Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Kaddish Prayer:
"Our Parent which art in heaven, be gracious to us, O Lord, our God; hallowed be Thy name; let the remembrance of Thee be glorified in heaven above and in the earth here below. Let Thy kingdom reign over us now and forever. The holy men of old said, remit and forgive unto all men whatsoever they have done against me. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil thing. For Thine is the kingdom, and Thou shalt reign in glory for ever and for evermore."
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Most of us come to our scriptures, prayers, and liturgies assuming they are the way they always have been. But there is no such thing as “the way it’s always been.” Psalm 100 tells us to "make a joyful noise", Psalm 150 tells us to praise God with instruments, voice and dance. - with our whole self. These are the only instructions in all of the scriptures for how worship should be conducted. How many dance in church, or sing? How many find that strange? John Wesley said to sing "Lustily and with a good heart.” How many of us actually make a joyful noise?
When Jesus went to synagogue or temple, prayer was mostly public, as a call and response - that is, the person praying would make a statement or petition, the people around would respond. The Psalms show us that. Yet how often do we actually do open public prayer on an individual basis? It isn’t how we “do” worship.
Making an assumption that the words we say are the way it has always been, is in error. Consider how the Scriptures we read got to us....texts perhaps translated from Aramaic and then written down in Greek, translated to Latin, then into countless other languages. Consider how our own language has changed over the years. The English language came to us from a variety of other languages. English is truly the Heinz 57 of languages, with our major roots in Latin, Old Norse, and Old English. Even the meanings of words and usage changes with convention, with tradition, with time. Words we used as children are no longer in use today, or if they are, their meaning is quite different.
How many times have we heard someone say "It's right there in the Scriptures in plain English.?" Do we believe that these texts were dictated by God in the modern form of English we use today? So I think we are irresponsible in our faith if we just assume that the way it is on paper - whatever version we read - is the way it always was. And I think we need to be methodical enough in our faith to look at everything from all sides.
I want to take you on a translation mini-trip. Nowadays if we want to read a book, we can go to the store and buy one, and be sure that it is exactly like all the other copies of the book which are on the shelves. That wasn’t possible in earlier times. Any written material was painstakingly copied by scribes, letter by letter, by hand - no computers or printing presses. Sometimes the scribes made errors - perhaps by accident, but often they changed texts on purpose, and the changes they made also changed the meaning, sometimes quite significantly. Translators had the added problem of trying to provide words in their own language which might not exist in the original language - but somehow they needed to convey as closely as possible the intent, if not the letter, of the text. Did you know that the much-beloved King James Version was translated in the seventeenth century by a group of scholars who based their translation on a faulty Greek text. All of the translations, all of the texts we have today for the Bible, have been changed in some way. There are places where we don’t know what the original was. There are other places where complete pieces of text were added much later. Here are but two examples which were added hundreds of years later:
1 John 5: 7 - There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
John 8:7 - Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.
Now - whether or not these were added later, they have become part of the fabric of our Gospels, and we work with them - and there is much good to be taken from them. But always we need to be mindful of where they came from, and take that into account.
When I was in seminary, first year, we took a class which was formally called New Testament 1, informally called Baby Bible. Our professor for the lecture on the Lord’s Prayer was the New Testament professor at Emmanuel College, Rev. Dr. Leif Vaage. His particular research focuses on early Christian practice and the historical Jesus. In one lecture, he began discussing the structure of the Lord’s Prayer, and how it was completely rooted in ancient Jewish religious practice. Several students got up and left in tears - and one yelled as she left “That wasn’t the way I learned it in Sunday School.” I never could get over that - the simple act of pointing out that the prayer of Jesus had a literary structure, made those students so upset they cried. For me, that was one of the most exciting lectures we had, because it added meaning to the prayer and the text.
The culture of Jesus’ time, and even Jewish culture today, is known as honour-shame culture. While one is Jewish by birth through one’s mother, the societal structure is patriarchal. So Jesus lived in a culture in which a man was the head of the household, and always honour had to be ascribed to the head of the household in any address. Jewish society was like a pyramid, with the power at the top, women and children a little further down, then slaves, and finally animals and other property.
The first section - father in heaven - is the address and location, which establishes rank in the pyramidal hierarchy of Jewish society. The second section - holy be your name - offers words of honour and praise. The third and largest section is petition, and the prayer in its original form ends with petition. Here=s a small example of what meanings can be attached and understood to words in their original context.
The very first word in the Aramaic version is "abwoon". The root of the word is 'ab', from which comes the word 'abba', - the more accurate translation of ‘abba’ is Daddy, rather than father. In this case, the word is intended to be a personal father; originally the word had no gender, and might have been understood as 'divine parent'. :"Bwoon" denotes the power which emanates from that original, and kind of transition from the potential to the actual here and now. So, it seems to me, far from establishing God as somewhere else, it says clearly that God the parent is right here, right now, with us. In essence, it really doesn't place God at the top, but as the origin from which everything else comes - the centre.
The first two petitions are 'your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.' In this understanding, heaven literally comes to earth. They are not two separate places. The word 'tzevyanach' can be translated as 'will', but not in the sense of willpower, or strength of will. Rather it means 'desire' or 'heart's desire', harmonious cooperation among all things to bring about one goal. Heaven and earth become one, from potential to actual.
'Arha' means 'earth', and it is possible that this is the root of our word earth. The old root of the word carries the meaning of "all nature, all natural gatherings of mass and form produced by the universal force.” The root AR is power with movement, and it may also be the root of our modern word, ardor.
The request for God's realm to come is usually interpreted in the most literal way: the belief, that the Messiah would, with great power, bring about a Kingdom of God. Now, believe that God’s realm will come by the hands of those faithful to work for a better world. It is believed by these individuals that Jesus' commands to feed the hungry and clothe the needy are the Kingdom to which he was referring. Yet, scripture teaches that the "Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). By such an interpretation, the petition in the Lord's Prayer asks for this inner kingdom, and not one dominated by selfish and egoistic desires.
Finally, the phrase "the Kingdom of God" is used more-or-less interchangeably in the New Testament with the "the reign of God". This suggests the petition is asking for a state of soul in which God reigns - a state of piety and humility, where one is directed by God, and does not rely on ones own devices, schemes, and imaginings
The fourth petition is “Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. The word 'washboqlan' *can* be translated as 'forgive', but it can also mean 'return us to our original state', 'embrace with emptiness'. The prayer reaffirms that our original state is clear and unburdened, releasing those things which tie us down and prevent our growth. While Matthew's version of the prayer translated the word as 'debts' or 'offences', the word also means 'hidden past', 'secret debt' and any negative 'inner fruit'. Luke's version is translated as 'sins', but it could also mean 'failures', 'mistakes', 'accidental offences' or even 'frustrated hopes.'
The context of the prayer in Matthew is also critical. Jesus is asked by the followers how they should pray. He gives a lesson about people who pray ostentatiously, loudly, wordily; remember I said that prayer was often public in the synagogue - but not loud public prayer. People stood for worship - so someone praying would be overheard by others, even if the prayer were more quiet. However, Jesus says “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to God, who is unseen.” Jesus then instructs his followers to pray in the manner prescribed in the Kaddish prayer - something they would have been able to say without thinking - just as we tend to say the prayer without thinking too much. Taking into account its structure, subject matter and emphases, it could be seen as a guideline on how to pray rather than something to be learned and repeated by rote. The New Testament records Jesus and his disciples praying on several occasions, but never this specific prayer, so the application and understanding of the prayer during the ministry of Jesus is not completely clear. This is the only time it is mentioned, and as we’ve seen - only by Matthew and Luke, and not by Mark or John.
The comment from Jesus, to go away quietly and pray alone, is interpreted by some as a kind of personal “minhag”, which Jesus used for himself - based in traditions and practices of the liturgy and spirituality of that day. So Jesus offers something everyone would know, with some additions of his own.
I also think Jesus understood the really revolutionary nature of this prayer, and gave the disciples something they could use as a guideline for their own private prayer practice.
Now, what I have given you today is a lot - but it is also a really cursory beginning at picking apart the many meanings of this prayer. Needless to say, there is a lot more in it than we have thought - and I am absolutely positive that when we repeat it from memory on a Sunday morning, these meanings and thoughts have not gone through our minds. But I truly believe that if we really look closely at the meaning of this prayer, it should change our lives dramatically, and if it doesn't we are not paying attention. It is a prayer of great hope, great possibility, and affirmation of our place in the cosmos.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaddish
2. Ehrman, Bart. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperSanFrancisco, 2007.
3. Crossan, John Dominic. The Greatest Prayer. HaperOne, New York, 2010.
4. Douglas-Klotz, Neil. Prayers of the Cosmos
5. Minhag (Hebrew) is an accepted tradition or group of traditions in Judaism. A related concept, Nusach refers to the traditional order and form of the prayers. The related Arabic minha-j also means custom or tradition.
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