Unpacking The Lord's Prayer

Somewhere before Matthew and Luke was most likely a text that was the source of their common threads, but we'll never see it. So extrapolating from these two storytellers as to what may/must have been said requires more than a literalist view of the two texts' recounting this often repeated prayer (for which most of us seem to have defaulted to Matthew). But the question I have pondered so many times is not “what exactly did Jesus say” but rather, “what was his intent in this teaching?” So despite not having an imprimatur of any religious organization, I am finally going to take a crack at what this itinerant country preacher may have intended for his audience to understand about prayer.

In order to attempt this we first need to understand two things about the speaker, Yeshua of Nazareth, whose name we Anglicized as Jesus. First of all, while there is no evidence that he was formally trained as a Rabbi, Jesus clearly had a good handle on the sacred texts, quoting frequently and selectively from them to make his points. He is, from most of what we can extrapolate from all of these stories, at all times very intentional and consistent about his message, his context and his intent.

Jesus declared himself a “jubilee” messenger – referring to the Deuteronomic rule (Deut. 15:1-11) that every seventh of the seven year periods (that is, every 50^th year) is to be a Jubilee year, marked by forgiving all debts, freeing all prisoners, caring for the poor, the widows and the children – using a reference to the same from the book of Isaiah (Is. 61:1-2). However, true to his philosophy, Jesus intentionally left out the last phrase of the passage dealing with vengeance. Jesus was very intentional. He never refers to the wrath or vengeance of God, but rather only refers to the healing, loving and forgiving nature of God. He used scriptures and events to teach a specific message, and that message is the second part of our understanding his contextual framework.

Jesus’ message through all of his teaching was a revolutionary understanding of God, the nature of God, and the nature of “God’s kingdom.” Kingdoms were plentiful in ancient times, and mapped out a domain of influence for each king. Jesus used this metaphor as a way of describing his theological foundation: God was not elsewhere – apart from us, ruling over us – but rather was very real and present, in and among all of us. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he would say, “as you are in me and I am in them and they in me.” He had a unitive theology; that all things were one and united by the same loving force, like one big family. We are inseparable from God but likewise God is inseparable from us. In an age where Gods were thought to reside on a mountain or in the center of the temple, Jesus taught that God not only belonged to all but was resident in all. So let’s see if we can see his understanding of the scripture and his theology evident in this prayer.

Right from the outset, he changes the game, calling God, “father” (implying the one big family). Matthew’s text even adds the descriptor, “our” (like all of ours, not just some of us). And some translations refer to the idea that he used the word “abba,” the familiar form of father: “daddy.” This was not the El Shaddai of old, nor was it the king who lorded over us like some benevolent master. It was intentionally familiar, familial and personal. And least we get all bound up by the masculinist term of father/daddy (as opposed to mother), let’s look at the role of parents in Judea at that time. Parents were fairly equal, though different, long ago. There was clear understanding that both mother and father were necessary and equally important. Fathers typically taught the trades and mothers taught the values of life. Both were essential. So why father then? Because father’s role was to teach purpose – how and what to do to be a contributor in life. And to be certain a father was not absent – off at work – as in modern times. Dads were always present, in the home, working at the house and very present. A father was meant to be purposeful, helpful and always present.

But what then are we to make of the reference to heaven? Doesn’t that connote the sky kingdom and the sky god? Not if you take a further look at how Jesus defines heaven. Heaven is not out there, not some future destination. Heaven is right here, right now. Heaven is among us and. He even goes so far as to say that it is “within you” (Lk. 17:20-21). So this daddy, this teacher, was a very present member of the community, of the family and of life in the present moment. Jesus’ intent was to demystify the concept of God; to make God real and present and palpable.

“Holy (sacred, blessed) is your name.” If we now understand God to be within the very life we are living, Jesus is calling that sacred. Life is sacred and holy. But remember that, as a Jew, Jesus learned that one could not say/speak the name of God, not because of its specialness, but because once anything was named it became separated – by name – from anything that was not that thing. Speaking the name of God would be suggesting that God was some thing, some entity, apart from other things, and certainly apart from us. That is the most sacred aspect of God; that God, being a very real and present aspect of everything, was inseparable from anything – that God was everything and everywhere. That is what holy and blessed really means.

“Thy kingdom come.” Then Jesus returns back to his core theological construct: The kingdom is

here, there and everywhere, and that life-intent that is God is already in action in every element of all creation (on earth and heaven). It seems obvious at this point that Jesus simply means “god is here, among us, already, right now.” Enough said! But here comes the one-two punch!

The first hit refers back to a scriptural reference. Jesus reminds his followers not to take more than enough. The reference to “daily bread” comes from the story of manna in the desert. The Israelites were wandering in the desert and supplies were low, so the story goes. In answer to their hunger and prayers, their God provides something bread-like that appears in the morning like dew. But it came with a rule: take only enough for one day. If anyone took more than a day’s supply, it rotted and would become toxic to them. The hoarders actually died. God’s rule of abundance is that “enough” is all you need. So Jesus’ reference to that story is a reminder (not a request) to the pray-er (not the one prayed to) that we only need “enough.”

And right on the heels of that is the knock-out punch about how forgiveness works. It seems to be a bit of a tricky turn of the phrase, but the pivotal word is “as” – “forgive us as we forgive others.” For most of my life I heard that phrase as a meritocracy: when I forgive enough others, I get to be forgiven, or if I forgive others I will be forgiven. But that was never a part of Jesus’ teaching. Or I thought it may have been some hold-over of the eye-for-an-eye morality of the Greeks in the area. But in fact, just the opposite was Jesus’ message: that you are already, and always forgiven. The nature of this loving God, that is love and life itself, is that you will always be forgiven – even before you think to ask for forgiveness. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son? The passage reads that, before the son was able to even ask his father for forgiveness, “while he was still a long way off” his father saw him, had compassion for him and “ran out to embrace him and kiss him.” God’s forgiveness is not dependent on our having done it first. But knowing Jesus’ understanding of the presence of God, god’s forgiveness is part and parcel with our forgiveness. God-in-us forgives us through each other – it’s how God is made manifest. It is seeing the God in the other as we forgive them or they forgive us. That is God’s love visibly in action!

And in conclusion… Jesus ends his prayer instruction with the oddest phrase of them all, “lead us not into temptation” or in other translations “deliver us from the test.” Jesus taught that the purpose of prayer was that it altered the pray-er (your father already knows what is in your heart). So what might he have meant with the reference to temptation. I have a couple of theories that may explain this one. First of all, the time he spent in the desert before starting his ministry is still fresh in Jesus’ mind. He clearly felt led into his path of teaching and healing. Could he have felt led into that time that tested his spirit and was hoping that others might not have to endure the same?

Many exegetes note how fond Jesus was of the Psalms, and certainly the Psalms are a part of every Shabbat service. The Psalms are rife with references of being put to the test and of being tempted (mostly by wealth and power). The Psalmist seemed to wrestle with his own temptation and the fear that God might turn away because of his weakness or, worse yet, that God would put him to the test! That being the case, Jesus might have been drawing on a common theme from worship.

Now Matthew may have a different take on the prayer and adds the element of evil (or in some translations “the evil one”). But that does not fit with the teachings and philosophy of Jesus. It may well be an editorial comment either added because Matthew wanted to appeal to the cultural norms of the people to whom he was writing. Or it may have been added by a later editor as part of the doctrine of the church of the time (a practice that happened with all sacred texts throughout time).

But more in keeping with my hypothesis that Jesus felt that the prayer was more about how one prayed (more to alter the pray-er than to bend the divine ear) he may have included that line as a last piece of training. “Master, teach us how to pray,” may not have been answered by this teacher with a rote formula. More likely he may have said something to the effect of, “It’s not what you say but who and how you are when you say it! Remember, God is already in you, and in me. God has already given you all you need. God has already forgiven before you could even recall the sin. And this God, would never, ever lead you astray!” Amen.

Going Deep

Unless we go deep we cannot understand another’s context, emotions or even perspective because we will always be trying to make personal sense out of it first. Going deep requires accepting that “everything belongs,” just as it is, and everything holds within it the power to teach. But understanding this requires first surrendering control; something ego will resist with all his might. And if you can get over that hurdle, you can actually begin to accept that “everything belongs;” that even evil and darkness are part of the whole of the universe. Without that acceptance, however, ego will try to selectively accept some things (the good and useful stuff) and reject other parts as negative and useless.

But because all of creation is one, the so-called (or at least perceived as) negative stuff must be included within “everything belongs” or you risk not fully being open to learning. You have already begun evaluating before opening to what must be learned. And by extrapolation, you are only open to what you have already judged as acceptable within your limited scope. Only after going deep within yourself, and transforming the crushing blows of grief into compassion for your broken and defeated egoic self, can you accept all else in nature as part of the whole, as belonging, and as a perfect reflection of all else - including yourself. Until then you do not have the capacity for compassion. As the Buddha said, you must find compassion for yourself before you can have compassion for others.

It is the same with religious beliefs. One cannot fully comprehend another’s belief, spirituality, or spiritual crisis, until and unless one has first gone to deep places in which one’s own spirituality does not make sense - at least it does not make sense at the utilitarian, ego-driven logic level. You must allow your own beliefs to be challenged and to push you to deeper meaning making. Comfort with doubt and darkness must be accepted elements of your own beingness before you are able to look with compassion at another's struggles, another's torment, or another’s radical clinging to some fundamental structure. Compassion does not condone the values of the Taliban or ISIS, but rather can see through the hate and anger to the core of doubt and fear that must exist in order to demand such rigid adherence to those beliefs.

Then and only then can you ask, “What must I learn in order to love in such a way that the hurt, fear, and pain from which ‘the other’ must be operating is soothed and mitigated? How do I channel that type of healing love?” In fact, until your innermost self has been opened and transformed, most of us would probably ask, “Why even bother?” But once one has been opened, MLK’s assertion that “hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that,” takes on a new and deeper meaning. And Jesus’ demand to “love your enemies” is no longer spiritual ideal, but a possible reality.

Be Careful What You Ask For

Years ago a friend and mentor told me that every day he said a kind of prayer to know God's will for him. He said it with full earnestness, and then one day he was smacked right in the face with a challenge that was way bigger than he had ever imagined. It became his job but he told me, "Be careful what you ask for - you just might get it."

I have been asking for a way to learn how to stay vulnerable while doing the work for which I trained throughout my adult life. It turns out that there isn't really a way to learn it - like there is no step one then step two. Nor is there a way to just put one's big toe into the pool of vulnerability to test the water temperature. It appears to me that vulnerability, as a state of being, either is something you are
or you aren't. It's kind of like being pregnant - there is no such thing as somewhat pregnant. And my lesson of late is that it is the same with vulnerability. You either are or you are not.

So it has come to the point where I must jump into the deep end of the pool and decide to live this way. There is no other choice - I cannot turn back and and stay defended and closed any longer. It is no longer a choice I will make. And what has opened up the deep end to me is that I had to let go of the fear of "what will people think?" The answer came pretty clearly to me over the last few days of training in which I have been participating: They will think I am being vulnerable. And overall that is not such a bad thing.

Brene Brown says that vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability. It's stupidity! So it's not like choosing to be vulnerable and live life from a more transparent stand means walking around naked all day or through a tough neighborhood alone at night. It means creating safe places and conditions for vulnerability to live and pull us all together. And with that it means knowing that home and among friends are some of those places. At least it is where I am starting. And the more I practice that with the ones I love and trust, the more I am able to know how to bring it to life in the public world. Wish me luck!

The Error of Ego

There is a wisdom that only humility can teach. But it does not come in the form of some factual knowledge - some thing to be possessed or known - that the ego would love to grab hold of and claim as its own. Tis wisdom is merely an opening through which far more than the ego could imagine flows.

I cannot claim to know that wisdom, because my teacher has told me it is not mine to hold or mine to claim and name. It is something that only has existence in letting it go and in giving it away. This wisdom is quite simple in its message: that I am a human, like every other human on this planet. In learning this, through humility, one has to accept that what lives in the most wretched terrorist is also resident in me. It is easy to claim brotherhood with the mystics (and loads of fun for the ego to claim as his understanding!). But to know that I am no different - NO DIFFERENT - than the poorest of the nameless untouchables or than the foulest and most hate-filled zealot, is the humiliating (humbling) lesson.

But least I get ahead of myself, let me walk you through the steps of getting here. For whatever reason and by whatever means, I have been recently opened up to a new level of understanding and feeling emotions. And with that level of perception came the awareness of other people's emotions as well - not some people's emotions, not just my friend's emotions; all people's emotions. It is the one thing we all have in common, irrespective of circumstances, history, culture, gender or any other aspect of life. The bottom line of the human experience is that we are blessed or cursed with that region of our brain that produces emotions.

Now, truth be told, many are not aware of their emotions, or if aware of them, do not know how to access them, or may not know the full extent of what they are and how they work. But we all have them. That translates into something like seeing a picture of a Syrian father grieving the death of his child and knowing full well that you do not need to know his religion or speak his language to
understand his pain or well up with tears.

But if that is true - that we all are given the same capacity of emotion - it levels the playing field. It means that we are actually, on some level, all the same; created the same, evolved the same. We all bleed the same and die the same way. By placing myself apart from, or different from another human (which is what we do when we outcast them, vilify them and make them "them") I am living in the state of egoic superiority and denying my fundamental humanness. I guess I can no longer do that.

And now that I have painted myself into that corner, we are left with the question of what to do. I will try taking that on tomorrow.

Transformative Love

Recently I have been writing a lot about the transformative affects of pain and suffering in our lives (see posts like "When Convergence Hits the Fan," "It's Just Perfect," "Spiritual Discipline," and "Undoing the Self"). Maybe it is because I hear so much from people about their suffering and their pains and see (from my outside perspective) the work that it is doing. In any case, it may appear that I have forgotten all about love. Love in fact is the only thing other than our suffering that has the power to transform us.

By transformation what I mean here is that the actual form of our being, and the actual form of our experience is mutated from one manifested form to another, completely different form - literally transformation rewrites out historical context and meaning making. This transition from one form to another often happens so quickly that we cannot notice it from the inside. With pain and suffering, that transition feels like being squished through a seive! But with love, it seems that the previous state or condition just melts away or falls "like scales from our eyes."

In fact I recently told a friend who was having a difficult time that love was the most powerful of all the emotions - that it was far more poweerful than hate. What's more, hate takes energy and stiffening tension, a hardening of every fibre of one's being. But love only requires opening up. I witnessed this once as a mentor of mine stood in front of a man seething with hatred. My friend simply

said, "I can love you stronger than you can hate me!"

Despite that great paragraph in the epilogue of The Scarlet Letter, I do not think that Love and Hate are so much alike. Hate comes from our lack and our distance from the other, resulting in seeing the other as just that: "other." But love is not ours. It flows through us, cleansing and changing us from the inside out. In love, we have a sense that something way bigger than us is working through us. And we are born in love - as a result of live. We are born to love, not to hate - hate has to be taught.

Substitutionary Atonement!

In seminary we learn a whole lot of fun terminology that only theologians use! One of my personal favorites is “substitutionary atonement.” It basically boils down to the concept that because Jesus died for our sins we have been saved that horrible punishment – that we are rescued. But on this resurrection day, I would like to push back on that concept a bit.

It is not so much that I am contending that Jesus did not die for us, but rather the belief that it saved us from death or was the source of our forgiveness. Now before you brand me a heretic, let me explain. We are already and have always been forgiven.  God – who is love – has caused that from the beginning.  It was one of Jesus’ main messages; he was continually saying that we are forgiven. In healing an illness or human error, no matter how egregious, his proclamation was, “you are forgiven; go and sin no more.” That is the given condition with God – you are forgiven; you are loved and accepted, just the way you are.  It did not take the crucifixion to get that grace. Furthermore, since we have come from God and will return to God in our passing, we have that as a given from the very beginning of time – we are already, always God’s creation and inextricably bound up in the Divine from the beginning until the end of all time. We may not know what it looks like, but it is a given. It didn’t take the crucifixion to gain that.

So I don’t celebrate Jesus life and death because of substitutionary atonement.  In fact, I don’t really call it a celebration, personally, because it scares me to no end.  You see, the other message Jesus was always preaching (along with love and forgiveness) was that we were to “follow” him. What? To the cross?

Yes. All the way there and beyond. The crucifixion of Jesus is a total game-changer. In all my studies (I am a life-long student still in college in my 60’s) I have found that there are only two things that have to power to transform human beings: unconditional love and extreme suffering.  Loving unconditionally (that is, because you choose to love not because of the other person’s “worthiness” of love) we are turned inside-out. It is perhaps the hardest thing in life to do – to BE love.  And that other thing – the suffering thing – well we all know that it changes everything; if and when we survive it!  And in one fell swoop, Jesus, this man who said “follow me,” did both of those things: He loved (not just us, or his friends and family, but even those who were in the process of killing him) completely and unconditionally, so much so that he was willing to suffer the ultimate suffering to make that point. 

But he did not do that so that we did not have to.  He did it as he did everything, so that we would know the path to transformation.  And this new way of being – on the other side of the death of substitutionary atonement – is what we might call true Christianity; loving in a way that heals the hurts, in a way that bridges the gaps, and in a way that pulls everyone into the fold, irrespective of their human condition, skin color, religion, sexuality or politic.  It is why I cry every Good Friday – not because Jesus died, but because I am called to go down that same path, and there is no escape clause!

A Light in the Darkness

I have a wonderful friend who is a magnificent stand for light and laughter in this world, but recently was compelled to write to her in the wake of the murders in Newtown, CT.

My Dear Sweet Friend

How I love you – and how I adore and embrace your message of light and laughter as a service to this world.  But I have been watching your posts over the last two days since the most recent horrific event in our world has unfolded. And there is something that just doesn’t sit right with me. In many of your posts you say that we ought to turn off the media and delete those stories in an effort to send our message to that same set of sources that they should stop the hype and backward glorification of these killers and perpetrators. And for me that is too passive.

To any act of violence there are three courses of action: retaliatory violence (attacking back in some form of revenge), passivity and non-violent resistance (taking away the power of their status seeking), and a third way that is active, positive action.  I am of the third way. I cannot simply turn it off least they (the media or some future on-looking perpetrator-to-be) think I don’t care or can’t be bothered. Well I am bothered – I am bothered beyond my ability to contain myself in non-action.

But let me say a bit about how I perceive your message of hope.  It is not wrong – not in the least.  In fact it is the only message we should preach.  It is the context of that hope with which I have issue.  Just as you cannot see in total darkness, you cannot see in total light.  If we look only for the positive in our world, accent only the good that exists, and turn our backs on the darkness, the hatred and the violence of our chaotic world, we run the risk of being blinded by the light.

Life is painful and chaotic, and that pain is exacerbated by hoping for or wishing that is would somehow be different than it is.  Suffering, says the Buddha, is caused by trying to deny the reality of the now and wishing for something better. We first have to accept that there are people in this world who are so alienated and lost that their only thought is to inflict that pain on others.  Whether we call that evil or the devil or mental illness does not matter. Whether that manifests in genocide or warring or the slaughter of innocent children (close to home or on the other side of the planet) is irrelevant.  It exists; and my first calling is to recognize that it does exist.

It is against that pain and suffering that you and I have been called to stand as a beacon. It is in those dark places that we have to shine even more brightly. But I must first acknowledge the pain and suffering and then with the greatest compassion light a candle of hope. And that hope that we bring is the hope for and in human connection. Our greatest darkness happens when we are alone and unconnected to others.  Our greatest lightness is when we are embraced in the loving arms of another. Murder, genocide and war are places where the human fabric has been torn apart, where lost and alone people can somehow ignore the brotherhood or sisterhood of the human on the other end of their weapon. Killing cannot happen any other way.

Love is the antidote, caring and compassion are its vehicles. Every sage who ever walked on this planet has instructed us to love our enemies, not just our friends. Anyone can love those who love. Anyone can shine brightly when surrounded by others of the light.  That is the easy part. But to stand up with tears of grief streaming down your cheeks and shine a ray of hope, is the really hard part of this work. To name the darkness and embrace another, to become a contagious infection of caring and compassion and spread love where there is none, that is the real work.

So I will not turn it off – not because I get some twisted horror-movie thrill out of human carnage – but because I am called to stand up to evil and darkness and not back down, and not dampen my light. The hope I peddle is that if and when we love each other, there can be no more of this pain. (And I just want to say that I am as crushed by the death reports coming from Afghanistan or the Gaza strip as I am from Newtown CT.  Every soldier was once a baby rocked by his or her mother; every one of us had a beautiful future in front of us and brought a sparkle to our parent’s eyes.) We need to spread the message that the best action to prevent violence is the bonds we forge between each of us when we love and embrace each other.  In a message to the parents of the children that attend our school, I said that now is the time to start talking to the other parents, get to know them, make them part of your family – love each other as your own.

Now is a time of action, and the battlefront is where the darkness is the deepest.  Your message is right on but my request is that we wage radical love in those darkest places of the human experience. I can love more powerfully than anyone can hate, and when you and I join together, that becomes exponentially greater. And that is how we will win, one at a time; one more at a time; every time we say “we” and we mean one more person that the last time we said it. And we will overcome the darkness.