The Jesus Prayer

 

 How many Christians are in the UK population? Only 46.2% according to the 2021 UK census and 37.2% are "No religion". The "Our Father" prayer that Jesus taught his disciples is no longer part of most people's lives and less and less part of their history. Despite this decline in formal religion, I believe human beings are not just a hugely complicated collection of atoms and molecules but have a non-physical aspect to their nature, often refered to as the soul or the spirit. This duality is seen in our sense of right and wrong and the way our selfishness and our generosity pull us in opposite directions. 

Jesus' teaching was focussed on this conflict. Instead of being caught up in our normal physical lives, which he called the Kingdom of the World,  Jesus said we should seek the Kingdom of Heaven, the life of the spirit. He called the Kingdom of Heaven a "Pearl of great price", worth selling all you have to possess. Part of this spiritual life are prayer and meditation and in the gospel of Matthew Jesus has this to say about prayer: (Mt 6:5-15)

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. 

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one. 

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus says this prayer is to be prayed in secret and not in public. Neither is it to be simply chanted in “vain repetition”. But the Christian church has ignored these instructions. The "Lord's Prayer is a regular part of public worship, chanted by congregations so often it has become nothing more than "vain repetition" The focus and meaning of the prayer has been lost.

The prayer is for personal, daily meditation and not for public chanting once a week in church. It is about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven into the life of the one who prays; it is about the growth of our spiritual life, not our physical needs.

Father

Our Father…  Jesus sees the God of Israel not as some remote deity but as his loving father. Humanity has a multitude of physical fathers but only one spiritual father. We all belong to the same spiritual family. Jesus tells the story of a prodigal son who is welcomed home by his father. "My son was dead but is alive again, was lost and is found". Jesus binds us together. He wants nothing to do with the divisions by which we slice up humankind – gender, race, nationality, culture, religion; some welcomed and others rejected. Jesus was accused by self-righteous critics of mixing with tax-collectors and sinners. The hero of his Love Your Neighbour story was a Samaritan not a Jew. One life, one Earth, one humanity. If only we believed him.

..in Heaven – not some destiny we may or may not enter on our death, but an ever present realm of the spirit; an eternal Kingdom of inexhaustible love, the place of forgiveness and acceptance. A house where we find rest for our souls; the home of the Father.

Hallowed be your name

Once a year the High Priest of Israel entered the very centre of the temple at Jersualem, the Holy of Holies, where God dwelt, to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people. In this prayer we are coming into the presence of the Father. This too is holy ground and our shoes should be off our feet. The Father's name is his character, his reputation, his essence. His name is holy, pure, abounding in steadfast love and mercy, abounding in light and glory. 

In the presence of holiness we are naked and ashamed, like Adam and Eve in the garden after eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. 

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,

Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,

Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,

Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Desire

Your kingdom come. Imagine a kingdom of total love, goodness, truth, forgiveness, mercy, righteousness, peace, joy. purity, generosity, humility and acceptance. Imagine you could dwell in such a kingdom or such a kingdom could dwell in you. Jesus says "Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open to you". The kingdom will come to those who request it, who desire and long for it. Those who are willing to abdicate the rule of their own kingdom. Dare we ask for this?

On earth as it is in heaven. The petition is not for the wide earth out there but for the tiny piece of earth that is me. I am asking for the Kingdom of Love to be manifested more and more in my life. Not in other people, or the world in general. This is costly, but prayer always comes with cost. If we do not accept the cost, prayer is meaningless - empty words, a sounding brass, a clanging cymbal. For the Kingdom to come, it must come to this tiny piece of earth.

The Penalty of Love - Sidney Royse Lysaght

If love should count you worthy, and should deign
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest,
If in your old content you would remain.
For not alone he enters: in his train
Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed.
And sorrow, and life's immemorial pain.
He wakes desires you never may forget,
He shows you stars you never saw before,
He makes you share with him for evermore,
The burden of the world's divine regret
How wise were you to open not!--and yet,
How poor if you should turn him from the door.

Word

Give us this day our daily bread. When Jesus was hungry and tempted to turn stones into bread, he said, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  The food to sustain and grow the Kingdom of Heaven in me are the words of the Father. Day by day I need to hear his voice by whatever means he speaks. Is it something I read, or hear, or see? Does a thought become insistent. What does the day bring? Is the Kingdom of Love breaking in? Can I live the day less selfishly? 

Cost

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

We fail to live the life of love in its fulness. The Father gives but we don’t receive; he gives, but we misuse the gift. We hear and we ignore. We need forgiveness, but do we really desire it?
We do not love others as we ought and need their forgiveness too. Dare we humble ourselves and ask?
Dare we pay the price of forgiving others. Do we want to let go of our anger, our resentment, our hurt?
Do we only partially regret the wrong we do? Do we really repent? Is there real remorse? 
Do we desire purity? Will we pay the price? His increase at the cost of our decrease? 

Do we say "yes" to the threshing floor, the pruning shears, the refiners fire?

Am I willing, “To give what I cannot keep, to gain what I cannot lose”?

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”

Test

Lead us not into temptation (a place of testing)

(Do not let us enter into temptation – is a better translation from the original Aramaic)

When Jesus had been baptised by John, Matthew records: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested) by the devil". 

Jesus faced three tests in which he had to choose between the Kingdom of this World and The Kingdom of Heaven – a choice between following his Father’s call or rejecting it and going his own way. This is the same choice that everyone faces everyday but not perhaps not so dramatically. Essentially it is a choice between living selfishly or unselfishly, putting ourselves first or last, ruling or serving.

Day by day we meet temptation but we do not have to enter in. We are asking the Father to put a warning sign over the door, or speak through that inner voice to make us turn aside. 

Testing the spiritual life is inevitable and necessary. If you were to take up running after a life of inactivity, you would advance slowly and in stages. Distance would increase, times would come down, your body would strengthen and adapt. Every run would be a test of progress. In the same way our spirit needs to change if we are to grow in our ability to love and live closer to the Kingdom of Heaven. But we cannot change at a rate we cannot bear or sustain. So we pray for the Father’s help in the place of testing to steer us away from tests we cannot pass or temptations we cannot resist.

We can all say with the apostle Paul, " The good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do" (Rom:7,19) Evil seems a strong word, but following our own selfish desires is destructive to our lives. The pull is strong and if are unable to resist, we need to pray, deliver us from evil.

Building to last

Jesus, said those who hear his words and do them, build their house on a rock. Those who hear but don't act, build on sand. When troubles come one house stands and the other falls. The Jesus prayer is part of that rock. It is not for chanting in public but for meditating on in private. It is a spiritual gym which will daily strengthen our spirit and help us to live more and more in the Kingdom of Heaven.