Plural Pronouns in the Lord’s Prayer

Last week I had one of those experiences in which something I have known for years and with which I have familiar daily interaction struck me with a fresh and powerful impact. That is, that the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are plural. I have noted them here from the NRSV of Matthew 6:9-13, but the same pattern is in Luke 11:2-4 and in other translations.

·         Our Father

·         Give us our daily bread

·         Forgive us our debts

·         As we have forgiven our debtors

·         Do not bring us to the time of trial

·         Rescue us from the evil one

The pattern is our, us, we and not my, I, me. We have a difficult time grasping much less living this plural spirituality in our hyper-individualistic society. We let ourselves off the hook for a host of social injustices by rationalizing that “I didn’t do what they did;” or “I wasn’t there when that was decided;” or “I disagreed with that action by our government (or denomination).” As though it was Scripture (which is blasphemous in my opinion), we elevate the rights of the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to personal entitlements without regard to justice and compassion for others who do not enjoy them fully.

Of course, Jesus was not thinking about the United States or any other national entity, not even Israel. Jesus intended this to teach the community of his disciples how to pray together. Even though it easily gets reduced to a trite repetition, churches are right to recite the Lord’s Prayer together in worship. Jesus’ purpose went far beyond that to nourish our interdependence in the community of faith.

If we have plenty of bread and someone else in the community is hungry, praying for our daily bread takes the form of sharing. Our debts, transgressions, sins are part of community life: not injuring each other or people beyond the community; encouraging and supporting each other in the pursuit of Christlikeness. Praying that we will not be brought to the time of trial is far more than escaping personal temptations (as legitimate a concern as that is). It is asking God to protect the community from internal and external pressures that shake the integrity of the community. Though the KJV says, “deliver us from evil,” the NRSV “rescue us from the evil one,” is not just legitimate but powerful. Again, the concern is not so much that bad or even moral evil things don’t happen to me, but for the community to be protected from evil persons. It is true that the evil one can be understood as Satan, but it may also be understood as an evil person (or persons) who attack the community of faith from outside or corrupt it from the inside. I strongly suspect Jesus’ disciples thought of Herod in these terms, and the early church thought of the Emperor.

While the focus of the Lord’s Prayer is on how the community of Jesus’ disciples prays, when the plurals are juxtaposed with how Jesus treated Samaritans and Gentiles and all he said about loving neighbors and enemies, as the community prays these plurals, they necessarily embrace those outside of the community as well. As we pray together, we who follow Jesus seek for those who are unlike us to know the Father in Heaven, have their daily needs met, experience redemption and freedom from evil and the attacks of evil people. Such praying together will necessarily mobilize the community of Jesus’ disciples to put it into action for those beyond the community.

I am not interested in an exegetical debate about the Lord’s Prayer. What I do hope is to have stimulated some meditation on the significance of the plural pronouns in how Jesus taught us to pray.

I know this is a bit of an excursus, but I think we also easily miss just how radical it was for Jesus to teach us to pray to “Our Father.” I am quite confident that Jesus was not endorsing an hierarchical understanding of either gender roles or of God. That human fathers have failed, and the result has been distorted, antagonistic relationships in marriage, family, society, church and even relationship with God should not deter us from appropriating the power of the “Our Father.”

The Hebrew Scriptures make very few references to God as Father. That would have implied an intimacy that was foreign to them. Islam takes this a step farther and considers calling God “Father” blasphemous. I am not going to explore that any further than observing how it highlights the dramatic change of perspective Jesus introduced that follows through the New Testament and has become commonplace among Christians. We rattle off addressing God as Father in even the most casual of our prayers. I’m not actually criticizing that, but am suggesting pondering it for fuller appreciation.

The Hebrew Scriptures call God King, Sovereign, Almighty, Lord (and similar English renditions of several important Hebrew words) far more often than Father. Understandably, these tend to keep God at a safe distance from us, even when we pray. I am not criticizing or attempting to explain that, only to highlight the wonder that Jesus introduced with “Our Father.” By contrast, Jesus invites us to think of ourselves being in the intimacy of God’s family circle where love supplants fear.

As it happens, I am writing this on Father’s Day 2018. I don’t know if that has any particular significance. Again, I am not trying to provoke debates about language, but only to invite fresh contemplation of what has become so familiar that we easily miss not just the significance of the words but the power of the experience in both our private and community prayers.