Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Tweaking the Lord's Prayer?



Image result for lord's prayer tattoo

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, 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 testing, 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 for ever. Amen.
A version of The Lord’s Prayer
from The New Zealand Prayer Book


 Well, the first round of snow shoveling is done this morning and I have the retirement luxury of going nowhere as the white stuff continues to fall. Perhaps I should offer up a prayer of gratitude, even the Lord's Prayer or The Prayer Jesus Taught or the Our Father -- it depends on your tradition. But what version of the Lord's Prayer should we use?

Even Pope Francis is willing to shake up the tradition a little. A few days ago he mused that the problematic phrase "lead us not into temptation" creates a false impression of God's agency in the world and is an inaccurate translation of the original language. Something has been lost in translation -literally-- from Jesus' Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English. In an interview on the weekend Francis noted that French Catholics now say "do not let us fall into temptation."

Already we Protestants are aware that some traditions say "debts" rather than "trespasses". Protestants also add on the caboose of "for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory..." yada, yada, which is not in the gospels.

I think it's good to re-examine the words we use in this prayer so that they are alive for us, are accurate and reflect good theology. Many of you will know that in various congregations I served we would use different versions of the Lord's Prayer, sung and spoken, during the season of Lent. Not everyone liked it (surprise, surprise) but it was a Lenten discipline of paying attention to a seminal prayer of our Christian faith. It's also important to remember that every phrase in this prayer has a parallel in Judaism, which makes sense because Jesus was a Jew!

 Have you puzzled over this phrase through the years? Does your repetition tend to be rote? Do you appreciate different versions of the prayer?

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