In praying, do not babble like the pagans,
who think that they will be heard because of their many words.
As prayer becomes a part of our routine doesn't it become uncomfortably easy to slip into praying like the pagans? Don't we become overly concerned with whether or not prayer is working or if we are doing it with proper form, convinced, though perhaps subconsciously, that it is all about us? We forget that our Father knows what we need before we ask. We want to forget because knowing can be uncomfortable. It can make us unsure of whether or how to even proceed at all. Yet that the Father does know what we need does not mean he doesn't want to hear it from us. We are meant to come before him not in order to convince or persuade him but because we are confident that he himself wills good things for his children (see Matthew 7:11). These things can be ours for the asking if we learn the proper posture of faith, receptivity, and trust.
Our Father who art in heaven
We are not praying to any anonymous deity, not an unconcerned and distant god, but rather the Lord of heaven and earth who has taught us to call him Father. We must disabuse ourselves of the idea that God stands in need of anything from us so that we can fully embrace his call to live as his own sons and daughters. When he does in fact invite us to work it is not in order to earn anything, but to share in his own work, and the delights he himself takes in it.
hallowed be thy name
May the name of God be set apart from ever merely human name and every earthly reality. We use a word to name God but that word cannot contain him in the way that other words might circumscribe created realities. However much we know about God, genuine though that knowledge might be, there is an ever greater amount that we do not know. Because he is hallowed, holy, and set apart from creation, there are no limits to his power to respond to our prayer. He is not in conflict with creation, not simply a powerful but limited part of the things that exist. He himself stands behind all things, sustaining them in existence. To hallow his name then is in part to remember how different it is from any other name that can be named in this age or the age to come (see Ephesians 1:21). Hallowing his name is in a sense inviting the purification of it in our minds of earthly limitations we mistakenly impose upon it.
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
Jesus was entirely focused on the coming of the Kingdom and the will of the Father. But because we forget God is our Father and misunderstand that holiness of his name we tend to second guess his will and be unmotivated by his Kingdom. Yet Jesus sought these things because he perfectly understood that true fulfillment was to be found nowhere else. Only the coming of the Kingdom could fulfill the deepest aspirations of the human heart. Jesus himself demonstrated the goodness of the Kingdom as it began to take shape among his followers when he was present. The Kingdom was proven to be good because Jesus himself was the king. He was not a tyrant, but a servant, who proved his good will by going all the way to the cross. It was by this outpouring of selfless love that his reign was established. It is through the Church that this Kingdom now spreads in the world. But we also look forward to the day when the Kingdom will come in visible fullness and all things will be made new.
Give us this day our daily bread;
Let us be like Jesus whose food was to do the will of his Father and not like those in the exodus generation that grumbled in the desert because they became bored with the miraculous gift of manna. Let us learn to sate ourselves on what God himself desires, in his providence, to provide. As we encounter our human weakness and discover that we seem unable to satisfy ourselves in God alone let us not be ashamed to admit this to him, to surrender even this to him, trusting that he himself knows how to draw us ever more deeply into his own heart.
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
It is meant to be a year of jubilee, which means we must remit all debts so that there is no obstacle to anyone fully entering in and enjoying the celebration, really a wedding feast, the marriage of heaven and earth. How petty our unforgiveness seems against this cosmic perspective. Jesus, who forgave us while we were yet sinners, invites us to spread the message of forgiveness to all who still cling to old wounds and hatred.
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
We need the guidance of the Father because without it we do tend to wander almost headlong into temptation. When our will isn't surrendered to him we tend to seek idols to replace him or at least to set alongside him. But he himself desires to give us the supernatural guidance that can keep us safe even from the near occasions of sin. This is vital since we do have an enemy, Evil with a capital E, the devil. But this enemy is not an equally powerful opposite to God. He is merely a creature allowed to play a role for a time in order that a greater good may come. He is no match for our Father in heaven. But he is more than a match for any of us. Rather than fear because of our weakness we can take great confidence in the Father's ability to deliver us from evil.
Let us not seek other gospel as some in Corinth seem to have done. Let us not content ourselves with the empty show of pagan prayer. May we never be satisfied with idols or the bread of demons when the living God and the bread of angels are on offer to us. To embrace confidence in our Father might seem foolish in the eyes of the world, even as the world thought Paul was foolish. But, based on the track record of the world, we ought not to take this a serious challenge.
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