A Prayer for the Poor (midweek)

 

 Christ of the Breadlines, woodcut print by Fritz Eichenberg.

A Prayer for the Poor

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

October 16, 2019

 “Father, may people be in awe

At how different you are from us. 

May the realm where you are in charge fully arrive,

May people do as you desire

Here on earth just as in heaven.

Give us today the bread we need for the morrow.

Forgive us the debts we owe,

Just as we forgive the debts owed us. 

Do not put us to the test

But rather rescue us from evil. 

Amen.”   

I have been reading Gerhard Lohfink’s magnificent little study, “The Lord’s Prayer.” In it, he points out that the Our Father is noteworthy among the prayers of Jesus’ day by its brevity, its focus on petitions to God rather than praise or thanks, and its sense of end-times urgency. This model of prayer is not to disparage other forms, but rather based prayer above all else in intimate relationship with and total dependence upon a God whose very being calls us to be better than we are.   

Many scholars note that the prayer on the lips of the historical Jesus was first and foremost a prayer of the poor: the real poor, those hungering for food, not able to make their income stretch from one payday to another and going into debt as a result.  Calling God Abba, or Father, establishes our intimate dependence and God’s loving care. “Your name be sanctified” uses a passive voice where we would probably use the active voice with an indefinite third person subject: may people make holy your name, i.e., honor who you are by recognizing how much better you are than we. “May your reign arrive and your will be accomplished.” The world about us and we ourselves are broken, not what God intends. Fix us, and the world about us. Teach us to grow and be better, and also care for us, as a good parent would. “Give us today (Luke: each day) our bread for tomorrow.” “Daily” bread is not what the Greek word epiousios or its underlying Aramaic probably refers to: rather, “bread for the upcoming day” is what is intended: enough for today and then a little more. “Forgive us the debts we owe” probably refers to real monetary debts. Jesus tells us to ask God to cancel debts, and help us cancel out debts. 

We recite the Lord’s Prayer at every Eucharist because “daily bread” was associated early on with the Eucharistic bread. But Eucharist was not a daily event for the first few centuries of the Church and this linkage came only later. 

But it is good to remind ourselves at the altar that we are all beggars before God, all helpless children in need of care. And in making this prayer of the poor a model prayer for us, Jesus taught that the quickest evidence of God’s Reign arriving is when we care for the “least of these, members of our family.” 

Grace and Peace.  

 Fr. Tony+