So this week I am preaching again, and I thought that instead of spending all week alone preparing in hopes of delivering a masterpiece of oratory at on Sunday I would post the outline here so others (you!) could give input.
Over the last year or so, we have moved steadily toward a more communal sermon preparation process: at this point the person who preaches gets at least some outside input - input which they aren’t obligated to make use of, but may also freely use. It seems to us that the image of the preach retreating into (usually but not necessarily) his study only to pass the word down - Moses-like - on Sunday runs counter to the New Testament. We have been trying to change that at the Pearl Church. Usually this process takes place among a small group of people, and it will probably continue to do so. But today I would like to throw it open a bit.
So, here is my outline thus far: its rough because its still Monday. That also means that now is when input can be really helpful (as opposed to after I am wedded to to details). There are huge gaps, moves that I haven’t decided upon. But, here it is:
Introduction: “prayer as manifesto”
I would like to start by highlighting a speech that really rallies people together, but all the illustrations (movies, mostly) that come to mind are of a general-figure rallying the troops for battle. I wish to avoid the violent connotations. Perhaps one of Murrow’s speeches in “Good Night and Good Luck.” Words are powerful.
1. Not “how to pray,” but “pray toward this end:”
We have become accustomed to reading The Lord’s Prayer as if it were a “How to” manual, as if it set out the parts one should include in prayer - first this, and then that, and so on. This would be fine (as, having a guide in prayer is also fine), except that formulas run the danger of devolving into “meaningless words” - words without signification - words emptied of their content. If anything, this is precisely what Jesus was talking about in the passage right before The Lord’s prayer.
2. Manna from heaven and jubilee: the kingdom refracted through the torah
A. “Our Father, Hallowed be your Name, Your Kingdom Come, On earth as it is in Heaven”
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Much in the same way as the Shema, or the Decalogue, this prayer begins with an affirmation of God’s exclusive reign. Of interest is the proclamation / request that, just as god reigns in / over heaven, he might also reign here.
This is not a “pie-in-the-sky” hope that we might hasten to heaven, but that God’s righteousness would pervade our world and community as it does His own realm.
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In this sense, the “our Father” echoes Miriam, Hannah, and Mary’s prayers that God would come with justice to His people.
This “Kingdom Come” also bears echoes of Isaiah – the Day of the Lord.
B. “Give us today our daily bread.”
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Two Scriptural echoes here: First, this harkens back to the time when Israel was fed manna, daily, from heaven.
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Second, and in lone with our Jubilee theme, A people who are not sowing and reaping have to trust the Lord to provide.
C. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but deliver us from the evil one.”
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The significance of Debt forgiveness: Some might say that by forgiving debts, we open ourselves up to be trampled upon - and indeed we are. We have to be “wise as serpents, innocent as doves:” yet we are clearly called to embody Christ’s sacrifice by not maintaining hold of our “rights.”
D. “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. If you do not forgive others, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”
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The author of Matthew broadens the scope of the Jubilee language above: not only are we to forgive debts, but we are also to forgive any grievances: You are no longer indebted to me: you are free of the burden. Our freeing of others is directly tied to God’s freeing of us (an inescapable point Matthew makes, however uncomfortable that makes us feel)
3. Prayer as community-orienting activity
The death and resurrection gives shape to life and community for us: it also points toward God’s and our future:
The Raising of Christ is not merely a consolation to him in a life that is full of distress and doomed to die, but it is also God’s contradiction of suffering and death, of humiliation and offense, and of the wickedness of evil. Hope finds in Christ not only a consolation in suffering, but also the protest of the divine promise against suffering. -Moltmann
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June 4th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Hey, so I’m finished reading Volf’s The End of Memory and I’ll be putting up my ideas on the book on my blog, but there is something he talks about that might help inform point D under number 2. In the book Volf talks about forgiveness and the need to “let go” or “not bring to mind” past abuses after reconciliation. This is not absolute forgetting, but it is choosing not to focus on past wrongs after people reconcile.
This I think is vital, as anyone in a close relationship (i.e. marriage) would agree with. However, we can only truly reconcile once a person has stopped doing harm to another and admits to the wrong. Yes we can forgive, but at the same time, while we may be forgiving the person doing us harm (if one has the character to do so), forgiveness does not put us in a place that reconciles us to the perpretrator. Rather the forgiveness allows the violated to continue on with their life. Perhaps for many people true reconciliation is when God deals out the final justice (i.e. victims of genocide), righting relationships, and no sooner; nevertheless, we Christians continue to forgive, though more cautiously and guarded - wise as serpents, not stupid as doves.
June 10th, 2007 at 12:08 am
good stuff, man. your sermon outline makes me think of one of Elder Zosima’s homilies. I think the title of it is “on Prayer and Touching Other Worlds.” By brining Moltmann’s critical eschatology into the conversation, it seems like we can move beyond the traditional problems with prayer as an escape from this world. If we really do touch other worlds - specifically God’s Kingdom - in prayer, then this must move us to be discontented with what we see on earth as we participate in God’s bringing of his kindgom on earth. Good luck tomorrow! Also, would it be possible for you to get ahold of the mp3 and post it as such here? My mac was unsuccessful in trying to access the windows media file on the Pearl Church site for your last sermon.
June 11th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
just for posterity, here is the final manuscript for the sermon:
Introduction:
We all can think of a speech – whether one we have heard, or read, or seen in a movie, which served to, not only to inspire, but to bring people together and galvanize them to action. Such speech reminds people of their past and also points toward the future, and
in doing so orients communities so that they might act appropriately in the present.
Immediately, speeches like those of Dr. King come to mind, and his letters also: These galvanized a people toward justice. We have his image and his words engraved on our minds – by them we have been shaped as a people. Even people like myself, who were not alive to have witnessed them have been shaped by Dr. King’s words.
There are several of these speeches in the Bible: in the Bible, they are very often prayers. Remember Moses? The book of Deuteronomy is actually a series of three speeches: the first a reminder of God’s faithfulness during her wanderings in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land, Moses’ second speech summarized God’s teachings – the torah, and Moses’ final speech pointed toward the Israel’s future, whether or not they remained obedient. Hannah, Solomon, David - and in the New testament – Peter, Paul, Mary: in each of these, their words served to orient God’s people along the lines of His agenda
Prayer toward, not how-to:
Let’s turn together to Matthew 6, to the Lord’s prayer. Before we really get going, I would like to make a clarification. We have become accustomed to reading the Lord’s prayer as if it were a “how-to” handbook for prayer. I think this tendency is mistaken. I think we read the Lord’s Prayer as a “how to” manual because we, wanting to be better pray-ers, or wanting motivation to pray more, seek out guides for our praying. These things are very good – all the more’s the better! But I think Reading the Lord’s prayer as if it were “how-to” manual is dangerous:
I think treating the Lord’s prayer as a form for prayer runs the risk of divesting it of particular content: making it an empty formula. Formulas run the danger of devolving into “meaningless words” - words without signification - words emptied of their content. If anything, this is precisely what Jesus is talking about in the passage immediately preceding The Lord’s prayer
Also, when we read the Lord’s Prayer as if it were – merely – a “how to” manual for praying we miss out on the potential that the Lord’s Prayer has. We have been exploring how we might live as “people of the resurrection” over the last couple of months – the Lord’s Prayer can serve to orient our lives in that direction
Rather than as a “how-to” prayer, this morning we will read the Lord’s prayer as “in which direction” to pray: To what end are we to Pray? The sort answer – to show my cards a bit – is that we are to pray for the Kingdom – that we may Live the Kingdom of Heaven and that the Father would act amongst us toward that end. But we need to flesh that out some.
Background:
So, to set the stage we are required – as we are almost always required to do – to familiarize ourselves with Torah. Turn with me to Leviticus 25, and as you are turning there, let me just observe that our “setting the stage” is necessary for us only because we are not as familiar with Scriptures as Jesus assumed his hearers to be. I used to find this fact nearly paralyzing – How can I possibly understand, then? – but I have taken it as a challenge to saturate myself in and with the Scriptures. Okay, everybody in Leviticus? Page 107?
It may seem strange to start a sermon about the Lord’s prayer by talking about the Sabbath Laws, but in the Old Testament the Sabbath came to symbolize for Israel God’s righteous reign over Israel, a time when “every tear would be wiped away,” a time –to borrow from the author or Hebrews – when Israel would experience “God’s rest.” The Language of the Lord’s Prayer is steeped in Sabbath talk.
Briefly, then, in addition to the Sabbath Day, when all of Israel was to rest – even, and particularly, “your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns” – Israel was also commanded to cease working every seventh year and again every fiftieth. In every case, the Sabbath Laws were not primarily about getting some well needed R & R, but were directed toward Justice for the oppressed. Lets look:
(Read 25:3-12,18-24)
The Sabbath Laws are about
1. Providing Rest for others, particularly for the oppressed.
2. Recognizing the Land (especially, and all of our material goods generally) as being owned by God
3. Trusting in God’s provision of these things in our obedience.
4. Justice: the Forgiveness of (financial) Debts.
When Israel enacted the Sabbath, they were enacting the beliefs their prosperity was wholly due to God’s generosity, and that God’s generosity could not be hoarded but were to be spread far and wide
These themes, again, are picked up by the Prophets when they look forward to the time when God would reign righteously over his people. And not just the prophets! Hannah also, prays in the book of Samuel that God would send his ruler to reign over his people and bring stand on the side of the oppressed. As does, in fact, Mary the mother of Jesus whose prayer in Luke 1 – the Magnificant - is very similar to Hannah’s. The Bible is filled with prayers that direct our attention toward God’s Kingdom, his agenda.
Lord’s Prayer
Let’s turn back to Matthew 6, to the Lord’s prayer, and read it through these lenses through the Sabbath Laws.
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name.
Much in the same way as the Shema, or the Ten Commandments, this prayer begins with an affirmation of God’s exclusive reign. It is only by God’s agency that we can see taste or touch the His Kingdom – his civitas, the pattern of life that reflects his economy. Without God’s own investment, by way of his Holy Spirit, amongst us, this prayer would be a pipe –dream. With it, however – well, God’s promises are assured.
Your Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.
Of interest is the proclamation / request that, just as god reigns in / over heaven, he might also reign here.
This is not a “pie-in-the-sky” hope that we might hasten to heaven, but that God’s righteousness would pervade our world and community as it does His own realm.
In this sense, the “our Father” echoes Moses, Hannah, and Mary’s prayers that God would come with justice to His people. And, like those prayers, we are here emboldened to act in expectation of God’s reign: to enact it even as we await for its ultimate expression on the Day or the Lord.
Give us this day our daily bread
Like the manna that sustained Israel during its sojourn in the desert, our dependence upon God is foundational to our existence as a people. “Give us this day our bread” Both proclaims that our sustenance is provided by God, and – like the manna from heaven which could not be saved until the next day – a recognition that God’s generosity is not for us to hoard or to collect. God’s generosity is enough for us.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Here again we find ourselves in the language of the Sabbath, in particular the language of Jubilee. These, like the debts forgiven in the Jubilee, are not figurative. Figurative debts are not precluded here – Matthew makes sure to broaden the principle to include “sins committed against us” in verses 14-15. God’s generosity toward us lies behind every debt owed us: Our being called to be God-like in our behavior - to enact the Kingdom, and to participate in God’s rest calls us to be radically generous. Because God provides “our bread” we are freed from the logic of the market, freed to be generous to others as God has been generous to us.
Some might say that by forgiving debts, we open ourselves up to be trampled upon: And indeed we are. We have to be “wise as serpents, innocent as doves:” yet we are clearly called to embody Christ’s sacrifice by not maintaining hold of our “rights.” In that sense the “as we have forgiven our debtors” cannot be separated from “give us today our daily bread.” We are free to forgive because we do not rely on the debts owed us by others, but upon God’s generosity.
As our prayers are directed toward the Kingdom, we are shaped into a people who can do these things: without this “being shaped” these things run contrary to everything we have been taught about how to succeed in the world. The Lord’s Prayer s to be recited in our heart, in our minds and acted out in our lives…
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. If you do not forgive others, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.
It is profoundly disturbing for us that God’s generosity toward us might somehow be contingent upon our being generous: And I’ll be frank, I don’t quite understand how this works. Neither do I want to explain this passage away: For it clearly points to a connection between our relationship with God and our living as His people.
Our life is bound up with God’s character.
Of course, this prayer only becomes pray-able in light of the Resurrection, and it is only pray-able by people whose life is being shaped by Christ’s Resurrection. But for us the Lord’s prayer draws us toward and into God’s Kingdom as it orients us properly as agents in God’s Story. The Lord’s prayer Situates us in His story, reminding us that God stands behind us as we move forward after him with generosity – with grace. The Lord’s prayer is a social prayer: it embeds us in relationship with others and with God; specifically it reminds us that we are agents of God’s kingdom here on earth. We are Co-participants with God in his reconciliatory actions here on earth.
And do not bring us to the time of trial but rescue us from the evil one.
Finally, and briefly, by ingesting the Lord’s Prayer we are reminded that our adversary is not, but the Evil One: and that, as agents of reconciliation in the world, as purveyors of God’s generosity, we minister to a world who is also under attack. We call out to God that he would open up the way as we pursue His Kingdom.
Let me close by reading to you from one of Dr. King’s letters – perhaps his most famous – “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
“There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians a town the power structures got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being ‘disturbers of the peace’ and ‘outside agitators.’ But they went on with the conviction that they were a ‘colony of heaven,’ and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be ‘astronomically intimidated.” They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.
Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.”
Let us rather be a people who – being oriented toward God’s kingdom by this prayer, and by this table behind me – exhibit God’s generosity, and his having forgiving us our debts. And, so doing, enact the Kingdom “on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Read Prayer as closing prayer.