Reflecting on the Lord's Prayer

May the words of my lips and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my strength and my redeemer. Amen

You may have found today’s 3^rd reading (Luke11:1-13) both familiar and strangely different.

It begins with a translation from the Greek of St Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, set for today in the common lectionary, which is slightly different from St Matthew's version, and the version we have in the BCP. The prayer is deceptively simple, while at the same time encapsulating all that we ought to ask of God. I’m going to share with you some reflections upon it.

Jesus teaches his disciples to pray what we call the Lord’s prayer. We continue to do so whenever we come together as a Christian congregation. It is a prayer we are meant to say together publicly, not just on our own. We pray in the plural number, and Matthew’s version of it, records Jesus calling us to pray together to ‘our Father’, not individually to ‘my Father’.

But notice, there is nothing explicitly Christian about the prayer. It can be said in good conscience by anyone who believes in a loving, almighty God, including Muslims and Jews - both Jesus and his disciples were of course Jews.

When we pray ‘Father, hallowed be your name’, we express our reverence for the nature and character of God.

God is holy, God is good and God loves all his creatures, just as an ideal father of a household loves all the members of his household. That includes you and me, but others too. Not just Christians, but people of other faiths and none. And not just human beings, but all the wonderful diversity of living creatures we share our planet with, because God sees all his creation to be good.

When we pray ‘Your kingdom come’, what are we saying?

I believe that God’s kingdom is a state of peace and justice where we and all his creatures flourish. This is not the broken world that we see around us, beset with war, dangerous climate change, and collapsing biodiversity – that is the antithesis of God’s kingdom. But I also believe we can glimpse his kingdom, even enter into a small part of it, at any time and place where we do God’s will. Our prayer is saying that despite the brokenness, we look to the future in hope.

Jesus invites us to pray ‘Give us each day our daily bread’.

Notice he does not invite us to pray for more than our daily needs, and nor should we. If I greedily take all I desire, if I hoard it for the future, others will surely get less than they need. We are to share what we have so that all have enough. It is ok for us to ask God for what we devoutly wish for ourselves and for others – if we can’t ask God, who can we ask? But we ought always add as an afterthought, ‘Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done’, as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane. The purpose of prayer is to align our wishes with God’s wishes, not to badger him into doing what we want.

‘And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us’.

Our sins are our failures to do God’s will, either by doing what we ought not to do, or by failing to do what we know we should. Very often these take the form of disobeying Jesus’s commandment to treat our neighbour as ourself. Every one of us has failed many times in our duty to God or to our neighbour. I ask God to forgive my failures, but the sting in the tail is this: that God will forgive my failures only in proportion to my forgiving the failures of others. We must forgive to be forgiven.

Finally, we pray ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’.

Our time of trial may take many forms. Someone else, even someone I love, may seek to persuade me to do what I know is wrong, what is against God’s will. Or a character flaw in myself may give evil an opening it is hard to resist. Or cruel events may make me doubt the goodness and love of God. So we ask God to spare us such trials. But when we must face them, we need to seek God’s help to resist them, as Jesus did when Satan tempted him in the wilderness.

Evil is real. We see it all around us in the violence humankind does to this beautiful planet. We see it in the way people exploit other people for their own ends. And we see it in the death and destruction of war. We see it in the suffering not only of the people of Ukraine, but also of misled Russian soldiers, and of those whose lives are upended by shortages of food and energy as a result of sanctions. We are starting to feel the consequences here in Ireland as many struggle to pay the bills and fear food and energy poverty this coming winter. We surely need to pray that we may not be brought to the time of trial.

People often find it difficult to pray, to be intimate with God.

We may feel shy. We may find it hard to find the words to say what we want to say – I know I do. Or we may be ashamed of how unworthy we are and so try to avoid meeting God in prayer – we would much rather not think of our unworthiness. But Jesus reassures his disciples – and us - that it is always right to engage with God in intimate prayer:

‘So I say to you’, he says, ‘ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.’

Let us take Jesus’s words to heart and unreservedly open ourselves up to God, our loving Father. And when our own words fail us, Jesus has given us his own words to fall back on.

I shall finish with a Collect of the Word:

Father in heaven,

in your goodness

you pour out on your people all that they need,

and satisfy those who persist in prayer.

Make us bold in asking,

thankful in receiving,

tireless in seeking,

and joyful in finding,

that we may always proclaim your coming kingdom

and do your will on earth as in heaven. Amen

The Good Samaritan

 Reflection for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on 12 July 2022

We have just heard the Good Samaritan story as Luke tells it (10:25-37).

The story was prompted by a lawyer, we’re told – a learned professional man – who asks Jesus ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ – in other words, how must I behave to be worthy of God’s favour. Jesus bounces the question back at him, saying ‘What does God’s law say?’ When the lawyer answers, ‘Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself’, Jesus agrees with him, saying ‘Do this and you will live.’ After all, as both Matthew (22:37-39) and Mark (12:31) tell us that Jesus had said as much himself when asked what the greatest commandment was.

But then the lawyer chances his arm again, asking Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ It is in reply to this that Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’s time Samaritans were despised and disliked by orthodox Jews. They were heretics who did not follow Jewish law, untrustworthy, outside the pale. We might compare them to Travellers or Muslims in our society.

The Samaritan in Jesus’s story acts as a good neighbour to the traveller who is robbed and left for dead, but neither the Jewish priest nor the Levite do. When Jesus asks which of the three was a good neighbour, the lawyer replies, ‘The one who helped’ – it seems he can’t bring himself even to utter the word Samaritan. Jesus tells him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Jews of Jesus’s time understood very well their obligation to protect and care for their neighbours in need. ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, is a quotation from the law given to Moses in Leviticus (19:18) – it is a command from God. But then as now, many people questioned who fell into the category of neighbour. To suggest that a Samaritan could be a neighbour, and a good one, would have shocked them. I can just hear them saying, ‘Surely God doesn’t expect us to love Samaritans! They aren’t good people like us, their beliefs are wrong and their habits disgusting. We don’t like them and they don’t like us’. Jesus must have sensed that the questioning lawyer was someone like that.

Jesus’s own view is quite clear. Through his story Jesus teaches the lawyer - and us too - that every human being is our neighbour – we must love them as we love ourselves, whoever and whatever they are. Even Samaritans. Loving God is not enough; God wants us to love our neighbours too. No doubt the priest and the Levite both loved God. But for whatever reason neither could bring himself to help the robbed man. They passed by on the other side - they did not behave like loving neighbours.

To follow Jesus means we must love every human being as ourselves. This truth has consequences for us today.

The Covid epidemic is still with us. Short-sighted policies have allowed a tragic housing crisis to develop over years. The evil attack by Russia on Ukraine has thrown the global economic system out of balance causing shortages of food and energy. The climate crisis is threatening lives and livelihoods across the world.

In our own country, many, many neighbours are falling into need. Thousands cannot find an affordable home. Tens of thousands of refugees who have lost everything seek safety among us. Hundreds of thousands will suffer fuel poverty and food poverty this winter. And there are the hundreds of millions in other countries in desperate need.

Neither you nor I can meet all their needs as individuals. But if each one of us reflects on what we can do, and we do what we can, however little, alongside millions of others, we will make an immense difference.

As Christians we cannot pass by on the other side of the road. Jesus calls us to practical action to relieve our neighbours’ distress to the best of our ability. He calls us to be Good Samaritans - ‘Go and do likewise’. What will you do? What will I do?

Go and do likewise!

Address given on Sunday 10th July 2022, the 4th after Trinity, in St Mary's Nenagh and Killodiernan church.

Have you ever had your wallet stolen or your bag snatched?

I hope not, but most of us have at one time or another. If it has happened to you, you will understand my mixed feelings of foolishness, helplessness and fury, when I discovered my wallet had been stolen when I was on holiday once in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. I was angry with myself for allowing it to happen. I felt helpless, with no money, no plastic cards and no driving licence, in a foreign country where I couldn’t speak a word of the language. The restaurant manager, the police and our hotel staff were all very sympathetic and helpful - just as they would be in Ireland if the same thing happened to a visitor here, I’m sure. And I still had my passport, and Marty had her plastic cards so we could continue our holiday. Yet my fury with the thief only grew as I began to deal with all the hassle.

But I wasn’t mugged and left half-dead, like the man the Good Samaritan helped in today’s NT reading.

Let’s reflect a bit on the familiar Good Samaritan story told by Luke (10:25-37).

The story was prompted by a lawyer, we’re told – a learned professional man – who asks Jesus ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ – in other words, how must I behave to be worthy of God’s favour. Jesus bounces the question back at him, saying ‘What does God’s law say?’ When the lawyer answers, ‘Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself’, Jesus agrees with him, saying ‘Do this and you will live.’ After all, as both Matthew (22:37-39) and Mark (12:31) tell us, Jesus had said as much himself when asked what the greatest commandment was.

But then the lawyer chances his arm again, asking Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ It is in reply to this that Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan.

The key to the story is that Jews despised Samaritans and did not associate with them. They were heretics who did not follow Jewish law, untrustworthy, outside the pale. We might compare them to Travellers or Muslims in our society. And Samaritans felt the same about Jews.

We all remember the bare bones of the story. A man travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed and left for dead. A priest and a Levite travelling on the same road both pass by on the other side, ignoring his plight. (A Levite, by the way, was someone privileged to help the priests in the Temple – a bit like a Diocesan Reader, I suppose!) Then a Samaritan comes along. He stops and helps the traveller. He treats his wounds, and takes him to a safe place, even paying for him to be cared for. When Jesus asks which of the three was a good neighbour, the lawyer replies, ‘The one who helped’ – it seems the lawyer cannot bring himself to even speak the word Samaritan. Jesus tells him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Jews of Jesus’s time understood very well their obligation to protect and care for their neighbours in need. ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, is a quotation from the law given to Moses in Leviticus (19:18) – it is a command from God. But many people then as now questioned who fell into the category of neighbour.

To suggest that a Samaritan could be a neighbour, and a good one, would have shocked Jesus’s Jewish audience. I can just hear them saying, ‘Surely God doesn’t expect us to love Samaritans! They aren’t good people like us, their beliefs are wrong and their habits disgusting. We don’t like them, and they don’t like us’. Jesus must have sensed that the questioning lawyer was someone like that.

Jesus’s own view of the matter is perfectly clear. 

Through his story Jesus teaches the lawyer - and through him us too - that every human being is our neighbour – we must love them as we love ourselves, whoever and whatever they are. Even Samaritans. If a Samaritan can be a good neighbour to a Jew, so should a Jew be to a Samaritan.

Loving God is not enough; God wants us to love our neighbours too. No doubt the priest and the Levite both loved God. But for whatever reason neither could bring himself to help the robbed man. Perhaps they feared touching a man who might be dead would make them unclean according to Jewish law, or perhaps they just did not want to get involved. They passed by on the other side - they did not behave like loving neighbours.

It does not matter who we are or who our neighbour is, it is our response to their need that counts for God.

To follow Jesus means we must love our neighbours as ourselves, and every human being is our neighbour.

And this truth has consequences for us today.

We are emerging from the disruption of the Covid epidemic. Short-sighted government policies of all parties have allowed a tragic housing crisis to develop over years. And the evil attack by Russia on Ukraine has thrown the global economic system out of balance causing shortages of food and energy.

In our own country, many, many neighbours are falling into need. Thousands cannot find an affordable home. Tens of thousands of refugees who have lost everything seek safety among us. Hundreds of thousands will suffer fuel poverty and food poverty this winter.

And then there are the hundreds and hundreds of millions in other countries in desperate need, who are also our neighbours.

Neither you nor I as individuals can meet all their needs. But if each one of us reflects on what we can do, however little it is, and alongside millions of others we do what we can, we will make an immense difference. The kingdom of God will be brought closer.

As Christians we cannot pass by on the other side of the road. Jesus calls us to practical action to relieve our neighbours’ distress to the best of our ability. He calls us to be Good Samaritans - ‘Go and do likewise’. What will you do? What will I do?