Messing with the Lord's Prayer
May 2, 1999
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Seminarian, St. Paul's Episcopal Church
There are two versions of the Lord's Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer:
Traditional ContemporaryOur Father, who art in heaven, Our Father in heaven,
hallowed by thy Name, hallowed be your Name,
thy kingdom come, your kingdom come,
thy will be done, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. on earth as in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Give us today our daily bread.
And Forgive us our trespasses, Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those as we forgive those
who trespass against us. who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, Save us from the time of trial,
but deliver us from evil. and deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, For the kingdom, the power,
and the power, and the glory, and the glory are yours,
for ever and ever. Amen. now and for ever. Amen.
Usually we use the traditional version. Sometimes we use the "new" text. With some trepidation, I am going to try to answer a question I keep hearing these days here at St. Paul's:
Why do we have to do this new Lord's Prayer for the next few weeks?
This prayer that for some of us sticks in our throats and our hearts. Why do we have to change it? The old one is so beautiful.
The old one is the first of five Lord's Prayers I've learned so far in my life. If I close my eyes when I say this old version I see the page in my first communion book from which I memorized it. I see the nun who taught me. I see my six-year-old self reciting it to my mother. I learned this prayer at the same time I learned to read. It is ingrained in me.
I'll never forget when I learned that my Protestant friends added something about thine being the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. It sounded sort of neat but how could they change the Our Father? Didn't they know they were saying it wrong? And they called it the "Lord's Prayer." Didn't they know its name is the "Our Father?" How could they change the name?
Then I became an Episcopalian and I was expected to say that majestic, triumphant doxology. For a long while I couldn't. It didn't feel right. Those words still don't feel like they belong to me.
Then I came to seminary where they used the contemporary version-- which is now 30 years old. And, you know, it stuck in my throat. It still does sometimes. Where is the poetry? Where are those phrases that roll off my tongue almost by their own accord? Having said this version now for nearly two years every day in chapel --well, nearly every day -- I now have trouble saying the old version. I get mixed up. What prayer am I praying?
I have also learned another version of the Lord's Prayer . . . The New Zealand Prayer Book's alternative to the contemporary version.
The traditional version, by the way, shows up nowhere in that prayer book.
This alternative is out there. Listen:
Eternal spirit,
Earth-maker, pain-bear, life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and mother of us all,
Loving god, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth!
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever, amen.
Now, that version barely resembles the traditional Lord's Prayer. There are some echoes. Hallow is there. Bread is there. Temptation is there. But it is a very different prayer. The rhythm is different. The words are different.
Words and rhythms and cherished memories are important . . . but when we come to the point where the power of a prayer lives in its words and the memories it conjures up, rather than in what it says about our relationship with God today-- this morning-- then that prayer has outlived its usefulness.
Because what we pray for simultaneously shapes and expresses our theology. Theology . . . faith seeking understanding, faith asking questions. What do we believe about God and our relationship with God? What can we say to God? What can we say about God? What can we ask of God? And how can we say it?
One answer I've heard to the question why do we have to do this new Lord's Prayer is that it makes us stop and listen to what we're really saying. If that's our reason, then tinkering with the words of the prayer, changing the thines to yours-es and changing the word order doesn't do it for me. Such tinkering doesn't do much except keep us focused on the sound of the prayer, while barely looking at its theology; it only makes us see how it feels to call God "you" rather than "thee." It may dispense with some of old version's triumphalistic tone-- and I'll say more about that in a bit-- but it doesn't really challenge us.
We ought to give ourselves a larger space where we can consider the theology of what we're saying. Step into that space with me for a few minutes:
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
Which of those three versions says the most to you theologically? Or do the versions which use "debt" and "debtors" make more sense to you?
Some people would send us back to the source-- and here's where the fifth version of the Lord's Prayer that I learned comes in-- the Greek version. Here the key word is oh-phay-lay-mata and the form of the word indicates it means a very direct tangible thing, not something abstract. It means "debts" as in "things owed or obligated to another." The Greek word for sin is hamartia. It is a leap to translate oh-phay-lay-mata as "sin."
But must we always simply be sure we are doing a correct translation? Perhaps we ought to consider what is intended by the phrase. How would we express the power of forgiveness in our relationship with God and with one another?
Is it too chicken-hearted just to ask God to forgive us before/as/so that we (can) forgive others? For everything. All the time.
Must we worry about forgive us for what? We know for what. We are asking for the strength to believe that God forgives us and for the strength to believe that we must always forgive ourselves and each other. How can I ask from God that which I will not give to my friends and enemies? Just please God forgive us and help us echo the love you've shown us by forgiving others.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. That line has always puzzled me. As a kid I am thinking what? God would lead me into doing wrong? I thought the devil did that. Now a seminary student with a dangerously small amount of Greek under my cassock, I look at the Greek version and see the phrase may ay-san-egn-kace heymace ace pay-ras-mon-- "do not lead us into the time of trial." To translate this as "save us from the time of trial" is another leap. A leap to the safe assumption that God would never lead us into temptation. Why would God do that?
"Save us from the time of trial" is a leap, but doesn't that give voice to a normal reaction--a very human reaction? Please God, don't make me go there. Please God, let this cup pass.
Here, the alternative New Zealand version works for me where I am:
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory.
This doxology has been in dispute from the beginning. The manuscripts from which the New Testament translations are devised contain 10 different endings. The oldest and the best manuscripts contain none.
It will come as no surprise to some of you who have heard me preach before that I have trouble with the triumphalistic royal language of the doxology. It seems so remote to me. If I am praying about my relationship with God where am I at the end? I cannot see God in the person standing next to me because I am squinting up at the throne and the blinding light.
My relationship-- my understanding of God-- is better expressed in the New Zealand version's:
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
I am standing in the power of love, which implies an intimate relationship with God. But I'd like to get out of that "reign" imagery. What if we substituted the word "create" for "reign." as in
You create in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen.
Now, my friends, that takes my breath away.
That says what I know about my relationship with God today. But it wouldn't have worked for me a few years ago. Who knows what it might say to me next year.
Our understanding about God will always be partial and broken and changeable. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep praying for answers and praying from the answers we have gotten so far.
And I mean "we," because there's an inherent problem in our question about why do we have to use this version of the Lord's Prayer. When we pray the Lord's Prayer in the liturgy, it is not meant to be anyone's private devotional prayer, any more than the Creed is supposed to be an individual expression of faith.
The Creed begins with "we believe" and every version of the Lord's Prayer asks God to give us our daily bread,
To forgive us our sins as we forgive others,
To deliver us from evil.
Our liturgy is by its definition is the work of the people . . . not of me and you and you individually . . . but of us together.
We won't all have the same understanding of our relationship with God at the same time. We share some ideas about that relationship but there will be as many nuances as there are people saying the prayer. Different parts of the prayer will be more dear to me than to you.
When I was discerning my call to ministry, the line
your kingdom come, your will be done
Was the most important line in the prayer. Not my will, God, your will . . . show me what it is. Help me get out of the way.
But no matter how precious my version of this prayer is, don't I have an obligation to understand that I might not relate to God the same way you do? And don't you have an obligation to see that your way of relating to God may not do a thing for me? How then can we express together what we understand about God?
I know more about God today than I knew yesterday and less than I will know tomorrow. I think you do too. We ought to be able to say that together and make room for each other.
Changing the way we say the Lord's Prayer-- changing the traditional syntax or going out on a limb and using the alternative New Zealand version-- reminds us that prayer is not static, any more than our relationship with God is static.
Changing the way we say the Lord's Prayer is a way to embody our faith. The faith that says God is with me no matter where I am and what I believe. The faith that says I am with you and you are with me, no matter where we are and what we believe today.
AMEN.