The Lord's Prayer

Mike Taylor

My brother Michael Taylor died last year, a few days before his 73rd birthday.  He had lived in a nursing home for six years, keeping the staff entertained and on the run, with his loud, cheerful and demanding voice, and his infectious laugh.  In the last months his health deteriorated rapidly. Always a gourmand, when he was no longer able to go to Gilmore's Hotel for grilled barramundi or steak dianne, the last real pleasure went out of his life.  As the end drew near, he rallied just long enough to send messages of love to people and say that he wanted us to sing "The Lord's My Shepherd" and play music of The Beatles at his funeral.  We stood around his bedside and prayed, led by our sister, the Revd Roberta Hamilton. The last word that our brother said was "Amen".  It was in response to the Lord's Prayer.

I have been reliably informed by young Evangelical Christians that we don't really need to learn the Lord's Prayer by heart.  One young man informed me confidently that in the future it will hardly be used any more. ..... and, although this might come as a surprise to some, in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, this seems to be quite right.

The Sydney Diocese (for those who don't know) has a Bible College which sets the benchmark for how 21st Century Evangelical Ministry ought to operate.  A recent graduate of Moore College argued the point that the Lord's Prayer was given to us as an example of how to pray.  It didn't come with any obligation that it should be learnt by heart and repeated daily, or even repeated once every Sunday.  If we read the Lord's Prayer, and comprehend from reading it, how praying ought to be done, then we are free to pray our own prayers.  We can pray, safe in the knowledge that we know how to do it.  And, by this reasoning, a leader, in a church or community situation, knowing how to pray, can pray effectively for the congregation or group, and say what needs saying......... or can they?

Is there any reason for bothering to memorise the Lord's Prayer?  Is there any reason for using it, on occasions when Christians gather together, given that Jesus didn't actually command us to use it?


My son, who is now a Christian youth leader, went to a Christian school.  And for the six years that he was there, I went to services and functions. I don't recall ever praying the Lord's Prayer on any school occasion..... not once, even once, in those six years.  When parents were asked to comment on school matters, it was one of the things on which I wrote at length. To no avail.

My son goes to a large lively youth service at the local Christian auditorium, on Sunday evenings.  I do recall the Lord's Prayer being used once. It was on the occasion of Archbishop Peter Jensen's visit, and was the same day that the rector included the Apostle's Creed, and explained to the young people present that these two elements were traditional to Anglican Church worship, so we were going to repeat them, with the aid of the overhead screens, because, of course, none of the young people could be expected to know these things by heart.  In retrospect, Archbishop Peter may not have even noticed if they were omitted, since  he was previously the principal of Moore College, and may have had a part in encouraging his clergy in the understanding that they should make up their own prayers, rather than simply reciting what they have learnt.

I have already asked the question, is there a point in learning the Lord's Prayer (by heart, as they say), and continuing to use it?

My dying brother would encourage me to say, yes, there is!

It seems to me that there is an extraordinary degree of arrogance in the notion that we can dispense with  that which Christ himself gave us. This is the prayer of the person who, confronted with fear, agony or grief, can think of no other words.  This is the prayer of the aged and dying.   This is the prayer that remains when mind and memory fail.  This is the prayer that unites us as Christians across the world.

"No it's not," says my young Moore College graduate. "In point of fact, we are united by the Statement of Faith." (a.k.a. The Creed)
Well yes, that too!  But Jesus didn't give us the creed.  The creed is mankind's invention.  It's about Church. It isn't about God.  We don't "draw near to God" in the words of the Creed.  We draw near to God in prayer.

There has always been a place in both public and private worship for the custom-made prayer of the prayer leader or praying individual. We are encouraged to bring the "desires of our hearts" before God, in praise, thanks and petition. But does the priest or prayer leader know what the other praying individuals have in their hearts?

The arrogance of modern Evangelical leaders is that they think they have all the answers, all the time.  They obviously believe that the prayers that they utter, in front of, and on behalf of congregations, youth groups, school assemblies and so on, are able to fill all the needs every time; that after they have prayed, nothing is left undone, and no words remain to be said, on behalf of the group, to God.   The group listens and says "Amen". They say it, politely, whether everything has been covered, or not.  The group doesn't usually pray out loud, together, as a group, unless there is a prayer projected onto a screen that they can follow.  Nobody says, anymore, "As our Saviour Christ has taught us, we are confident to pray.....".  Young people are not taught, any more, so they are no longer "confident" to pray it.

The beauty of the prayer that Our Saviour taught us is that it covers all sorts of possibilities.  It states who it is to whom we pray: Our Father in Heaven.  It expresses his greatness and our trust in his wisdom and might. It sources our needs and petitions our forgiveness.  It acknowledges our weakness and seeks relief from our greatest fears.  Basically, it is the prayer that has everything covered.

Let all the World, in Every Corner, Sing!

"The power of art draws people to behold it. Good art bears its message into the soul through the imagination and begins to appeal to reason, for art makes ideas plausible. The quality of music and speech in worship will have a major impact on its evangelistic power. In many churches, the quality of the music is mediocre or poor, but it does not disturb the faithful. Their faith makes the words of the hymn or the song meaningful despite its artistically poor expression, and further, they usually have a personal relationship with the song leader and musicians. But any outsider who arrives not convinced of the truth and having no relationship to the music leaders will be bored or irritated by the poor offering. Excellent aesthetics includes outsiders, while mediocre or poor aesthetics exclude. The low level of artistic quality in many churches guarantees that only insiders will continue to come. To say this positively, the attraction of good art will play a major part in drawing non-Christians." (Tim Keller - Evangelistic Worship, p. 7).

"Excellent aesthetics includes outsiders, while mediocre or poor aesthetics exclude."  This is absolute nonsense! 

For a start, it is based on some preconceived notion of what is aesthetically excellent, what is mediocre and what is poor.   One of the things that people of almost every type find "inclusive" is participation.  A church with talented musicians and a great "up-front" music team can suffer from an extreme lack of participation, simply because every church service is a "performance".  People don't "sing"; they simply "sing along".  

If you can get ordinary people to sing "together", then you have something that others will want to join in. The music can be as excellent as Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, Bach's "Oh Sacred head sore wounded", or the magnificent Wesley/Mendelsshon combo of "Hark the Herald Angels"; it can be as corny as "Standing on the Promises" or "When the roll is called up yonder"; as simple as "Wide wide as the ocean" or the Taize chant "Laudate Dominum", or totally and utterly trite.  But whatever the music may be, wherever people sing with enthusiasm, others will join in, and in doing so, will be included, just in the process of raising their voices as part of the multitude. 

Modern styles of worship have increasingly robbed worshippers of the pleasure of hearing their own voice raised as one of many. Recitation of familiar prayers, including the Lord's Prayer, is in many places a thing of the past. The voices of the young are rarely raised together in that ancient statement of faith known as The Creed. Familiar hymns that traditionally have been used to bond communities (young and old) in times of grief or celebration have been forgotten in the provision of stimulating entertainment for the young.  No.  "Excellent aesthetics" is one of the least considerations. Being able to join in "The Lord's my Shepherd" with your mother, granny and other mourners  at your grandfather's funeral is to be included. Standing there and fumbling because you don't know it when you need it is to be excluded. Holding a Carol Service and using the familiar carols but with modernised words and an up-beat rhythm excludes all the people who only come once a year to bring their kids. 

Putting a group out the front who concentrates on producing a quality performance, is exclusive. Putting just one leader whose primary job is not to play an instrument and sing into a microphone, but to conduct the whole congregation is far more inclusive. No-more than one person can lead congregational singing, unless the venue is so big that people cannot see. There is nothing wrong with a backing group which serves like a choir, but the minute they take front stage, you have lost your congregational singing. 

The traditional choral service such as are still used in cathedrals and collegiate churches across the world, are an effective way of getting congregations to sing.  The choir doesn't face the congregation. They sing the responses (which the congregation can join in) and when they do perform during a service, it is an "anthem" and it is clearly a "worship performance".  The choir also leads the hymn-singing, which is generally done in unison, with the choir breaking into parts in the last verse. The treble line that is produced in the final verse is intended specifically to complement the unison singing of a congregation of ordinary untrained singers. Being part of the congregation when the choristers suddenly break loose in a great hymn can be thrilling, but it is the general rumble of untrained voices that is the essential component, not the choir.  I will put some of my favourite hymn-singing clips on my page. 

Some of my favourite Youtube Hymn-singing: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R5vyetZFoI "Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah" from Wales.  Jesus would have been right in the middle of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgfhYsmGEQ a very enthusiastic Easter Anthem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFXCTUnP-4o&feature=related

Taize from Notre Dame, Paris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCeSccazL8I&feature=related

This is what a well-trained congregation can do! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q60q0329h18

The words and music of this hymn are as trite as they come. The singing is delightful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR9NHXnbxlU

Pope Benedict really enjoyed his visit to Westminster Abbey.  The name of the tune, appropriately, is “Westminster Abbey” by Purcell, and the words “Christ is made the sure foundation”. The grave with the poppies is that of the Unknown Soldier. This was a great moment for ecumenism. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2siCVxP4_ZY

The very poor video is of a wonderful and glorious moment in the history of Christianity.  "Shine Jesus Shine" at the inaugural service at Our Lady of the Rosary, first Christian Church in Qatar, an Islamic state on a peninsular in the Persian Gulf. The Catholic congregation is mainly domestic servants and workers from the Philippines and other parts of South East Asia. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuQjpbdx6TY

Love: 1 Corinthians 13

    As verger of St Stephen's Anglican Church, Newtown, I attended innumerable weddings. The Reverend Don Meadows and I made a good team.  While he welcomed, reassured, celebrated and preached, I parked cars, secured slipping veils, took flower-girls to the toilet, retied sashes, sorted out spats between mothers-in-law, distracted the odd drunk from disrupting the service, kept the neighbourhood kids quiet and played the carillon.

    Don had just one marriage sermon. He had refined it over the years and used it on every occasion, except when a member of his own congregation was getting married.  He preached it, at different degrees of complexity and with different inserted references to couples ranging from members of the law fraternity to a couple who met at a workshop for the intellectually disabled.  The sermon sought to encapsulate the Love of God in one easy and memorable lesson.

The personification of Charity and other Virtues
drew on the Classical tradition of the Muses.

    Of all the various wedding experiences that I had over the years, I most treasure an occasion when I heard the passage on Faith, Hope and Love from Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, read superbly.  I was asked, before the service, to look out for the woman who was reading, because she was running rather late.  She was an actress, and they had asked her specially, because they were sure she would do it well. The Rector, I believe, had advised on a suitable passage of scripture.  

    The actress arrived in time, and when she stepped up to the lectern and smiled graciously, it was clear that something special was about to happen, but the impact of it upon the verger was unprecedented. This woman read St Paul's letter as if it was addressed to her personally, as if she had just received it from far away, opened it and was devouring it eagerly.  She read with growing excitement, with discernible joy, savouring each precious phrase of this, one of the best-known passages of the Bible, as if she was discovering it for the first time.    I was simply thrilled by the power of this actress, to convey all that, within the context of reading an epistle in church.  I told her so, after the service.

    The actress looked at me with a mixture of astonishment and delight. 
    "But, Dahling," she said "I was reading it for the first time! They left it till the last minute to ask me, and, as I don't own such a thing as a Bible, I had never read it before in my life!" 

Khalil Gibran and his spiritual poetry


   
    A later priest, under whom I served as verger, used often to include within the service a poetic reading by Khalil Gibran. I supposed I heard it almost as many times as I heard Don Meadow's sermon. But the sentiments, urging the married couple to stand apart like trees and let the wind blow through their love, never spoke to me of what I considered married love ought to be. I became convinced that, despite all the writing that he did on the subject, perhaps Khalil Gibran didn't understand love at all, and that some of his advice, taken in the context of marriage, may very well be seriously misconstrued.

    Gibran was born in the 19th century to a Maronite Christian family and migrated from Lebanon to the US. Much of Gibran's writings deal with Christianity, especially on the topic of spiritual love. But his mysticism is a convergence of several different influences : Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Hinduism and theosophy. His best known work is "The Prophet", 1923, and he is said to be the third most widely read poet in the world.

   Today I found a lengthy poem posted on another blog page.  Here is an excerpt:

When love beckons to you,  follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams

as the north wind lays waste the garden.

    The poem rolls on, piling image upon image, sometimes mentioning God, sometimes appearing without explanation, to have jumped from spiritual love to carnal desire and back again.

    Various comments have been made in praise of the beauty and spirituality of this poem.  However, I have quite a few problems with it. While the language uses appealing and seemingly deeply meaningful images, taken as a whole, it means nothing whatsoever. It is as intellectually satisfying as a mouthful of fairy floss.

    The poem obviously draws in part upon 1 Corinthians 13, and like much of Kahlil Gibran's writing, assumes pseudo-Biblical language and phrasing (in much the same way as 19th century translators of the Quran worded it in antiquated King James Version English to give it a "scriptural" feeling.) The words and imagery roll on in a most enticing manner. The content, however, is as hollow as the proverbial sounding brass and as shallow as the clashing cymbal.

    What is actually being said? What sort of love is being referred to?  Is this the profound love of God?   Is it the love that Christians are encouraged to have for one another?  Is it an all encompassing love for humanity?   Is it romantic love?  All these aspects of love are hinted at in passing.

If this poem is about spiritual love, then it fails to inform, to encourage or to sustain. It doesn't tell us that we are loved. It doesn't tell us how we should love. 

God as Love 

      In Christianity "God is Love".  Love is a primary attribute of God.   God is love just as God is truth and God is life.  Moreover, the love of God is distinguished in the Greek by the use of the word "agape" meaning that it is selfless, all-encompassing and voluntary.

    I am drawn to compare Gibran's poem with Francis Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven".  In this poem the writer is pursued by Love.  It becomes increasingly clear that the love which ceaselessly follows, despite all attempts to avoid, to hide, and to find satisfaction in other loves, is the Love of God. It is the selfless, enduring, forgiving love that is offered again and again, and eventually must be accepted.  

Love says:

Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, 

I am He Whom thou seekest! 

Thou drivest love from thee, who drivest Me.

Christian symbols for Love 

The Pelican.  A symbol of Christ's love, dependent on a
misunderstanding of the habits of Pelicans. 

      Within the context of the Christian Church, there are a number of symbolic images that stand for "Love".  One is the image of the crucified Christ which says to the Christian, in the most graphic terms: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

     Another image of love, used since Medieval times, is that of the pelican with a nest full of young.   It was believed that the pelican so loved its young that it would pluck feathers from its own breast and feed the hatchlings on its blood.  The image of the pelican became the symbol of Christ's sacrificing love for the Church, and the pictorial motif is used particularly at churches with the dedication "Christ Church".

    The third image is that of Charity,  the "caritas" or caring love that evolved with the Latin translations of the Greek scriptures.  Charity, with her sister virtues of Faith and Hope, was to adorn many fresco, tomb and stained glass window, from the late Middle Ages through to the early 20th century.  All three, like other virtues, were given feminine persona.  Fide (or Faith) is depicted clinging to a large cross,  Spes (Hope) staunchly carries an anchor, while Caritas (Love) is a breast-feeding mother, often shown with twins.

Loving others

     In 1 Corinthians, chapter 13,  the message and its context are perfectly clear.  The context is not about what love can do to or for a person. The whole context of this passage is the necessity for a Christian person to have love for others.  Not a lustful love, not a one-on-one reciprocal love, but an enduring, selfless Christ-like love.     

    The Christian teaching does not make "love" an Eros-type persona, and talk about how it affects the one who yields to it.  In Christianity, the affect upon oneself is always down-played. The importance of love, and the reason why one needs to possess it, is entirely how it affects others.

    1 Corinthians 13 shows love to be a quality that a Christian person is fully obligated to possess, because if they do not, then all other gifts that they may have, are of little value.

"Love bears all things.....endures all things....
Love never ends." 

What are we told, in 1 Corinthians 13, are the characteristics of Love?

"Love is patient and kind; 

love is not jealous or boastful; 

it is not arrogant or rude. 

Love does not insist on its own way; 

it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 

Love bears all things, believes all things, 

hopes all things, endures all things. 

Love never ends..... 

So Faith, Hope and Love abide, these three; 

but the greatest of these is Love." 

NOTES:
The Crucifx of Archbishop Gero of Cologne, c. 970, Cologne Cathedral, is possibly the oldest extant large sculptured crucifix. The backing mandorla is modern.

The personifications of Faith, Hope, Charity, Truth, Justice, Temperance and other Biblical virtues or gifts of the spirit had a practical purpose. They were often publicly displayed, with their various attributes, such as the sword and scales of Justice, and the jugs of wine and water of Temperance, as statues around the exterior of public buildings and as decoration inside venues such as town halls, to remind both the public and those in power of their duty towards each other.

The pelican with its young formed part of the rich iconography of the Medieval Church and takes its place among the many and diverse small images that may be found as carvings in wood and stone within ancient church buildings. However, where one may find foxes, cats, bears, and wolves in all sorts of odd places, the pelican is nearly always displayed in an elevated position, having direct association with both the sacrificial nature of Christ's love, and with the Church itself.