In Matthew 6:9-13, the Lord’s Prayer Jesus dropped is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. Over the decades, from church meetings to AA rooms, this prayer has been repeated together with others from a variety of perspectives. To us, the prayer Jesus offered his audience as a model for “how” to pray has become its own icon, separating itself from what Jesus originally intended with his first-century audience. Today, it’s become a trope of Christianity while also being a prayer that has been uttered by billions of people now. In this prayer, however, are words that, if prayed honestly, position the petitioner in an uncomfortable position. This uncomfortable position turns out to be exactly what Jesus was hoping to teach his followers.
Before we plunge into the Lord’s Prayer, and ruin it for everyone, it’d do us good to look at what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6 to understand what Jesus’ example prayer was doing more fully. It’s not surprising that before Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus was already talking about prayer. In the Sermon on the Mount, it’s easy for us to pick one verse at a time from a variety of biblical sources while divorcing these texts from their original context. After just a couple of generations of doing this, theology and discipleship can become very confusing, and the point of the original Text can be lost under generational assumptions.
The Hypocrisy of Prayer
At the beginning of chapter 6, Jesus stated, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” In verses 5, 6, and 7, Jesus directs the focus on “when you pray.” This is one of those phrases easy for us to pass by – it wasn’t meant to. Jesus was intentionally drawing a line between doing things for the reward from others and doing things authentically. Jesus isn’t talking about just prayer by the time he arrives at His prayer. He’s been focusing on hypocrisy and still is.
So, first point: we can pray hypocritically. In fact, it seemed to be the normal thing during his time. It may even be a thing to be wary of: the first-century religious leaders seemed unable to grasp what he was talking about.
“The prayer preceding all prayers is ‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.'” – C.S. Lewis
If you’re not sure what hypocritical prayer is, we just need to sit with Jesus’ words a bit more. It’s when we pray to get attention from others. As a Christian, there are two specific times this occurs for me: in private and in public. As a recovering pastor, much of my past pastoral career was based in hypocrisy, always wearing a mask but trying to be convincing with my words. There is this subjective idea many of us have that God is waiting to be convinced by our words. That is not how it works. Prayer ought to come from authenticity and only remain authentic. God is not mocked. When we are speaking to the Creator of all things, how we speak and the posture we assume matters. Over time, a repeated posture becomes an assumed belief. And those can become idols.
The Misalignment of Prayer and Life
When I preached on stage, and I am far from the only pastor/minister to “confess” this, it was easy to wax eloquent. I was authentic in my expression but what was inside was way off. My prayers sounded good and I still wrecked a lot of plans and trust. To use Jesus’ words, I had received the reward for my prayers. The wages of my sin produced death.
Second point: since Jesus was first talking about hypocrisy and since He’s still talking about it in relationship to prayer, our prayer life and actual life can be dangerously misaligned. This is why Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray – they also grew up in a religious nation-state where they assumed their religion was their savior. They, also, lost how to pray authentically and, instead, were praying like everyone else.
“The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him.” – Oswald Chambers
Before Jesus got into prayer, he first talked about hypocrisy in our giving. The point is the same – when we give, do it authentically and not for the attention and praise of others. You and I have been on the side of those kinds of gifts – you and I have probably been the giver of such gifts. It has the image of being authentic, but once received the gift’s actual goal becomes clear. Instead, Jesus states the very obvious – give a gift and serve others simply for the sake of the deed itself. If we do, Jesus promised that “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
The Danger of Inauthentic Prayer
It’s now that Jesus pivots to praying – “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites” – and spends four verses explaining it before he then offers us a model for praying. In contrast, during Jesus’ time, people would pray in public “that they may be seen by others.” Maybe pastors won’t confess this but this temptation is available every time we take the pulpit and pray in meetings. I am not the only minister who didn’t understand the Holy Spirit and felt like they were talking to a wall while casually doing what I was good at. Something was going wrong with my prayers and it was (not-so) simply that I struggled to be honest. I focused on all the things outside of me. Simply, if we can’t be honest with ourselves, we can’t be honest with God and others – authentic prayer is impossible.
“Prayer is the place where burdens change shoulders.” – N.T. Wright
When we pray inauthentically, it’s as if we think God isn’t aware. We beg and persuade God in the way pray, as if the Being over the entirety of space and time was also on pins and needles, waiting to hear from us to make His decision. Praying in such a way is not just ineffective, it’s dangerous. If we are praying this way, we’re talking to a god that doesn’t align with reality. In other words, we’re trying to make God fit our image. This is easier to do than we think. Many Christian denominations and “non-denominational” churches reinforce this practice and it has changed how they think of God and others.
The Simplicity of Jesus’ Teaching on Prayer
Here is the simple difference between how Jesus taught us to pray and how we pray today: we pray for our needs to make us feel more secure rather than praying that God meets us and helps us handle our insecurities. Jesus, over and over again, reminded us that God already knows, He’s a good father, and the birds and flowers don’t stress, or pray, for the things we do. Many Christians pray only from a singular, ego-based perspective, where we look at the world and what is wrong with it, as if we are God, rather than looking at ourselves and how we are doing with what God has already given us. This is it – it’s that simple, but to live it out requires killing a lot of ego.
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” – Søren Kierkegaard
Jesus then provided an example of what such a prayer would sound like:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Matthew 6:9-13
There are places in this prayer that can align a person to see the world as Jesus did. But let’s just focus on one part so we’re not here all day.
The Challenging Aspect of Forgiveness in Prayer
In verse 12, Jesus prays, “…forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” It’s a part you and I have prayed a lot before, so let’s emphasize one word to see what we’ve been talking about: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus did not teach us to “forgive others, as God has forgiven us.” Nope. Jesus prayed that God would forgive us “as” we forgive others.
If you haven’t noticed this before, you’re welcome for forever ruining how the Lord’s Prayer. In the next chapter of Matthew, and still in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus also said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3). To reemphasize Jesus words here and connect it to what we’re focused on, “with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.“
Sidenote: stuff this into Penal Substitutionary Atonement and see how well it smokes.
The Personal Implications of Jesus’ Teaching
Setting the modern theological implications of Jesus’ words, the personal implications ought to shake us to the core…. Especially for those Christians who are convinced that they already know how God will judge the world and have taken it upon themselves to proclaim it. This is not what Jesus was about and what we have today was not what He was aspiring others to. Jesus did the same thing back then that His teaching does to us today – it flips that narrative on its head and puts the emphasis on the individual to get this right, not to have the individual make it right for others.
“The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.” – C.S. Lewis
When I took this on, it crushed me – there wasn’t anything more than my “daily bread” to ask for. The rest of the prayer is about “me” getting out of the way and getting my crap figured out. When I do pray for others, I am obligated to pray for others, not about them in relationship to me. If someone or something bothers me, if I’m worried about my circumstances or frustrated with others, I can’t pray for God to fix them (for me) anymore.
This mindset in prayer is out there and available to American Churches right now. There is nothing new about it. It’s been around for 2000 years. However, we’ve been practicing another way of praying that made the Gospel about others rather than about the subjective individual and a community of people who were willing to look past ego and the facades humanity finds safe.
A Call to Authentic Prayer
Instead of praying like the Pharisees, or the Gentiles, we ought to just pray to our God from where we are, asking for wisdom, strength, humility, and love to both endure and properly steward the talents and opportunities already provided to us. When we keep asking for things not-yet, we quickly forget how to be content with the present and lose out on the change that can happen within us. God put us on this earth to live a life – not to be a victim or its God. He’s also not interested in being a codependent partner or a helicopter parent. He is interested in us, just as much as he’s interested in Trump supporters and drag-queen Christians.
“Prayer is not a machine. It is not magic. It is not advice offered to God.” – N.T. Wright
Our own worlds are big enough and there are enough struggles for our personal life today to pray over (Matthew 6:25-32). Stressing about everything else isn’t going to help us, or our churches…or our kids. When we pray, we should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to” us (v. 33). God’s kingdom is that which lives within individuals and connects with others.
It is not a Christian nation-state or making everyone attend a church service on Sundays. God’s Kingdom and righteousness always start from within. Please, pray others may experience the Kingdom of Heaven, but let us not make our prayers like the Pharisees. Their prayers probably ended up being one death knell to their idea of a Godly nation (Acts 1:6). People praying unlike Pharisees is what God meant by, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
