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AECI Reflection on ‘The Lord’s Prayer’
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‘Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day
Our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
Amen’
How is it that a single prayer continues to reach into our busy and noisy lives and has been a source of faith and encouragement over so many centuries and across so many continents? How is it that its words still resonate with us in the midst of our present day experience, as we face the pressures and the worries of life in the latter stages of the year 2024?
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Perhaps there is a clue in the teaching of Jesus just prior to him offering ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ to the curious crowd gathered on the mountainside in Northern Israel all those many years ago. For Jesus makes two things clear, firstly that we are never to be fearful of praying alone, of opening our hearts to truth within our private room, and secondly that we can trust in his description of a God that knows what we truly need.
Do you have that space which you can call ‘your own’? A place of quiet, of calm, where there are few interruptions. Perhaps it is a room within your house, your bedroom, the front room with a view onto the road, perhaps it is in the garden or in a public space like a nearby park, a nature reserve or a local church.
Jesus knows that such a safe space can help us with gathering all those swirling thoughts and issues that preoccupy us when we come to look out on life, and on where God might be amidst the hope and the uncertainty. He talks very clearly about ‘closing the door’, so as to be alone with God, and to make real time for the spiritual, for something that we do overlook or ignore.
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We can so often run from this ‘sacred space', our place of unity and communication with the Divine, chasing our desires elsewhere. Yet a place of familiarity is a welcome sight. When we close the door and take this advice to ‘pray in solitude’, we make a commitment to come into the very space that has shaped us, assisted us in our weariness, helped us cope through disappointment or struggle.
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Perhaps we have once found in that space new energy after illness or anxiety, been raised up in better health to see all things afresh. So, we come into it again confidently, to pray.
And there we are to have an smarter view on everything. We can acknowledge 'the holy' as a genuine factor in our life. We look anew on the sacred side of ourselves, on the sacred potential of others, the wider world. We hold that up and we feel again the proximity, the presence of God in our lives. We trace the intimacy that is unlike anything else, for it is rooted in the light of a primary and genuine relationship; a ‘hallowed name’ close by, 'a kingdom' like no other.
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We ask God to provide ‘our daily bread’, for there is a recognition of the sustenance which keeps us going, refreshes, reenergizes our very souls. And there is a glimpse into the mercy, the forgiveness that frees us from failure and mistakes and that builds integrity within us again. It is a prayer that is constantly affirming our potential and taking us 'beyond' in small steps.
Our sense of direction can be restored here too, outside of the tricks and manoeuvres of wickedness and evil. Direction that has a clear focus, a direction that has returned to us in our sacred space and shall remain with us as we strive forwards. We have new purpose because we know that unique and remarkable mix, that gift unparallelled, of God's mercy and God's sustenance.
And there - still within our own place of trust - we give out a deep gratitude for the protection of God. Protection of our values, of our commitments, of our conviction, of our connection.
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Today we can reflect again for some minutes on this teaching of Jesus that gives the Lord's Prayer its real context, encouraging us to be in one-to-one relationship with God. We recall the moment that his mother Mary felt such peace and tranquillity too before the angel of the Lord as the birth of her son was announced to her in that treasured and sacred space.
We think of our room, our space, our cell as transformational.
Truth alongside us.
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Friendship and Peace.
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You, just as you are. God, just as God is.
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‘I am who I am’
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It is those words that we try to imitate. That we try to say boldly through the 'Lord's Prayer', alone and open to the presence of God, as another calendar year in our precious lives comes to a close.
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