Thursday, December 1: Matthew 6-

I have been walking with Jesus and reading the Bible once a year for more than 3 decades. How is it I can see new things each time I read? Flipping that over, how can I miss something that this morning seems so obvious?

I have read the Lord’s prayer hundreds of times and prayed it thousands. I have taught on it a handful of times and yet today, I saw something I don’t recall seeing before. (Of course an alternative answer is that I am getting old and having forgotten things, I get to relearn them for a second or third time?!? Ha!!!)

Anyway, here is what I saw this morning. Every pronoun is plural; there is not a single pronoun in the lot.

'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.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'

This prayer is a community prayer!

Of course I can use it as a pattern for my personal prayers, which I do, and which I have taught. But how could I miss the corporate/plural nature of the original? It is a prayer of community. I don’t merely pray for MY daily bread, I pray for OUR daily bread. I pray for my neighbor, the sister or brother standing with me or near me. I am praying that God will meet OUR daily needs. In a positive and wholesome use of the word, this is a ‘socialist’ prayer not a ‘personal’ prayer.

And the same is true when it comes to the forgiveness line and the lead us not into temptation line. More than personal, these are ‘we/us’ prayers.

This thought is spearing holes in my staunchly independent understanding of life that I have as a 20^th and now 21^st century US, born and raised, Christ-follower.

This thought has to simmer more in my mind, heart and soul…

O, God, I am not even sure how to pray today. So often my prayers are only MY prayers… noble or selfish they are for ME and about MY life. And this mornings’ gaze into the prayer You taught, Jesus, is chock full of WE and US and I am struggling to translate that into my morning prayer…

As I spend this time with You, I am alone in a hotel room by myself traveling in a city far from home. The only others around me are in the cars and trucks I hear outside zipping by and the occasional footsteps in the hall. Lord, is this prayer calling me to pray for these others… that You would provide ‘us’ with food, forgiveness and freedom from temptation? I don’t know these people.  Does that even matter?

Should I envision my community and my faith community and pray that You will provide ‘us’ with food, forgiveness and freedom from temptation?

Lord, open my world up to the ‘us/we’ of this prayer… In Jesus’ name. Amen.