Seeds for 06-06-2023 - Matthew 6:9-13, part 2
Scripture: 9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
‘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 today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’”
Observation: Prayer is participation in a relationship, just like conversation is participation in a relationship. Jesus underscores this reality as He addresses God as “Our Father.”
“Father” is a familial term. The point isn’t that God is male. After all, God created male and female in His image. God is spirit. Addressing God as Father is participation in a relationship that cannot be understood only in terms of a religious institution or a theocratic nation-state. It must include the notion of family. This has tremendous implications. Jesus—the second person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son—invites all disciples to be students or apprentices, yes, but more than that, He invites us to address God as children!
“Our” is the other relational term that Jesus uses here at the outset. In the first two words of the prayer, Jesus has brought together the vertical and horizontal dimensions of faith. We are in relationship with God. We are in relationship with one another. “Our” means that we are also in relationship with God together with one another. It’s never “just me and God.” It’s always “Our Father.”
In my church’s tradition, we pray the Lord’s Prayer together in worship. This is a simple and significant expression of the theological truth Jesus declares in those two words: relationship with God, relationship with one another, relationship with God together with one another.
My practice of including the Lord’s Prayer in my personal devotions is a way of praying with the Church Universal who all pray as Jesus taught us. But more than that, it is me praying with my local church community in private until the next week when we’ll pray together in person. Praying with the Church Universal is wonderful, powerful, and true, but also kind of vague and intangible. Praying with my local church, “Our Father,” until I’m praying with them again in worship is concrete. I know who I’m praying alongside. We are in relationship with God together.
Application:
In what ways can you grow in relationship with God together with a Christian community that you can’t on your own?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, through your prayer, grow my relationship with my Christian community so that we may grow in relationship with you together. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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