Tripped by the Lord’s Prayer

A reflection by Dick Fichter, parishioner

As a youth in Confirmation class, I was instructed to memorize the Lord’s Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) as follows:

After committing it to memory, and tested, I was awarded a gold star. A big reward in the day!

Fun “Back in the Day” Factoid: We used to type with a mechanical typewriter. Each letter key struck against an inked ribbon to produce the letter on the paper. Correcting mistakes was done by erasing, aligning, and typing over. Can you find my correction? Hint: look for the word temptation. I originally typed an “at” instead of a “ta.” So thankful for electrostatic printing with a computer by a computer printer!

With this memorized, I could cruise through this portion of the Holy Eucharist until recently when there was a change in the Lord’s Prayer in the bulletin being used as follows:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your Name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen.

During the service, I was on cruise until we hit,” Forgive us our sins … instead of “…Forgive us our trespasses… “. This is where I tripped and lost the flow and became confused and frustrated. 

What just happened? “Save us from the time of trial” and not “lead us not into temptation…” which is the form in the BCP (Book of Common Prayer) which I memorized. 

Afterwards, I thought I have to look into this and find out why the change. It did not take me long to find that the basis of the prayer is in both the Gospels of Matthew (6:9-13) and Luke (11:2-4). The prayers have slightly different versions in the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) Bible. Neither of these versions uses trespasses in the prayer and both use the language, and “…bring us not to a time of trial…”.

Being tripped led me to review the prayer and its meaning from the time I just memorized the words to a more analytical and mature understanding of its meaning. This also led me to realize the pitfalls of accepting something I memorized without fully considering and understanding its meaning. 

In considering the above quoted versions of the Lord’s Prayer and the versions in the Bible my attention became fixed on the phrases used in all forms of the prayer. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin (trespass, debt) against us…. This led me to the conclusion that this provides the quid pro quo for the Lord’s forgiveness of our sins. The Lord’s forgiveness is clearly conditioned by our forgiveness of others as set forth in the Lord’s prayer.

If so, how does it square with God’s grace which is granted to fallen sinners by His mercy alone, not by foreseen favor or merit in sinful man? (See Ephesians 2:8-9 as follows: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.) Is my quid pro quo conclusion based on too literal of a construction of the Lord’s Prayer in view of Ephesians? Or did my attempt at a comparison of phrases from different parts of the bible simply fail as it did not consider the meaning of each phrase in its separate context as intended by its author? 

It is easy to ask the Lord for forgiveness, but not so easy to give genuine forgiveness to someone when you have hurt feelings or anger caused by that person. To show forgiveness is an act of love as taught by Jesus. And also, by other religions. I do not believe you can have a meaningful mature personal relationship with another person without forgiveness. Where do we learn forgiveness? Is it in school? No, for me it was principally in church and at home (especially if you have siblings!). From my perspective, without church there is a significant absence of the teaching of forgiveness in our society.  

Because of this it seems that our current society is drifting away from the forgiveness of others. Instead, it seems to encourage quick and harsh judgment, finger pointing and retribution with a lack of a willingness to understand and apply compassion and forgiveness. Can you have a cohesive society without forgiveness as taught by religion and family?

Jesus would simply say this. Pray. Pray the words I taught you to pray.

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