Matthew 6:7-15: The Lord's Prayer
I recently read an article written by a former employee of Dropbox, a company known for provided "space" for us to save any electronic file that we want. The author worked at Dropbox when they were relatively unknown, and remained during the enormous growth that they experienced. After a while she began to feel as if she was losing herself, so she made the difficult decision of leaving her position in order to recalibrate, if you will. Here is what she said:
“I think that a tricky thing happens when a business grows incredibly fast. Any growth that isn’t slow and organic, but rather abrupt and hyperactive– it can make for a creeping separation between a company’s employees. There’s no time for casual small talk in the cafe anymore. There’s no banter, no down time, and no way to keep up with all the new faces coming in every day. Suddenly, it became acceptable to not have time for people. There was no time to care about their life outside of the office, much less their life outside of the meeting you’re in with them. This became normal behavior in my environment. The people I was supposed to be building things with were too busy to care… and so was I...
I realized that I have to care about the person on the other side of the conference table in order to do great work with them.”
That final statement is more meaningful than one might think at first glance. Indeed, within it one might just discover the keys to success in many areas of life. Those words came to mind as I was thinking about Jesus' lesson on prayer in Matthew 6:5-15. Because prayer, if you will allow me to use a simple definition, is a conversation between two people who are working on the same project. Or, as Eugene Peterson says, it is "our way of getting involved with the work God is doing in this world."
If that is an adequate definition, how much more weight does the above quote hold? How much more important is it to care about the person on the other side of the conference table in order to do great work with them, when that other person is God?I believe that this is the lesson Jesus is getting at in the Sermon on the Mount. Rather than having a detached and needy approach to prayer (like many staff meetings), Jesus is trying to help us see that the basis of our prayer should be our love, care, concern, and benevolence for the one we are praying to. Not like the Gentiles and hypocrites, their prayers are all about themselves. They grant applications more than conversations between individuals who care for one another. For they are worried about dotting the i's and crossing the t's. They want to make sure they look right, speak correctly, and have all the externals in order, so that the deity receiving their "application" might find them acceptable.Sadly we still find this external focus within Christianity. There are still those who are focused on the externals. You have to end your prayer with, 'in Jesus' name...' You have to fold your hands and bow your head. You must only use a prayer book. You must never you written prayers. On and on it goes.And even though those are important conversations, when we make them primary it only shows that we are fundamentally misunderstanding what prayer is. When we believe that the thrust of prayer resides in the form that the prayer takes, we miss the point that we are talking to a God who is desiring a relationship with us. And so Jesus of people like that, "Do not be like them."Note: He says do not be like them. It is ontology that he is concerned with here, not methodology primarily. But if we should not be like them, who should we be like? Now here is where I depart from some people who are smarter than me, and you are free to disagree if you want to. I think that Jesus is telling us how we should be by showing us the way a person would pray who is the way they should be.In other words, I think Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer so that we might ask the question, "What manner of person would pray in this way?" And as we exegete the prayer we will see that the kind of person that prays in this way is a person who is extremely interested in the work God is doing in the world. This person wants the name of the Father to be known as holy in the universe. This person realizes that if God reigns the entire cosmos would be in a better place. In other words, this person doesn't just come to prayer with a "here's what I need approach," but they come interested in the success of the person across of conference table–namely, God.We do this naturally in our families, don't we? Spouses root for one another, parents cheer their kids on, and kids, even though they don't always say it as the grow up, never lose that desire of wanting mom and dad be the best at everything that they do. There is a mutual benevolence that comes before my needs.And Jesus says that we should be like that towards God. And from that caring place it is only right and proper to look at how God's success in his cosmic project will impact my life. Then we can confidently ask for our daily bread, for forgiveness as we are forgiving, for deliverance, etc...In other words, as we are interested in God's gigantic redemption project, it is only appropriate to talk about what that project will mean for our lives. In this manner of being, our asking comes from the realization that when God is successful (again, just like a healthy family) we will reap the benefits of that success. Therefore we pray for his help in that regard.That is how we should be in prayer.Many of us aren't even close to being there. We are still beginners in the school of prayer, but that's okay as long as you are enrolled. Allow me to suggestion something that might help you become different in your prayer life. I want you to simply dwell on the two words Jesus began with, "Our Father." Don't go beyond those words, but let the fact that the creator of the universe stoops to have a relationship with you settle down in your soul.The words of Paul Tillich are wonderfully appropriate here. In a sermon on accepting the grace of God he makes this powerful statement to those who are struggling.
"You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!"
As you seek to enter into a life of prayer, begin there. Let the fact that God accepts you transform the way you come to him in prayer. And then let Jesus continue to teach you how to be in life what you are in prayer, so that you can be in prayer what you are in life.Link to audio sermon