Let Us Pray

When the worship group met for the first time in April, those who gathered on that evening discussed ways to involve the whole congregation in worship more fully. One suggestion was to use a different translation of the Lord’s Prayer, perhaps to slow down the recital of it and make us think about the words we speak. I mentioned that there were three different versions offered in our United Church of Christ Book of Worship (they are also printed in our New Century Hymnal on p. 9), and offered to have the “forgive us our sins” version printed in the bulletin, for a change. A member of the worship group agreed to introduce it on the first Sunday that we prayed the new version(April 27).

Well, the change certainly got people thinking, and talking, but not quite in the way I or anyone in the worship group had expected. I think we were all surprised at the passion of some responses to the modern version. The next time the worship group met, we agreed to change back to the familiar version, for the time being, but to continue the conversation about worship, and about the Lord’s Prayer in particular.

So, here is the first in a series of studies on the Lord’s Prayer. This is intended not to put an end to conversation, but to infuse it with respectful dialog. I hope to receive some comments on this post! Let's keep the conversation open.
What we have come to call “The Lord’s Prayer” appears in two of the four gospels. Here is how the prayer appears in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, in Matthew and in Luke.

Matt 6:9-13

⁹ ‘Pray then in this way:
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 this day our daily bread.^*
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And do not bring us to the time of trial,^*
but rescue us from the evil one.

Luke 11:1-4

^{The Lord’s Prayer}

¹He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ ²He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father,^* hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.^*
3 Give us each day our daily bread.^*
4 And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.’

Note the differences, as well as the similarities, between each of these biblical versions and the version we usually recite in worship. Consider the commentary of Eduard Schweitzer, who noted:

It is astounding how little legalism the early Christians showed in transmitting the words of Jesus. Even so central a text as this is reshaped with relative freedom, adapted to local usage, and elaborated. The community had no sacred texts in the sense of ones that had to be repeated without the slightest change. The Lord’s Prayer is therefore not the letter of the law; it is an aid to prayer, a guide to be followed without being bound to this or that precise wording.

--The Good News According to Matthew, p. 147

You might also notice that something familiar is missing from both biblical versions of the prayer featured above. If you consult the footnotes of your NRSV, you will read, “Other ancient authorities add, in some form, For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever. Amen.” The translators who worked on New Revised Standard Version of the bible had access to ancient manuscripts which were not available to previous generations. The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament do not include these words of praise; but the recitation of this doxology at the end of the prayer seems to have become the practice of the church by the turn of the first into the second century, when the Didache (DID-a-key) was compiled. The Didache reads like a Scout handbook on how to organize a church, and it includes instructions on how to pray.

The Lord’s Prayer in the Didache:

Likewise, don't pray as the hypocrites, but as commanded in the Gospel in this manner:
Our Father in heaven,
Sacred is Your Name.
Your kingdom comes.
Your will is accomplished,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us each day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debt
in the manner that we forgive our debtors.
And do not allow us to fall to temptation,
but deliver us from evil,
for Yours is the power and the glory forever.
Amen!
Pray in this manner three times per day.

Didache 8:2-3, tr. c. 1998 Ivan Lewis

For May 25, 2008

Scriptures:

Hebrew Bible:	Isaiah 49:8-16a
Psalm:	Psalm 131
Epistle:	1 Corinthians 4:1-5
New Testament:	Matthew 6:24-34

Sunday Bulletin Service Theme: Seeking God's Way
Our theme will emphasize God's care for us throughout life's journey. We have a baptism, we will honor our high school and college graduates, and we will dedicate our memorial garden. So naturally, one of hymns will be "I was there to hear your borning cry."

I was there to hear your borning cry
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
#351 New Century Hymnal

Other hymn selections for the day are #423 "Great Is Your Faithfulness," #323 "Little Children Welcome" (for the baptism), and #438 "When Peace Like a River."

When peace, like a river, upholds me each day,
when sorrows like sea billows roll,
whatever my lot, you have taught me to say,
"It is well, it is well with my soul."

The scriptures speak of God's mercy and tender care. "Can a woman forget her nursing child?" Isaiah asks. Even if your mother forgets you, God will not forget you. "I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother," reads the psalm. "Do not worry about your life," Jesus says in the gospel. God takes care of the birds. Don't you think you are worth at least as much as the birds to God?

Some people may hear the old hymn "God's eye in on the sparrow" when they read that gospel message. I hear Bobby McFarren singing, "Don't worry. Be happy (Don't worry be happy now...doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo...)." Is anyone on deck for "special music?"

At the end of the service, we will process out to the memorial garden (on the south lawn) to consecrate and dedicate it as a place set apart to receive cremated remains and memorials to those who go before us into glory. "I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice." Thanks be to God.

God who is Unity

Read Barbara Brown Taylor's essay "Physics and Faith: The Luminous Web" here.

May 18: "Creation Continues"

Hebrew Bible:	Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm:	Psalm 8
Epistle:	2 Corinthians 13:11-13
New Testament:	Matthew 28:16-20

"Creation Continues" is the Sunday Bulletin Service theme. The scriptures are the first story of creation, the poetic version with the six days of creation beautifully balanced in two series of three; a psalm expressing a sense of awe when we consider the cosmos; a note of farewell from Paul; and the Great Commission.
Like the Psalm, the first chapter of Genesis is an expression of awe and a hymn of praise to God the Creator. The six stanzas of creation are about
1) light and darkness, 4) sun and moon,
2) sky and sea, 5) birds and fish,
3) earth and plants, 6) animals and people.
And people are made in the image of God, male and female-- take note-- at the same time.

"Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...."
--Genesis 1:26

Over the ages there has been much conjecture over just who God is talking to in verse 26. Is God using the "royal we," and talking to Godself? Is God talking to the heavenly court? Is God talking to God's wife, Sophia, the Holy Spirit, and/or Jesus?
The Sunday after Pentecost is traditionally Trinity Sunday, and we are meant to contemplate the God in three persona. If women are made in the image of God, shouldn't one of those persona be female? The word for "spirit" in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament is a feminine noun, and Wisdom is also personified in the feminine.
How have the creation stories shaped your self-understanding as a man or woman? What difference does it make to imagine God as masculine or feminine?

Many Gifts, One Spirit

Pentecost is a celebration of the “birthday of the church,” because it is the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, and gave them the ability to tell of God’s deeds of power in voices that everyone could understand. The church in the book of the Acts of the Apostles is sent forth by Jesus, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to go into all the world (in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, Acts 1:8) to be witnesses. What does a witness do? A witness tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about Jesus, and about the God we come to know through Jesus.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

Pentecost day was a day of power and a day of unity, a day when many people were added to the number of those who followed the way of Jesus. The apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, made an appeal for unity in the Spirit. Apparently the church was having some “diversity issues.” Corinthians came to the church with different ideas of how to be the church. There are varieties of gifts, Paul said, but it is the same Spirit who gives them for the common good.

The United Church of Christ is a diverse body, and so is our own particular congregation. We bring to church our varieties of experience and expectations of what it means to be the church. How can we use our varieties of gifts for the common good, so that we can be witnesses to the power of God in Brainerd, and Minnesota and to the ends of the earth?

The Day of Pentecost

For Sunday May 11

Sunday Bulletin Service theme: "Life-giving Spirit"

Acts 21: 1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come....

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b How manifold are your works... O bless the Lord, my soul.

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 Many gifts, one spirit.

John 20:19-23 Receive the Holy Spirit....

When the day of Pentecost had come, the city of Jerusalem was crowded with pilgrims who had come to observe the festival of Shavout, which falls seven weeks after the Passover, and commemorates the presentation of the Torah to Moses on Sinai. The disciples were praying together in an upper room (perhaps the same room in which they had shared the Passover with Jesus), when they received the "power from on high" which Jesus had promised them.
The gospel of John includes a different version of the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, directly from the mouth of Jesus, on the day of resurrection. There is no fifty day wait, as in Luke's version (the Acts of the Apostles is volume 2 of Luke's story, see the first chapter of each book). This suggests to me that Luke is making a deliberate connection between the gift of the Torah (what we know as Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers and Leviticus, the first five books of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures), and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, law divine, reign within this soul of mine.
Be my law, and I shall be firmly bound, forever free.
--Hymn #63, New Century Hymnal

Shavout observance includes an offering of the first fruits of the harvest at the Temple, as a testimony that the land which produced the crops has been received from God.