When You Pray – Matthew 6:5-15
Jesus envisions a life energized by prayer for his disciples, so much so that it is difficult to imagine a life of apprenticeship to Jesus absent of a healthy prayer life. But if we are honest, most of us would acknowledge that prayer is a weak point in our apprenticeship to Jesus. In Matthew 6:5-15, Jesus comments on two misunderstandings of prayer and then will give one of the most profound teachings on life with God in the Lord’s Prayer.
The Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount is not an isolated speech.
The whole sermon is Christ describing what life in the kingdom and allegiance to him looks like.
Obedience to the Sermon on the Mount is a practice in imagination.
Prayer is difficult in our day for a variety of reasons.
We are in the age of digital distractions.
We are the wealthiest generation in human history.
Secularism, skepticism in the supernatural, is the very air we breathe.
Prayer is the very basis for life with God.
“[Prayer is] talking to God about the things we are working on together. It is a collaboration with God to accomplish the good purposes of His kingdom.” – Dallas Willard
Jesus envisions a life energized by prayer for his disciples– it is difficult to imagine a life of apprenticeship to Jesus absent of a healthy prayer life.
2 Misunderstandings of Prayer
1. Prayer as a means of public adoration (Matthew 6:5-6)
He is once again criticizing a performative spirituality and urges his followers to embrace the hidden life.
Jesus’ words are hyperbolic– for he himself prays publicly on several occasions. But the lesson remains, our God is omnipresent and omniscient; he sees us in the hidden place.
2. Prayer as a means of manipulating God (Matthew 6:7-8)
Jesus is confronting the gentile spirituality that attempts to manipulate the gods into action by eloquence, repetition, or flattery– the intent is to impose their desires on the deity.
Prayer is to be in a relational posture, not a transactional one.
Jesus organizes his short prayer around the ethos of Love of God and Love of neighbor.
Notice the first half of the prayer is concerned with God’s activity.
“Hallowed by your name”
“Your Kingdom come.”
“Your Will be done”
Then the prayer shifts to concern for our collective wellbeing– note that these are both personal and communal matters.
“Give us our daily bread”
“Forgive us our sins”
“As we forgive those who have sinned against us”
“Lead us not into temptation”
“But deliver us from the evil one”
The Lord’s Prayer is a poetic and prayerful summary of all of Jesus’ teaching;
The beginning of the Lord’s Prayer is the address, a recognition of who we are praying to– “Our Father”
The essential foundation of Jesus’ life and ministry is that “God is a loving father.”
Unless we topple the false image of God that we hold onto – we will never know the joy of prayer.
Jesus’ whole understanding of prayer is built around the understanding that our God is a loving father with nothing but good intentions for us.
The Prayer moves into a petition for God to demonstrate his glory–“Hallowed be your name”
ἁγιάζω | hagiazō | translated ‘hallow’
Sanctify
To make holy
set apart, honored, revered
Dale Bruner rephrases the line this way–
“Please make your real identity known so that we and others will recognize and honor you as you really are.” “Please sanctify your dishonored name in the world.” – Dale Bruner
Jesus teaches us to pray for the reign and rule of God to redeem every aspect of this Earth.
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven” is expressing a hunger for God to restore our broken world and take his place as its rightful King
Our prayers bend reality in the direction of God’s coming Kingdom.
Our attention is then drawn to loving our neighbor as ourselves– “Give us this day our daily bread.”
We make the humble request that our daily needs would be provided for but in using the plural our and not the singular my; our attentions are turned outward to our neighbor’s daily needs.
The meaning behind daily “bread” is a little obscure, but I think the simple explanation is that it was and remains a staple in the human diet.
In prayer, we are reminded that we are forgiven people.
This line, in particular, is further commentated by Jesus’ following comments in verses 14 and 15–
“14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” – Matthew 6:14–15
Scot McKnight explains Jesus’ line of thought with these 5 points.
“1. God has graciously forgiven us (of much greater sin/s).
2. Therefore, we are to forgive others to extend God’s grace.
3. If we don’t forgive others, we show we are not forgiven.
4. Forgiven people forgive others.
5. But our forgiveness does not earn God’s forgiveness.”
Jesus offers us this picture of a Kingdom of reconciliation and reciprocating forgiveness. In forgiving others we demonstrate that we have truly experienced forgiveness.
Finally, we request divine assistance to deal with the inevitable opposition that comes with following Jesus – “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one”
Both from personal temptation and simply for us to avoid bad things.
This is not a divine promise that bad things won’t happen– Jesus promises that they will– rather it is an encouragement to pray that you would avoid more than you receive.
The ending, “for yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever” is not included in Matthew’s or Luke’s versions of the prayer.
This is simply an addition that rounds out and concludes the prayer specifically for its public reading.
But it offers a conclusion where Jesus doesn’t really offer one.
Spiritual Practice
In so many ways the Lord’s Prayer helps us to internalize the most fundamental components of Jesus’ teachings while being a daily reflection on who we are called to be in light of Christ.
Memorize this prayer so that it is embedded in your heart and often on your lips.
In the second century, within the first 100-150 years of the church, a manual was compiled on early Christian practice called the Didache. This is what it says on the Lord’s Prayer–
“Neither pray ye as the hypocrites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray ye:
Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth;
give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debt,
as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one; for Thine is the power and the glory for ever and ever.
3 Three times in the day pray ye so.”
2. Use what you’ve learned from this prayer and apply it to all prayer.
Pray in a way centered on love of God and love of neighbor.
