The way Jesus and his disciples prayed and how they understood
their roles in praying The Lord’s Prayer
are very different from the ways we pray today. We must learn our role in
prayer before learning about the meanings of the Hebrew words Jesus taught his
disciples to pray. Below are some key insights about prayer in Jesus’s Jewish culture.
1. Prayer is the human
side of an unending dialogue between God and humans.
2. God speaks to
people through the grandeur of nature, the drama of history and the Jewish
Scriptures.
3. God speaks to
humans of his love for them, of his purposes for creating them, and of the
ultimate goodness of all existence.
4. Humans speak to God
through prayer – ongoing personal dialogues and collective (community) prayers.
The Lord’s Prayer is
a collective prayer -- our Father, our daily bread, forgive us, our
sins, we forgive, do not
bring us, and protect us.1 The entire
prayer uses the plural. It’s not a prayer about me and my;
it is about we and us.
In the Jewish culture, collective
prayers play an educational role in the community.
They teach enduring values,
wisdom, principles, laws, commandments, etc. that educate those praying
about the things that are shared by members of Jewish communities throughout
the world. The ultimate purpose of prayer in the Jewish culture is this -- bring people closer to God so they may more
faithfully perform his will.2
In my religion and culture, when we said
“Amen!” at the end of a prayer – that was it! We had done our part. We
had made God aware of something we wanted or needed – now it’s up to Him!
In Jesus’s religion and culture, the “Amen!” signaled the beginning of the next phase of prayer – becoming actively involved in making the
words they had just prayed a reality! This is the most important step in rediscovering the power of The Lord’s
Prayer, so I will repeat it.
Immediately after saying “Amen!” the disciples became
actively involved in making the words of the prayer a reality in their lives
and world!
When the disciple asked Jesus to teach
them how to pray -- he was asking Jesus
to give them instructions about what they are supposed to do. Praying The Lord’s Prayer repeatedly was an educational
exercise as well as reminders of their roles in making the Kingdom of Heaven a reality on the earth. This is doing God’s will. God’s will is something that humans do. God expects -- and empowered those created in His image
-- to do their parts too, not only in this prayer, but in every prayer they pray.
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1 A Prayer to Our
Father: Hebrew Origins of the Lord’s Prayer by Nehemia Gordon and Keith
Johnson, © 2009; p. 146.
2 The Prayer Book:
Weekday, Sabbath and Festival; translated and arranged by Ben Zion Bokser ©
1983; Behrman House Publishers, Inc., New York, NY; pp. viii, ix.
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