
Messiah: that is to say that coming age, when heaven and earth shall
be fused in one, when God shall be manifested in His glory, when all
things shall be seen in their true light, and the reign of Christ in
truth and meekness and righteousness shall be not only real but also
manifest and indisputable. This is “the end of the world,” the “far
off, divine event,” which is still future. At times, indeed, the Church
as it already exists among us is called “the kingdom of God,” but at
other times (as is implied here) the Church is regarded as a divine
institution, representing indeed the kingdom here and now in the world,
but also preparing for its arrival in the future. To pray for the
coming of the kingdom is therefore to pray for the spread and progress
of the Church, and also for the diffusion in every way of all truth
and meekness and righteousness and of all that can find its place
in the city of God. It is to pray for the overthrow of every form
of “lawlessness”――lawless lusts and appetites, lawless ambition and
insolence and denial, godless worldliness and lies and vanities,
cruelty, oppression and malice in every shape. For all these are
forms of rebellion; and we know that they represent only a temporary
usurpation. We are looking forward to, and would fain hasten, the
coming of the King.
“Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.”
This is a prayer against all wilfulness and also against all sloth:
a prayer for the vigorous co-operation of all rational creatures in
furthering the divine order of the world. And we should notice that
the phrase “as in heaven, so on earth” refers probably to all the three
preceding clauses: Hallowed be Thy Name, as in heaven, so on earth; Thy
kingdom come, as in heaven, so on earth; Thy will be done, as in heaven,
so on earth. The Church of Rome, in the _Catechism_ put forth by the
Council of Trent, specially exhorts her clergy to call the attention
of the faithful to this connexion of the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
Strangely enough, one of the most difficult words in the whole New
Testament is this word translated “daily” in the Lord’s Prayer. Nobody
can be quite certain what it means, but probably it means “the bread
for the coming day.”[71] Give us to-day the bread for the coming day,
is therefore a prayer that the bodily needs of the immediate future
may be supplied for all members of the Christian family. It is a
prayer which only those can truly pray who are contented with such
satisfaction of their bodily needs as enables them to do the work
of God, who will ask nothing for themselves that they do not ask for
others, and who are content to wait from day to day upon the hand of
God.
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
We cannot do God’s work without the supply of our physical needs:
therefore the last prayer was offered. But equally we cannot do God’s
work unless we are at peace with Him: therefore this prayer follows.
Sin may be regarded from many points of view――as a flaw or mistake in
our nature or conduct: as a violation or transgression of a divine law
(as in ver. 14): or (as here) as an act by which we have robbed God of
His rights and incurred an obligation or debt which we cannot satisfy,
and in regard to which we can only appeal to the divine pity. From
the first point of view what is needed is nothing else than recovery
and correction: from the second point of view we need forgiveness,
but forgiveness of such sort as is only morally possible when our
will is brought back into harmony with our Father’s will. Only from
the third point of view is forgiveness the same as being let off. And
the position which the petition to be forgiven holds in this prayer,
prevents us from supposing that we can be “forgiven our debts” without
having been brought into union with God’s will and into the fellowship
of His Kingdom.
On the principle involved in this petition our Lord Himself immediately
comments:
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly
Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Here is the divine principle which, as we noticed before, is made
so plain in the parable (St. Matt. xviii. 31), where the unthankful
servant finds that all the debt which had been forgiven him has rolled
back upon him because he in his turn has behaved himself unforgivingly,
unmercifully, towards his fellow-servant. God deals with us as we deal
with our fellow-men; and if we want to know how the face of God looks
towards us, we must examine ourselves to see what is the aspect we
present towards them.
“And bring us not into temptation.”
Now, this clause is intelligible enough to our hearts, but rather
difficult to explain exactly. St. James writes, “My brethren, count
it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” How can we pray not
to be tempted or tried when we know that it is only through temptation
that we can become strong? One explanation is to be got from our Lord’s
words to His disciples at the time of His agony in the garden: “Watch
and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” If you fail to be on your
guard, if you live carelessly, without watching or praying, God suffers
you, as a punishment, to be brought within the scope of temptation, and
you find it too strong for you. Therefore the prayer may be interpreted
by expansion thus: make us watchful and prayerful, so that we never
be suffered to fall into temptation as into a snare. But it seems
better to interpret the prayer more generally as the expression of
that self-distrust for which we have only too sufficient grounds, as
a prayer like that of Christ’s, “Father, if it be possible let the cup
of trial pass from me without my drinking it, nevertheless, thy will
be done.”[72]
“But deliver us from the evil one.”
That is “from the devil.” Modern society seems to be very unwilling
to believe in the devil or diabolical temptation. It has been cleverly
said, “Satan never did a more successful stroke than when he persuaded
people to disbelieve in his own existence.” There is truth in that.
It is a real hindrance to our spiritual struggle, and an increase
of despondency, if we forget that evil solicitations come, not only
from our own nature, but from evil spirits. Moreover, if Christ
is a true prophet――if He discerned the conditions of our spiritual
struggle――certainly diabolical temptation must be real, for He is
always talking of it. When He sees evil at work, evil for body or soul,
His mind penetrates behind the appearances and detects hostile wills
working to pervert the kingdom of God, hostile wills which He knows are
to be at last subdued to God and are even now controlled by Him, but
which He knows also to be at present active and malevolent. He looks
forth upon the disorder of the world and says, “An enemy hath done
this.” And He teaches us to pray for deliverance from the evil one.
The familiar doxology “For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, for ever and ever, Amen,” which in our Church, though not over
the greater part of Christendom, follows here, was not in the original
Lord’s Prayer, though it was added to it very early. It was a doxology
in use in the early Church, which was added at the end of many of
the prayers, and which in very early times came to be attached to the
Lord’s Prayer in some of the manuscripts. It was thus given a place
which it cannot rightly claim, though it states, grandly enough, the
reason why we thankfully worship the Father.
It remains for us to notice some of the great principles which are
enshrined in the Lord’s Prayer as a whole.
1. The Lord’s Prayer is not one prayer among many, as you may have
a number of collects for a number of different objects, and each
particular collect is just one prayer among many. The Lord’s Prayer is
rather the type and mould of all Christian prayer: “After this manner
pray ye.” Understand the Lord’s Prayer, and you understand altogether
how to pray as a Christian should. It is not really an exaggeration to
say that the climax of Christian growth is to have thoroughly learned
to say the Lord’s Prayer in the spirit of Him who first spoke it.
And this has been clearly recognized in the use which the Church in
all ages has made of the Lord’s Prayer. Among human compositions there
are hardly any more beautiful than the liturgies in which Christians,
at the altar, have approached the Father of their Lord in the pleading
of His sacrifice. Now, almost all the ancient liturgies, both Eastern
and Western, are so constructed that the point upon which each service
converges is the saying of the Lord’s Prayer. That is the point up to
which they climb. That is their central act; because the highest thing
in the way of worship that the Christian can do is to say Christ’s own
prayer in the freedom of that approach to God once won for him by the
Son of Man.
So, in our English Communion service, we put ourselves into the right
frame of mind by saying the first Lord’s Prayer; and afterwards, in the
power of His sacrifice and in the unity of His life communicated to us
in His body and blood, we say again the Lord’s Prayer with its doxology
as the highest point of our whole service.
Once more, in the daily offices of morning and evening prayer the
Lord’s Prayer occurs at the beginning, and again in the prayers after
the Creed. It occurs at the beginning to put us into the right frame
of mind for praying; and at the end it sums up our petitions――all that
we have learned to pray for in the Psalms and lessons. And to leave out
the second Lord’s Prayer, as is sometimes done by way of shortening the
service, is surely to betray ignorance of the structure of the service
and of the use of the Lord’s Prayer.
This is indeed the way in which the Church, catching the spirit of
her Lord, has used the Lord’s Prayer; and, as individuals, it is a
great happiness and power for us when we have learned to use it freely.
Whatever particular object we may want to pray for, we have never
prayed for it aright till we have prayed for it in the words and spirit
of the Lord’s Prayer. That, I repeat, is not one prayer among many.
It covers all legitimate Christian praying, and indeed the saying of
it affords the best test whether our wants of the moment can become
a prayer offered “in the name of Christ.”
2. I say “in the name of Christ.” The Lord’s Prayer is the great prayer
in His name. You know how many people have a very strangely childish
notion, that praying in the name of Christ means simply the addition of
the words “through Jesus Christ our Lord” at the end of their prayers.
But depend upon it they do not by adding these words, or any words,
bring it about that their prayers should be in the name of Christ. To
pray in the name of Christ means to pray in such a way as represents
Christ. The representative always must speak in the spirit and meaning
of those for whom he speaks. If Christ is our representative, that must
be because He speaks our wishes, or what we ought to make our wishes;
and if we are to pray in the name of Christ, that means that we are,
however far off, expressing His wishes and intentions.
Therefore, as this Lord’s Prayer represents profoundly and perfectly
the spirit of Him who first spoke it, and who taught it to His Church,
it follows that it is, beyond all other prayers, the prayer in Christ’s
name. Do you then want to know whether this or that thing can be prayed
for in Christ’s name? The answer is to be found in another question,
Can it be legitimately covered by the clauses of the Lord’s Prayer?
3. The knowing and saying of the Lord’s Prayer, as the prayer in
Christ’s name, was in the early Church regarded as being, like the
knowing and saying of the Creed, the privilege of those only who
were members of the Christian family. It was the prayer of the family
because of its first words, “Our Father.” The Christian creed, we know,
would teach us to believe that God is the father of all men, and that
He wills all men to realize their sonship. They cannot reach true
manhood till they have come to know themselves to be, and to realize
what is involved in being, sons of God.
But since sin has separated men from God, it is through Christ and
by the partaking of His Spirit that they enter or re-enter into the
privileges of sonship. Thus the right of calling upon God as “Our
Father” was believed to have come with the coming of the gift of the
Holy Ghost: “God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,
whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” We are apt to have rather “free and
easy” notions of the divine fatherhood. And it is important to be
reminded that to call God our Father, we must ourselves be sons, and
it is they who are led by the Spirit, they and they only, that are the
sons of God.
This Lord’s Prayer then is the prayer of the great Christian family;
the prayer of the whole Catholic Church; the prayer which, though it
may be spoken by a single member in a quiet corner, yet is instinct
with the aspirations and needs and wants of all that great society
which represents all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues in
this world and in that which lies beyond the grave.
4. There is a searching lesson which lies in the order of the petitions
in the Lord’s Prayer; for in praying much depends on the order in which
we rank the objects of prayer.
There is a saying, not recorded in our canonical Gospels, but which
yet the very earliest traditions of the Church treasured, and ascribed
to our Lord; the saying is this: “Ask for great things, and the small
things will be given unto you. Ask for heavenly things, and the earthly
things will be given unto you.” Now, that is exactly the spirit of
the Lord’s Prayer. It puts our wants in the right order. It puts first
the heavenly things, the great things, and not the little things, the
earthly things, the things that seem to touch us closest.
We know that it is not easy to adopt this order in our prayers. There
are many who have lost altogether the habit of praying and who are won
back to it by some anxiety or trouble that touches them nearly. Some
son or daughter perhaps lies dying, and the father and mother, who long
have been alien to the habit of prayer, are driven back to it by the
very stress of their pressing need. Or some calamity is threatening to
overwhelm ourselves, and we fall on our knees, after a great interval
of prayerlessness, to implore that it may be averted. And, of course,
we must bless God that anyhow men should be brought to pray: and God
can lead us to higher things through things which touch our flesh and
blood, from earth to heaven. But the point is that that is not the
right order of prayer. The true Christian does not pray first for the
things that most nearly touch himself. That impulsive prayer which
springs simply out of our own needs is not the prayer “in the name of
Christ.”
We remember what our Lord said to the disciples in those solemn hours
in the upper chamber before His passion: “Hitherto ye have asked
nothing in my name.” They had presented all kinds of petitions and
requests; but in their own name. So it is so often with us. Hitherto
have we asked nothing in His name. But that of course is a fault to
be altered. We must let our prayers be in Christ’s name: that is to
say in the order reflected in the Lord’s Prayer.
Now, let us examine it. The prayer of human instinct runs: My Father,
give me to-day what I so sorely require. But the Lord’s Prayer begins
with “Our Father”――not “my,” but “our.” I must begin with losing my
selfishness, with recollecting that I am only one of the great body
of God’s children, of the great mass of humanity. Thus I cannot ask
for anything for myself which conflicts with the interests of others.
And the invocation proceeds, “which art in heaven.” It places us in
a reverent way at the feet of God. “God is in heaven, and thou upon
earth: therefore, let thy words be few.”
“Hallowed be Thy name.” It puts God’s revelation of Himself to men
above all human needs. We are so apt to think last of the glory and
honour of God; but here as we pray we are forced to exalt it into the
first place; and next, “Thy kingdom come.” That is――May that divine
order which, point by point, in many parts and many manners, through
all the great web of history, has gradually to be woven out――may that
great purpose of God find at last its fulfilment. Thus we are forced
as we pray to merge our own narrow interests and schemes till they are
lost in the largeness and wisdom of the divine method.
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Here we are forced
to bend our stubborn or short-sighted wills to conformity with the
divine will and to make the law of heaven the pattern for earth.
Only then, when we have exalted God’s glory above man’s need, when
we have subordinated our little designs utterly to the great purpose
of God, when we have bent our little wills under the great and divine
will――only then are we allowed to express our wants for ourselves.
And even so how modestly, how restrictedly. “Give us,” we pray, not
anything that we may want, but “to-day the bread for to-morrow:” enough
to do God’s work upon in God’s way; and so that our eating may not
involve others’ hungering. And then, because we cannot do God’s work
unless we are in His peace, “Forgive us our trespasses”――not anyhow;
but according to that necessary law by which God deals with us as we
deal with others; “as we forgive them that trespass against us.” And,
because we are weak and frail, “lead us not into temptation, but
deliver us from the evil one.”
Is there not then in this prayer the whole philosophy of praying?
And when we come to think of it, we shall find that the philosophy
or secret of prayer lies in the recognition of the same law of
correspondence, which has been the secret of scientific progress in the
development of the resources of nature, and which, in that department,
Francis Bacon has the credit of teaching men, or of putting into words
for them. Before his time men had been trying to get extraordinary
good things out of nature in accordance with the whims and fancies of
astrologers and alchemists: they had dreamt of making gold, or finding
the elixir of life. But all this was profitless because it was done
in ignorance of nature’s actual laws. And Bacon spoke a prophetic word
when he said “Nature can only be controlled by being obeyed;” that
is――in reverent correspondence with nature as it is, is the secret
of power. Now, in the higher region, that is what our Lord taught us
about prayer. Man had been offering all sorts of prayers, sacrifices,
propitiations. That God mercifully regarded such ignorant worship we
cannot doubt: but it _was_ ignorant of God’s character and method. Now,
so far as is good for us, our Lord has enlightened us about the nature
and method of God: and He has shown us that prayer should not be an
attempt to impose our own whims and fancies on the wisdom of God, but
a constant act of correspondence by which we bring our short-sighted
wills and reasons into correspondence, the intelligent correspondence
of sons, with the perfect reason and will of God, the all-wise Father
of all human souls and of the great universe.
5. Here finally we find an answer to all our manifold questionings as
to what we may pray for, and what we may not.
Our Lord gave us that answer also in another way at another time――in
the prayers of His passion. In His passion He prayed for the coming
of the kingdom, in that great prayer recorded in St. John’s Gospel. He
prayed then without qualification. Similarly, He prayed for those rough
soldiers who were unwittingly doing Him such awful wrong: “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But when, in the garden,
He asked to be Himself delivered from the coming agony, in the true
humility of His manhood He prayed conditionally, “Father, _if it be
possible_, let this cup pass from me.”
Now, that is exactly the lesson of the Lord’s Prayer. There are many
things which God has revealed to us that He intends to give us. He
has promised that He will give us all those things which belong to His
kingdom and its righteousness. For these things we can pray, not only
urgently, but with the certainty of faith that we must win them for
ourselves and others by importunate asking. We cannot, of course, force
the will of others, but we can with the assurance of faith win for
others, as for ourselves, the spiritual opportunities, resources, and
advantages of God’s kingdom.
There are also many things God has revealed that He does not mean to
give us, and there are laws of His ordering, spiritual and physical,
that by revelation or natural investigation He has made known. For
these things, then, or against these laws, we must not pray; we must
not ask that God will violate His general laws in our private interest.
But there is a great mass of things which lie in between these two
regions of certainty. We do not know if it is God’s will that this
or that person should recover from sickness, or this or that calamity
should be averted. God is wiser than we are. We do not know whether it
is God’s will that we should have the rain that is so necessary for our
crops. There are things like these that lie in a region of uncertainty
into which the intelligence of man cannot penetrate. So then as the
object of prayer is not to bring the divine will down to the human,
but to lift the human up into correspondence with the divine, for all
these uncertain things we can pray indeed, but uncertainly――“If it be
possible, let this or that come to pass; nevertheless, not my will, but
Thine, be done.”